First of all, for the purists out there, this is not a pristine rifle by any measure. There is very little rust, but the stock is banged up, much of the bluing is gone, and the original sites are MIA. I intend to clean it up a bit (to include cleaning up the stock), but this isn't a museum piece.

I was speaking with my father-in-law last summer when they were in town and mentioned that I wanted to pick up a Ruger 77/22 and thread the barrel. I figured that a bolt action, mag-fed 22 with a suppressor would be absolutely neat-o and since I already have a pile of 10/22 mags, the 77/22 seemed to be the ticket. He stated he had an "old, beat-up bolt action", mag-fed in 22 that he'd give me. It had been his older brother's and he got all of his guns when he had passed. It hadn't been fired in 25+ years, had no sites, and a "cheap 4x Tasco scope or something like that." He thought it'd be perfect for a threaded barrel job.

I finally got around to picking it up the other day and am faced with a dilemma. His "old, beat-up bolt action" is a Remington model 511 in decent shape. The barrel code puts it at Jan of 1955. The sites are gone (both the front blade and rear site that sits in front of the receiver). Additionally, it appears that a rear peep site was installed at one point as the rear mounting threads are shiny (indicating there was something threaded in there). The "cheap 4x Tasco" is actually a variable zoom Marlin (3x-7x) in really nice shape. It is from the era of Japanese made optics and bears the original quality control sticker from Japan. I'm not sure if that's a big deal, but in the telescope world, it's desirable. In short, it's a clean little shooter (I think, haven't shot it yet) that really isn't museum quality but it is pretty and has family history.

And now I'm torn about having the barrel threaded. On such a neat little piece. I have a later model 514 and think it'd be cool to collect a few more of the 5XX series, although not to the extent that some of the collectors on Rimfire Central are.

So I'd welcome your opinions. Currently, I'm inclined to leave it alone but that still leaves me looking for another rifle for my project. I'm not concerned about maintaining collector status or anything since I see it as more of an heirloom than anything. At a minimum, I'm picking up a set of period similar dovetail sites, trying to reconstitute the finish, and refinishing the stock. Then it's just a factor of threading it or not.

Thoughts?