She had seen better days, that's for sure. I took it out to the range as it was and tried a handload that I just threw together by picking something out of the manual. It put 5 shots inside 2.5 inches at 100 yards, so I knew the old girl would be a shooter with a little handload experimenting. After trying several combinations of components I had on the shelf, it turns out a max charge of BL-C(2) pushing a 170 gr. Speer is it's definite favorite with groups rivaling most good bolt guns at 100 yards and 50 yard groups with most holes touching.
If it was going to be such a good shooter for me, I figured I owed her a little TLC.
So I stripped the wood, steamed out some dings and lightly sanded it. Then refinished it with tung oil. The receiver was stripped and bead blasted then finished with Duracoat Semi Gloss HK finish. The remaining metal was scrubbed with fine steel wool and oil, then touched up with Brownell's OxphoBlu.
I replaced the busted front sight with a .375" tall 1/16 gold bead Williams sight. A Williams FP that I had on hand was then mounted in back.
So there you have it. Not counting the cost of the rear sight that I already had, I'm still under $200 invested. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.
The finish on the Duracoat isn't as rough as it appears in these photos. I think being semi-gloss the sun was really bringing it out, making it look grainy. It really looks more like a shiny parkerizing. If it holds up like they say it should, I'm going to like it.
NICE 
Great...now ya have ta be careful with it 
.... 
