Another friend had given me the stock blanks when he was near the end of his time, and I shaped and fitted them to the barreled action. My friend Wind Whitehill gave me the skeletonized buttplate and told me he thought it would be perfect for this project gun, and of course he was right!
I polished everything out and sent the action off to Al Springer for color case, and had George Komandine rust blue the barrel. Reassembled the Roller and before I even fired it much, I got into a trade deal on an engraved Ballard and it went away! It then went to the East Coast, Dakotas, and Indiana, before it found it's way home to me again!
Eventually the Rolling Block ended up in the hands of a good friend Steve, who used it successfully for long range matches and shooting. When Steve got it the poor Roller had been treated roughly, and abused! Shipping it several times had cracked the stocks. Then someone swapped out the original hammer and breech block, and the gun's tangs got bent when the stocks cracked. Steve repaired or replaced the action parts, and bent the tangs straight. He then repaired the stock crack, and it's an invisible repair! I told him if he ever wanted to sell it I was a buyer, and at our recent memorial shoot for Wind he offered the Rolling Block back to me. I'm pretty sure he wasn't done with it, and will miss it. But he knew how much I'd enjoy having it back and sold it to me at the shoot. He also brought loads with it so I could shoot it again before heading home with it! It was a great feeling to hear the old Roller hit the 990 yd. dinger, and know it finally made it back home to me!
