Oddly enough, that rifle has been on lots of long mountain backpack trips over the past decades. Not to mention day in and day out trips. There might be another area in BC with the diversity of mountain hunting that we have here in the East Kootenays - but I suspect not. Not too many places where you can leave the truck and start climbing with a mule deer, elk, sheep, goat, and grizzly bear tag on your license and have a good chance of filling one or more of them. It also does tend to rain and snow here in this area of the Rockies - as anyone who has skiied in Fernie will realize, even if they haven't hunted around here. It hasn't been in any tents however - I use a shelter half staked out just off the ground, so maybe that helps. Add to that a fair number of hunting trips on horseback, complete with leather gun scabbards. And look at that - with the exception of a few scrapes and dings, it isn't the rusted out piece of junk it apparently should be.
Sometimes I wonder how anyone managed to hunt in less than perfect weather before synthetic stocks and stainless steel came along, or how they managed to stay warm before Gor-tex and Patagonia came along... one wonders how guys like Jack O'Conner ever managed the amount of hunting they did before synthetics and stainless steel.
For those who prefer the tolerance stainless and plastic has, no problem. But with a little common sense care, blued steel and wood works just fine - although I might draw the line if I did my hunting on and around the saltchuck.