Thank you for your advise. I greatly appreciate you guys taking your time to help this novice out. I did not purchase the rifle for a great deal of money and I knew going into the purchase that I would probably need to spend some to fix it up. I don't sell my firearms or plan too so resale value for me is not high on my agenda. I just enjoy shooting. Hence, I would like to turn it into a shooter and try to use as many period original parts as possible.

After reading your responses I'm starting to believe the best thing to do would be to try and restore it to a 1896 model. My biggest problem is there is considerable rust inside the barrel. So my main question is if I wanted to restore it to a full length rifle do the parts exist to do so. Or should I just try to hunt down a carbine length barrel. Thanks again for your help.

Here are some pictures that may help.

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