Hi Steve-

GOOD THOUGHT given the 1962 date on the archive photos!!!  Stainless barrel 300 H&H MAGNUMs are not common, though I know you’ve got one…  

I know you know this, but if anyone else cares, the M70 Westerners are sort of interesting… They generally came in two flavors…  Many early ones (according to my survey roughly S/N 460,000 to 485,000) had hand checkered stocks and matte stainless barrels.  The stainless barrel was dropped in mid-1960 and the later ones (roughly S/N 480,000 to 580,000) have CMS barrels and narrow panel machine checkered stocks.  There’s overlap between barrel material and checkering, of course…

Here’s an early Westnerner that could represent the gun we’re looking at (if you added a Pachmayr recoil pad): 

What do you think?  All the Westerners I’ve seen with their original stocks on them have plastic butt plates, but since Peeler’s gun has a recoil pad we’ve got nothing to go on…

Best,

Lou