sporterizeing surplus guns

Point of view...

but what we did with many fine old military rifles was a shame!!!
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Only the ones that were done badly!:D

You may disagree, but to me, the main reason that those "fine old military rifles" are collectable today is because of what we did to so many of them!

The market has completely flipped in the last couple decades. Fine sporters, with custom wood and metal work aren't in high demand anymore. Today the push is for the synthetic and stainless "all weather" guns, and the original condition milsurps.

The fact is that guys who did most of the fine sporter work are now gone, mostly, and those still in the business are high end, high dollar craftsmen who can't (and don't try) to compete economically with the mass produced sporters we have available from the big makers today.

If we hadn't sporterized so many of the old milsurps, they would still be around in large numbers, in their varying conditions, and not worth very much. There's still lots of milsurps out there. Its just the ones in good shape that are scarce and expensive nowdays.

Its the free market at work, decades back, supply was high, demand low and value was figured by a differnet standard. Once upon a time I could buy a military issue Krag for about $40. The same Krag with the extra wood removed, maybe the barrel shortened to a more convienient length, drilled and tapped and scoped to make it a better hunting rifle (better by the standards of the era), might go for as much as $250.

Today, decades later, that same GI issue Krag in my neck of the woods goes for the best part of $1000, if you can find one. And I can walk into 3 gun shops within a hr's drive and find maybe 4 sporterized Krags, (usually with period scope) for $250-350!

Right now, the Russian Moisins are cheap, a decade ago, they were dirt cheap. A decade from now, they will probably be considerably more expensive. And they are the last of the milsurps that are ever going to be on the market, in quantity.

(leaving out the Bubba's) What we did was nothing to be ashamed of, rather the opposite, in fact. We took old clunkers and made nice rifles out of them.

Now, 30-40 years later, you are welcome to have a different opinion of what is a nice rifle. But don't even try to tell me we were wrong to do what we did then. We weren't.
 
Now, 30-40 years later, you are welcome to have a different opinion of what is a nice

some of us still enjoy giving an old man some pride
my on going project of the modern k31 is a cheaply produced all purpose all terrain rifle that by todays standards should be well over 1,000 for the action barrel and stock then so much more for the optics
those rifles deserve more than retirement to a closest these war rifles are made for the mud and rain the sun and snow shoot till the barrel glows cherry red and throw it in the case only checking on it to make sure the case isnt on fire
if you enjoy polish and wood work by all means collect and clean up but please dont look down your nose at us simple folk that enjoy a rifle not a wall hanging
i like knowing i have a rifle that i can low crawl through the mud with and not cry about scuffs scrapes dings and rain i have a few new rifles but they dont get used not like my surplus
those are special they have earned respect they dont live on a company name
i fish with my dads pole cause it catches fish i buy new ones but if they dont catch they go in the shed or traded
those military guns are made for any thing you throw at them thats why they are still here
push it to the limits
 
Once again.I am not advocating altering the existing old milsurps.
As you all collect,please realize the older equivalent of the CMP was the DCM,Director of Civilian Marksmanship.Between the DCM and the NRA and Springfield Armory,a whole lot of military Springfields were altered to the Sringfield Sporter,which some may mistake for a bubba hack,as it was a chopped original stock.They are a part of history,too.
You might research the Sedgley Springfield,the Griffin and Howe sporters
And you also might check into British prestige makers who altered P-14/P-17 rifles to make African rifles.
This is all a little like what goes on with with AR's and 1911's today.Or 1986 Toyota solid axle 4 wd pickups.How many get left box stock?
To a degree,these are evolutionary paths.What? Guys who came home from WW1 had carried a new kind of rifle.They were used to single shots and lever actions.To a degree,a WW1 battle rifle is designed to be a handle for a bayonet,a war club,and being as low in the mud as possible.
Put it this way,go find some rendevous type buckskinners.At roundball ranges,shoot against them,offhand,with a milsurp.Those old riflemakers,Sam and Jake Hawken among them,made elegant,shootable offhand rifles.Same with Sharps,Hepburn,Stevens,Ballard,Reminton.Scopes had not really arrived,so it was iron sight stocks.Those old boys knew what they wanted a rifle to hang like.If you ever read the Foxfire book where Herschel house builds a rifle,old school,or Ned Roberts"Muzzle loading Cap lock Rifle:,you will know that backwoods bubbas made their own tools,barrels,stocks,and bullet molds and shot groups at 40 rods,220 yds,iron sights and black powder,most of us would be proud to shoot today.
The artistry of these bubba riflemen prototyped the modern sporting bolt action rifle and showed remchester the way.
There is another part of history.Would I chop a 34 Ford Coupe today? Not at all.
But,would you take the rod in American Graffiti out of America?
Its all good.I hope we never lose the guy who builds his motorcycle his way,his car his way,or his rifle his way.I hope our young folks will find a way,like building rifles,to know a file,and a lathe,and a chisel,and a micrometer,workmanship,fitting wood to steel.What is better than building a rifle to learn those skills?
See.I don't think it would be so bad for our young man OP,as a young man who appreciates firearms with a passion,to use all those tools and skills to build his own rifle.
We might lose an original Mauser or Springfield ,incomplete,cracked stock,dark bore,,,,and gain a better young man,and a good sporting rifle.

