A couple of months ago my father gave me his very first rifle, purchased new in 1947, a Remington 511. The bad news is that he left it in the attic for the last 32 years.

It had a wee bit of surface rust.

I used some 0000 steel wool with a little machine oil, and pretty much all of it came off without any pitting.

So that's the bad, and the good news. Now, the next bad/good news is that I'm on the downhill side of 50, so I can't see iron sights very well anymore. So, after much deliberation, I'm having bases and rings put on the 511, as well as on a 514 I've had for several years that I also can't shoot very well for the same reason - iron sights.
Being the
cheap illegitimate offspring frugal fellow that I am, I pulled the scope off of my .17 HMR to go on the 511. And a good friend offered me a surplus 6x for the 514. But what to do for the .17 HMR? That's where all the above backstory comes in, what I did this weekend.
Yesterday morning I pulled the scope off my AR, and put it on the .17 HMR. And earlier last week I picked up a 4-12 x 40 with an illuminated reticle at Cabela's for about a third off, so I put that on my .30-06. For now the 3-9 that was on the .30-06 is back in the original box. I'm hoping to offload my AR in favor of a new Mini-14 (but that's another story) and put that 3-9 on the Mini. Or it may end up back on the AR. We'll see. This evening I bore-sighted the .17 and -06, so when I get the .22s back in a couple of weeks I'll take all four out and have a nice, long sighting-in session.