beanstrung

Ditto what Vlad said. Polish WZ29, scrubbed when it went through Spain, during the Spanish Civil War. It was worth about $300 before it got "re-configured". Well worth $110 in it's present state as a cheep deer gun, or parts gun.

I'll throw in a "ditto" for Brownell's Oxpho Blue. It's much better, and more forgiving than either B-C's Perma-Blue or Super-Blue.

"endeavor to perservere"

That line makes me remember the next few lines...

"they told me to surrender, but I would not surrender, but they took my horse and made him surrender. He's pulling a plow up in Kansas somewhere."

-Chief Lone Waddy

I like Oxpho as well, it's definitely better than Birchwood-Casey Perma-Blue, however Perma-Blue can be made to work OK, with proper metal prep and cleaning. I've heard that Blue-Wonder is even better than Oxpho, but I've never tried it.

Birchwood-Casey Presto-Black PC-9. It's an industrial-grade cold black-oxide treatment. I ordered a quart thru a local machine shop. It comes as a concentrate, and needs to be diluted 1 part concentrate plus 9 parts water before using. It works just like cold-blue (ie. clean & prep, apply treatment, let work, rinse with water, re-apply if necessary, rinse again, then coat the treated area with a light oil or grease. The resulting finish is more of a flat-black than the shinier blue-black of Perma-Blue.

http://www.sculpt.com/technotes/Tech_Sheet...o_Black_PC9.pdf

http://www.birchwoodcasey.com/presto/index.html

Nobody's mentioned the vererable, old 8mm Mauser cartridge ( 8X57 ). With a 180~200gr. partition-type bullet, clocking out at about 2,400 to 2,600 fps, it would be fine out to 200yds. As far as feeding issues, do I even need to say?