Thank you Chuck. I truly appreciate all the help I can get. The friend of mine runs an antique arms business and he mentioned the market is soft on them so perhaps he's looking at it from another angle than I am. I was drawn to the rifle immediately the first time and upon closer examination the second time around it actually looked even better. The bore has great rifling remaining and not nearly as much erosion as I first thought. Brought a bore light and ran my fingers inside the bore this time around. I'm not real sure why beyond the lack of cartouche he thought what he did about the militia but both he and his partner came to the same conclusion almost immediately. I ended up taking the next two days off as well from work for a short vacation as my dad is in town celebrating my birthday. I will be doing additional research and will most likely pull the trigger on it if the consensus is its a bargain from all of you kind fellows.  :)