Webley Viscount questions.

[look no hands]

Of course it is; so is mine, and probably most people's. You have every right to do what you want with them, I was just responding to the moral question you posed as I can't help with the others!

I have no problem with your putting the Viscount in a walnut stock. That's exactly what Webley did for their deluxe model. By so doing I'm sure you have improved its looks and added value even if it didn't leave the factory with that particular stock. I'm not a "purist", I just spent a couple of years looking for a nice Viscount and passing on Trackers, so that may explain my reaction to the thought of sacrificing a perfectly good Viscount to make a Tracker look-alike which would still have "Viscount" engraved across the top in big letters to proclaim that it wasn't a Tracker. Personally I think the Viscount is a very elegant rifle, particularly the walnut stock version; you don't see that many of them, and in my view it would be a shame to alter it to look like a Tracker when there are still real Trackers to be found more cheaply than Viscounts. But we all have different ideas as to what makes a good-looking rifle.

If you really want a Tracker, sell the Viscount as is and buy a Tracker! The right one will turn up. It's completely up to you. It's just my opinion. But if you buy that tyro stocked Tracker and sand down the stock to turn it into a sporter I don't want to hear!

I get where you're coming from and I don't think I have the heart to chop the barrel on the Viscount, I apologise if I sounded a bit abrupt when I said about my collection, to be honest the longer barrel is growing on me, I just have to get into my head that these rifles are now getting hard to get and in theory I should count myself lucky I found one in the first place (not that I was looking for a Viscount).