That's a sweet looking rifle you have there Butch, I hate to disapoint you though. I put a 3-9X40 on my new rifle a couple of days ago. I agree that the gun looks and feels better without the scope, but with my eyesight it's not fair to the animals that I'm shooting at. My next project though will turn this setup into a squirrel, rabbit, coyote, armadillo, fall turkey, raccoon, possum, and otter killing machine. Probably should put more emphasis on the squirrels and armadillo's though. As soon as I find a set of RCBS 30-30 dies I'm going to make a load with 5.4 grains of Unique behind one pellet of single 0 Buckshot. This setup should get 1157 fps and the test that I read about this load it should hit close to my deer load at under 50 yards. For about $20 I can buy a five pound bag of buckshot, which has 720 balls in it. I'm hoping that by the time i'm done my new 336ss will be the families favorite plinking gun.