Hi Dan,
The Elk trip is cancelled for the foreseeable future I am sorry to say. I am just relocating to care for my parents and have no job right now which does not help matters. Once I get settled and work out a routine then I can start making plans.
As for hunting with the rifle well yes if it's accurate enough it will go afield. I test fired it today and have the barrel soaking now, I have discovered that there is a fairly large patch of pitting about 1" in from the muzzle possible rain of a snow flake. The more I examine it the more I think this was either an estate rifle of a forrestry Commision one, I doubt the owner neglected it like this although I have seen some real dumbasses who should never be allowed to own a gun the way they treat them
Not sure what to do about the Varnished finish, personally I don't like varnished finishes so it may get stripped off and an oiled finish applied. BSA offered both as a option
Everything works on the rifle properly but I am suspect of the old scope I have put on it and need to find another to test it with. The firing was only at about 40 yards just to test it all works OK and the test was encouraging but not as good as I would expect, until I find another scope to try I won't know for sure.
All my sporting rifles go hunting no matter their value, it's what they were built for so I use them including the Bespoke one off rifle, it's the only one of it's kind they made and it was not cheap but I have shot several deer with it and it bears a few small marks from it's outings.
My Whitetail trip this fall is also in doubt now, and I am not even sure I can make it to Scotland and I have an invitation up there this September after Red Stags
The Elk trip was going to have to be postponed to next year at the earliest as I didn't quite realise the total cost. Came as slight shock
I knew it would not be cheap but didn't quite realise just how much it was going to be. After all the Whitetail trip once I include flights, tags, guest fee, stop overs food etc adds up to about $2300 but the Elk trip is something else. I will just have to put it off and try to have some money for it once I get some income coming in that is.