I do understand the need to keep files at a minimum for costs here, but I note looking today that the messages only date back to 11/29.. for their last post. Looked on Gunsmithing and it's same.

Wanted to continue a thread but it's long gone. I do like this site-- no ADS or junk. I've been around for a long time.

Paul H is each forum given a certain amount of space or is there a date cutoff before files are dumped?

There is a little control at the top of the forum windows that let you select how far back to display topics - the default is 5 days, but if you want to you can set it to the last 100 days.
As far as I know, every message ever posted here is still available on this site.