I’m generally pretty utilitarian when it comes to guns. Give me a few necessities on a rifle, like sights, a recoil pad and sling swivels and I’m happy. Those last two items were missing from my new/old 78. So I set about gathering the needed components and cobbling them into place. A decent recoil pad is 30 bucks these days and a proper set of studs run about 13 more. Cost of doing business. But I recalled seeing a nice ADL stock in a local gun shop and I stopped in for a second look at it.

It was pert near new and it already had the factory pad and sling studs mounted. It was even the right action length and it had the satin finish I prefer. They had $110 on it but I swapped the original stock and an old Lyman 66A I had laying around, so I’ve got about half that in it. It fit the action better than the original and spiffed the old gun up a bit. I guess it’s a Model 78 ADL now, LOL.

I tuned the trigger down to 3 ½ pounds with no over-travel. I’m in the process of building Peggi a reduced recoil 30-06 load and the first effort was 49 grains of H4895 under Sierra’s 125 grain ‘Pro Hunter’ for 2805 fps. This rifle put the first three in 1 ¾” at 196 yards and continued shooting that well or better, long as I didn’t screw it up. This is proving to be one of the better 30-06’s I’ve had the pleasure to own.