The story of Paula's rifle

In 1999 prior to my grandfathers stroke he finished stocking this 257 Roberts for me.  The stock is made a golden orange piece of Maple that came from Tillamook Oregon.  It has a  fleur-de-leis checkering pattern with pigeon wings.

It took me several years before I even started considering engraving it.  I kept telling my dad "My engraving skills were not good enough".  As my skill increased I started thinking what I was going to engrave.  I did several grip caps for it.  I was happy with the third one which had a gold inlaid "P" with a fine gold line boarder.  

I had done lots of research to find my subject for the floor plate.  I had finally found a video with two massive white tail deer fighting.  I had found one frame of the video where both bucks looked great, none of the legs looked distorted and it fit my "minds eye" image perfectly.  I figured I would inlay one deer in silver and the other in gold.

So I went back to work practicing my gold inlay until I thought I was good enough to attempt the floor plate. About a year later I thought it was time to get back to my rifle and I found the video I had set aside.  I was devastated as I replayed my video only to find Sponge bob square pants episodes had been recorded over my tape.  Lets just say my rifle went back into the drawer for several more years.

After doing our first reproduction of Jack O'Connor's favorite rifle, I decided to put his pilot mountain Dall sheep on the butt plate.  Still discouraged about my video the rifle went back in the drawer.  Just last January when my dad and I attended the Custom gun makers and Engravers guild show in Reno we met up with some former customers.  One in particular talked to my dad about me engraving his "grand slam" of sheep on a knife for him.  When we got back, I got to thinking about that job and looked at my engraving board in the shop.  It had a big horn sheep on a grip cap that I had done several months before.  I took it off the board and it just happened to fit my rifle perfectly.  That is when I decided to put a grand slam of sheep on my rifle.  Almost a decade after it was started, I finally finished my rifle.                                                     

                                                                                                                   Paula Biesen-Malicki

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