Happy Dance!

Let's get this out of the way right up front - that whole FedEx delivery guaranteed by 1030 line is bull. The Big White Truck of Happiness showed up around 1130. But...whatever.

I had to put it in a chair and look at it for a moment.



Fortunately, there are kids here who bring a little normalcy to the house - otherwise I'd probably still be gazing at the box. "C'Mon, Abby," they said. "Stop being weird and open it."



The first thing we must do is look past the godawful M2 birch stock. There's a reason I keep spare M1 stocks in the garage, and this is it. So let's look more closely at the rifle itself, shall we?



That's gorgeous. The barrel is an Underwood 11-43, which seems to make it possible it's the original. The bore is bright and clean, the moving parts show almost zero wear. Although the dates make it likely the rifle saw considerable service, it looks like it may have skated through its time in US service, and in Italy's being assigned as the weapon of someone who didn't go outside.

And getting an office-dweller's weapon, if you ask me, is awesome.

I slapped some BLO on my extra M1 stock and put it all together. I will tear the bolt apart and clean it up (it's the only really grungy looking bit), and we should be good to go for some range time this week.