The original wood was a bit rough, but not now, yes a few decent repairs to it and a month getting the linseed oil right, always wanted to have it reblued and recased but glad I never had the money, it's a true early post war survivor. Talked to an old retired smith about 25 years ago from a town about 65 miles from Lincoln and Omaha who said if his records had not been lost in a fire he could tell me if it was one he built in about 1947 when he came home from Trinidad. Said he built 8 of them all identical, no stamp on the barrel with his name because he couldn't afford the stamp. NRA sold the barrels cheap, the Hornet was at it's peak in that time before the 222, next step was the expensive Swift or a true wildcat, lots of shot out Low Walls some in already hard to get rounds, cheap varmint gun fairly cheap ammo, not hard to find, came out of an estate in Omaha, son knew none of the history. Would have loved to had the High Wall but too pennies for me. Beautiful hunk of walnut, not AAA but about A. High Classic Period cheek piece and wide forend, the kind of stuff that was setting records off the bench at the time. Nice case and blue, likely a factory metal refinish, they would do it at the time reasonable and the recase was tougher than the original it is said. the 20 inch barrel wasn't as big as a truck axle, more like Chevy size, the Pre War 70 had the bigger barrel. Caliber 219 Donaldson Wasp as was the 70, which had been a 30-30 when it rolled out. Also could have had the die set, the good one with all the dies and neck turner to build them from 30-30 rather than the no longer mad 219 Win. 4X Lyman Super Target went with it, $1500 in 1992, a very fair price, the guy who ended up with it was a late friend across the state and he one day offered to go into town at the state games and get 10 one hundred dollar bills if he could also have the hornet. Nope, have turned down several, one friend offered to trade again but wouldn't give up his full military Krag with the Pope barrel, but I said that as a joke, we decided to keep what we had.