Was it Clyde Baker? about 1920's,wrote "The Modern Gunsmith"? Have you ever really read it?
 
here,s a rifle a g98-40 made for the germans in hungry in 1941, it was only made for a few war years and realy hard to find in ex shape, i got this one at auction for 200.00,all number match and has a ex bore and original sight hood. but bubba cut the stock off and all the forward metal is lost. i am looking for a replacement stock,but no luck yet. a rifle like this that was in issue condition now would bring 1200-1500 easily. the man who cut it down just wanted a lighter hunting rife and bought it cheaply. eastbank.
 
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One of the most beautiful rifles I've ever seen was a sporterized Krag and they aren't easy to make beautiful with the loading gate. That isn't to say I wanted it, however. Some military rifles don't lend themselves to easy sporterizing if nice look results are what you want. Mausers that have stepped barrels, Japanese rifles or just about any French army rifle, although you could buy sporterized Lebels before WWII, if you wanted one.

History? The Swiss K-31 is a fine piece of weaponry but it doesn't really come with any history. I'm not so sure I'm that interested in German army history at all, either, being more of a socialist myself. How about a Carcano?

Now a curious thing is that some rifles were modified by their owners to produce, usually, sniper rifles and the results look very much like sporters. This includes the 7.62mm Lee-Enfields, including commercial versions, the 7.62mm MAS sniper rifle (but we don't like French rifles, do we?) and the Italian variations of the M1. Frankly most of them look more like heavily customized competition rifles rather than sporter rifles but you get the idea.

In a way, the M14 and it's imitation the M1A, plus the Italian modified rifles, are all a kind of sporterized M1, except for the big box magazine, and it might be the ultimate in sporterized military rifles. You probably weren't even thinking of that, however.

I believe it is true, as some have mentioned, that there are no longer the custom gunsmiths who used to do these sporterized rifles of 50 years ago. Tastes change. The sorts of rifles they did were nothing like rifles you could buy (well, some were, I guess). I'm referring to the fancy ones, of course, real custom rifles. Fancy stocks were what set them apart. But also, it might be that just as many were produced using factory produced barreled actions from FN and Brno as were made with surplus rifles. Remember, all those Yugos weren't surplus yet and neither were a lot of other bolt actions. Those were still in the army at the time. Today, many military surplus rifles have been refinished by the time they reach the market and may not represent the typical surplus gun available in the 1950s or earlier. And besides, the 1940s and 1950s, there was still a military market for surplus guns. That's what Castro's friends were using.

You could say that a sporterized military surplus gun is one that got out of the army and got dressed in civies.
 
Been there. Done that a few times. Wont do it again because it costs way too much and takes too much work to make a sporterized milsurp that is still not quite as good as an over the counter sporter.
Add up the stock, trigger, bolt work, safety, bolt shroud, tapping for scope, crowning barrel or new barrel, checkering.... And you've added a lot of expensive stuff to a milsurp and come up with a rifle that may not be worth as much as the milsurp you started with. It may be "custom" but that doesn't mean good.
Sporterizing may have been worthwhile 30 years ago but not today, and even if someone gives you a butchered milsurp for free you'd be better off going to Walmart and buying a rifle instead.
 
There weren't many big box discount retailers around sixty years ago, either, come to think of it, although you could buy branded guns at Sears and Wards.
 
IMHO one of the main reasons for the change in attitude is that 40 years ago, an average working man couldn't buy a bolt-action repeater with a nice trigger and scope mounts, chambered for a modern high-powered cartridge, capable of shooting <2MOA, for the equivalent of about a week's pay (~$400 nowadays).
 
Sporters aren't necessarily evil, with a bit of luck you can get a steal on numbers matching guns that only need a new stock.
 
seansean1444's thoughts (among others) echo mine. mapsjanhere also has a solution for some.

My interest in guns only began late in life, and never experienced the "milsurp good times" years ago.

It is so difficult finding an Enfield #4 or #5 at a Memphis area gun shows-very few have Not had 1) stocks and 2) sights sporterized-that I've mostly given up on local shows (after over a dozen since '08). Only found my #4 by chance, having driven way south to Batesville, MS.

Therefore quickly persuaded my wife that we will divert from the normal San Antonio-Aus-DFW-Texarkana route back to Memphis, and finally attend a real gun show in Ft. Worth: Jan 1st or 2nd.
Might not find another good #4 (far below 'mint' prices), but maybe the overall gun variety will be better.
 
