"I remember cabin logs with the bark still rough and a mother who laughed at trifles, and tall lank strangers dark as snuff with their long straight squirrel rifles" That's a beauty! There is no better training for a "rifleman" than to learn to shoot a flintlock. If you can manage hold and follow through with all of that going on in your face you can shoot anything. Pretty wood! Is that natural Tiger Stripe or did you that? Years ago I put a Cherry Creek Hawkin kit together that a friend won. It had the plainest hunk of maple I had ever seen until I began to stain it. It was beautiful from butt to forend with lots if figure.It just took a bit of color to bring it out.