He sure is. I've told him he should stop being a production manager and become a full-time starving gunsmith.    He said he would be case-coloring the receiver next week. I'll pass along your responses.

Hepburn #2 is back in the fold with a new 32.375" long gain-twist (16.5+ to 11") Bartlein barrel chambered in 38-50. While not shown, also have a 35-40 barrel for this rifle. Has an original copy windage front sight, so should be good for iron-sight matches with the long barrel. From the bench at 200yd and a 6X scope it shot the sub-1moa groups (I made no allowance for the wind) with 2F Swiss using loads I shot last year in a different rifle, so there is hope that it will be a "shooter". Hope to have the wood back from being checkered for Hepburn #2 before to much longer.

WOW!!!  Very Nice!

JerryH

Thanks.......... turned out to be a pretty good piece of wood for $200.
I'm anything but an expert on finishing wood. I know that the 4-sets of wood I've had checkered have always been finished after checkering. Since one is cutting the wood when checkering, makes sense to me that it has to finished after the work is complete. However, I could certainly be wrong and will defer to anyone who knows.

Checkering first means the finish will build up in the checkering. Every stock maker or checkerer I ever used told me to finish the wood first, and then checker. Then apply thin coat of finish over checkering to seal it.

I just read this front to back. Fun!
Hepburns make me happy! They are near the top of the list.