This was actually my first firearm. I didn’t grow up hunting and when I was 19 I found it at the Del Mar gun show for ~$400 in ‘05.
Still wears the old Bausch and Lomb scope it came with. The sling was my own addition. I like the milsurp look. I only just changed out the fixed sling swivels to quick detach a few weeks ago.
I’m an old man at heart and always appreciated the older style.
I want to say that I’ve read somewhere that O’Connor softened his earlier stance on the “post ‘64” and acknowledged it was accurate and reliable enough, even if he still found it ugly.