It is now in Lay-Awake.

Are you going to keep it as a collector or a shooter ?? Makes a great mini 458 if you want a shooter. But fit a good recoil pad.

I shot my buck with a Ruger #2 (#3 with #1 wood) in 45/70 last fall. A 300 gr Remington factory load at 120 yards did the trick. Have killed three deer with that rifle and am not impressed with the Rem 300 gr penetration, but that is no fault of the rifle which shoots almost every load tried into nice little groups.

It has one of those recoil pads that I have seen on Ruger's carbine stocks before. The black rubber ones that are a direct replacement for the aluminum cap. It also has a Bushnell 4-12x40 scope on it that will be removed pronto. Nice bonus is that is is an early 1974 model with no warning label.

Good catch. I bought one made in 1976 a couple of years ago. I bought a scope base for it but haven't mounted a scope on it yet. It shoots great with cast bullets, I have only run a few jacketed through it as most of my jacketed bullets are loaded with Marlin level loads and they just are no much fun in it. BP level loads are not bad at all, even with 500+ gr bullets. It kind of reminds me of a sharps military carbine.

And Dad NEVER did anything half-fast so it rocked me. I was hooked.

Only shooting it with your favorite load will tell if existing pad is adequate. A fun serious gun. You have a multitude of sight combo's to choose from. a 1-5 variable if you need a scope. Its a natural open sight set up. 12X ??? At best loading the 45-70 is not a varmint cartridge. But after saying that I can think of several dozen running Jack-rabbits that might thing otherwise.
Back around '46-47 you could pick up original Springfield 45-70 carbines in So CA
for 30 45 dollars apiece. Used to practice on running jacks, makes a Deer running under at under a 100 yards like shooting fish in a barrel

in one....cured me from sucking eggs. I got a #3 375Win that don't hurt so bad.

I already have the .30-40 but the .375 is on the watch list.