Now that I think about it...
I actually do have some guns that at one point in my life were holy grails. I'll only do one per post and explain...
#1 An 09 Argentine Mauser
OK so many years ago, surplus Mausers were a dime a dozen. And I bought one that was supposed to be a 7 mm Mauser but it turned out to be a 8mm Mauser so I took it back. They didn't have a 7 mm Mauser but they had a 7.65 mm Mauser. So I "settled" for that. I did not know there was anything special about the gun at the time.
After a few years I gave it to my father, who had it rebarreled in 270 Winchester, but left the original stock on it with the forend cut down.
The Mauser was the family deer gun. My nieces, nephews, and brothers in law all killed deer with it. It got beat up and abused for decades but took it all like a champ.
Then I found out that the '09 Argentine Mauser was prized by custom gunmakers because the guns were considered the apex of the Mauser 98 development. So I decided I would get another one and have it customized.
I looked for decades, but never found another one. Every gun show I went to I looked at the Mausers to see if one was an '09 Argentine, but never found one.
When my father passed away, we all agreed that anything someone had given my parents would go back to the person who gave it to them. The '09 Argentine was
MINE again!
I've been working on it for a few years now, and I just about have it where I want it. It has been rebarrelled to 6.5x47 Lapua. It is set up for two scopes. One, a 6-24x54 target scope with a 30mm tube by Nikko Stirling for long range deer hunting and target shooting, and the other a classic 3-9 Leupold for normal deer hunting (the one that was on it when it was the family deer rifle). It is set up for two different stocks - one is a Boyd heavy varmint thumbhole stock, and the other a Boyd featherweight thumbhole stock. It has a Timney trigger. The featherweight stock has a Parker Hale floorplate and trigger guard.
Here it is in both target, and hunting configurations:
And here is the Parker Hale bottom metal for the hunting configuration:
