As I read about your rifle builds and the pleasure you have in building accuracy by matching and modifying the component parts of the makers' arts, I feel a deep sense of loss. We were once able to participate in so many of these things. I have a very simple old .22 rimfire (single shot, bolt action, 9" barrel, Drulov, an Olympic Freestyle target pistol) that I have bought and paid for, but because of the fear and ignorance that Media and activism have spread among urban voters and academia, I am unable to finish obtaining the Government permissions to complete the process and obtain the thing. Half a thousand dollars' worth of specialty low-power target pistol cannot transfer from my FFL's into my own hands, not because of any special danger to anybody, but because of the fear engendered in the hearts of the ignorant, the masses who blindly forbid any gun from being transferred in the State of Oregon, at any price, without the State's certification and approval.
I think of the many intrusions into our lives that come from purchasing fuel, planting and harvesting crops, taking water from the clouds and from the earth, building our homes, making a shirt, preparing a simple meal. There is an ever-tightening noose around the necks of each of us, The People, that goes unrecognized until the components of the trap unite and all the Powers of The State are brought down upon us.
I am not overstating this. I live in what was once one of the most free State in the most free nation in the known galaxy. But there are many who can neither recognize tyranny nor live their own lives without inflicting it upon others. Portland, Oregon.