SIPJA crossbow?

[kBob]

In the shop today I ran across a stock for a crossbow that had a butt pad on it labeled "SIPJA" This is the remains of a cross bow a buddy put together from a box of crossbow parts that was thrown away at Fred Bear Archery in Gainesville FL many many years ago. Supposedly Bear Archery (the old man was wheeling around an oxygen bottle by then but it was still neat to run into such a person say at the Mall) was studying the possibility of building a cross bow for sale and had bought about everything then out there to look over, stripped them all down to look at sub assemblies then trashed the project and tossed the junk. They guy that gave me the thing assembeld some miss matched parts and "made" a crossbow that shot though where the bolt was going might have been a good guess. One of the arrow guys at Bear made him a few bolts. At any rate some time ago I salvaged a few parts off it to "build" my own "Franken X Bow" with the salvage and some yard sale trash. It does seem to work better though this needs real bolts rather than the ones that I had.

Anyhow the point of all this rambling was that ther SIPJA stock was in a scrap lumber pile and I came across it while thinking about cutting up something to make scales or pistol grips with.

Any clue as to where a SIPJA was made and what that heavily finished stock wood (as it sanding seems to not cut the finish much and I am considering a chemical stripper) might be?

Don't think a picture would tell you much about the wood at this pont as ther figure is there but hard to make out under that hard coat and the stuff is shiny so I doubt it would photo graph worth a hoot.

-kBob