sounds like your gun lead a very grand style of life in her early years...i love these storeys....... charlie

The letter also says there is a rubber stamp on the entry of Order book 80 that says "COMB BOLT". Does anyone know what this might mean?

Whatever, the "comb bolt" is, it was probably in the original stock. The information in la84foundation documents would indicate that Peterson was a salesman rather than a high average competitior. He shot many shoots each year throughout the midwest, placing in the middle of the pack. The order for the gun through Peters Cartridge Company indicates that he probably represented their brand. He was still shooting 1500 or more targets per year through the end of WW1. I haven't investigated to find out when he dropped off the competition circuit.

Thanks Bill. Most of the la84foundation info that I found I could not read due to poor scanning or very old paper stock it was printed on. Either way it's a cool gun. I havent fired it yet, hopefully I will soon. I've been reading Charlie's posts on the continuing saga of deer hunting and have been dreaming of venison.:whistle:

I enlarge the original copy so I can read it better.

I tried that, to no avail.

nice gon!