TBR,
My opinion is just that, just one of the many............opinions like mine are hopefully respected, not any mandate or whatever...........just offerings of conversation about fine rifles.
One could buy Ruger No.1's with heavy flame and fiddleback back in the day, and on occasion now(scarce) fwiw. I reckon I favor English, the streaking and contrast always kills me. Heavily contrasted English/streaked to me would be the one I would keep, but already said that.........
Marble Cake Claro can rival in looks but is relatively soft.
I hope my offering of opinion did not overly sway; not my intent, there are attributes to both rifles that are worth pondering at length. gotta like case hardening, you either do or don't, I left it when the greens went away(for a fair reason really; deadly stuff in some cases).
Kinda boils down to listening to opinions graciously given by folks here, then putting your own preferences to work. Probably kinda hard to let either one go, but been there and done that a time or two.
Tis good to have problems like these two rifles...............
I sincerely appreciate getting to see both..........
regards,
Rick W.