HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL, New member in here from oregon. Hoping to find some awesome information, on my garage sale find forester(l579). I’ll have to get into the records page and request my records. I know the year it was made(1962) just not sure if it was Deluxe or Walnut stock, hoping to maybe find more out about it, and where to get the parts to help finish it.
Very unusual barreled action. No bottom metal, but rather a trigger guard & front "nut" of some type to mount in a stock. Is it a single shot action with no mag cut out? There is no magazine or hinged floorplate, so that's what I'm assuming. It is definitely not a Deluxe or standard barreled action like I've ever seen before. Definitely get the Factory Records & let us know what that says!
The gentleman that I got it from was the son of a “world class stock maker” (Earl Milliron, I hadn’t heard of him, in fact there’s only been a few people that I’ve talked to that have, including the smith that I spoke to yesterday). So I’m assuming that what happened was he pulled it apart to build a stock for it, and never put it back together. The trigger guard is what I’m finding to be most interesting because all other trigger guards are attached to the floor plate.
Looks to me like there are machining marks on the front of the trigger guard, suggesting that the front part of the trigger guard assembly was cut off. It also appears that a mounting hole has been drilled in the front of the guard. It also looks like the rear of the trigger guard has been reshaped. That would all be consistent with the idea that a previous owner had it in mind to build a single shot with a smooth bottom on the stock.
I think I see an L579 action that's missing the follower, spring, mag. box, and most of the bottom metal. Sorta like a blind magazine rifle build, with a custom stock.
I agree with Kevin that it was probably on its way to being a custom-stocked rifle with a blind magazine. There are many proponents of the blind magazine as it can be made into a bit lighter rifle and the perceived problem of the magazine latch malfunctioning and dumping your cartridges on the ground is avoided.