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In the 1950s and 1960s there were a lot of surplus bolt actions already chambered in .30-06, and they also had bent bolts, both of which made them more attractive for sporterizing. While I have seen sporterized 8mm Mausers, I suspect more hunters would rather have something else. If you had to rebarrel a military surplus bolt action, it tends to make the whole project pointless. I just don't think that market (for customized sporters) exists anymore. I would be going out on a limb if I said there is a greater variety of new sporting rifles offered than there used to be but things like Marlin's guide gun, stainless steel rifles, really weather resistant stocks and so on are all new things, not to mention a lot of new cartridges.
 
Our possible route diversion on the return trip is only because so many guns Were sporterized, and many rear sights or front sight guards were cut off.

My gun show buddies also seldom take a second look at them. The rifles lost most of their character (so why waste time on them?), unless the only items missing are the original wooden components.
 
Here's a thought: While not a comment on the original topic, was there not a time when there were newly manufactured commercial, sporting versions of military rifles marketed? I don't think there were commercial Krags but I'm pretty sure there were commercial sporting versions of the 1903, and all sorts of commercial Mausers manufactured. Not sure, because I've never read anything about them, but there may have been sporting versions of the Lee-Enfield. Either that or sporterizing military rifles has been done since before 1900. Likewise, there were sporting Mannlichers, perhaps the most desirable of all of them. But no doubt there were more sporting Mausers than anything else and in all sorts of calibers. I wonder how many of them were in 8mm Mauser? I guess only the Mauser is still being manufactured as a sporting arm, the last military Mauser bolt action probably being manufactured in the 1950s.
 
Resurrections

One of my hobbies I've enjoyed for the last 12 years has been to resurrect old military bolt rifles. When I got'em all 4 were nothing but junk! Some bubba had "worked" on'em in the 1960s and 70s to the point that they literally could not hit the broad side for the barn! All had been "stored" for 30 to 40 years; 1 in a gun shop original 1960 inventory, 1 a pawn shop junk barrel, and the 2 others in someone's closet.

Now they all will shoot to a 3 shot groups of an inch or less at 100 yds - Yes even the 2 with iron sights!

1895 Chilean Mauser:
7mmM95ChileanMauser_111110_2.JPG


194? Czech Vz-24 Mauser:
Vz-24_9_3x62_120408.jpg


1945 British No4 MK1* Enfield:
EnfieldNo4MK1_303_3_042708.jpg


194? Jap Arisaka Type 99:
Arisika_7_7x58_120408.jpg
 
BlueTrain said:
Here's a thought: While not a comment on the original topic, was there not a time when there were newly manufactured commercial, sporting versions of military rifles marketed?
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I am pretty sure that my Ross Mk. II was a factory sporter.
 
While not a comment on the original topic, was there not a time when there were newly manufactured commercial, sporting versions of military rifles marketed? I don't think there were commercial Krags but I'm pretty sure there were commercial sporting versions of the 1903, and all sorts of commercial Mausers manufactured. Not sure, because I've never read anything about them, but there may have been sporting versions of the Lee-Enfield. Either that or sporterizing military rifles has been done since before 1900. Likewise, there were sporting Mannlichers, perhaps the most desirable of all of them. But no doubt there were more sporting Mausers than anything else and in all sorts of calibers. I wonder how many of them were in 8mm Mauser?
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A Springfield NRA Sporter is a scarce and valuable rifle. There were so few made that to say they exist is pretty much a technicality. Not something to go hunting with any more. Certainly there were numbers of nice sporters built on Springfield actions by independent gunsmiths; one of the first for Teddy Roosevelt. Col Townsen Whelen used his pull at Springfield Armory to get some very nice rifles in collaboration with his gunsmiths.

There were nice sporting rifles built on the Lee-Speed .303. By the time the SMLE was in service, British sportsmen had moved on. The original Romanian Mannlicher was very popular there for a while. I think the British sporting market had gone largely to Mausers by the time the Mannlicher Schoenauer with flush rotary magazine came out.

There is no end to the variety of Mauser sporters. I have seen nice hunting rifles on the 1888 Commission action and Haenel rifles with the '88 bolt over a flush magazine of their own design, more complicated than the Mauser box. Except in Sweden which stuck to the '94-'96 design, the next big seller was the '98 Mauser. I don't think there were many sporting versions of the Belgian and Spanish Mausers 1891-1895.

Of course I generalize, you can find about anything over the 70 years or so that a Free American could mailorder a rifle.
 
You mean a free American who had money. Today we still like to support our local gun shops by ordering on the internet and having things transferred through some local gun shop. Me? I ordered things through the mail and that's how I bought my first four or five rifles. But I never could afford a new one and besides, I don't remember as many advertisements for new guns in magazines that you could buy through the mail. Maybe that's why there were so many sporterized.
 
Santa just picked up a Remington 03a3 bubba special for me to fix up, Bishop walnut stock, Redfield base and rings, and an old Weaver K4 for 160 bucks......time to resurrect another one.:D Novermber 1942 manufacture date.
 
If you permanently alter an unmolested historical firearm you will go to hell.



That's how I feel about it. If it's already past the point of no return go for it. But if it hasn't been through Uncle Ben's 'photo session' in the toolshed don't you dare mess with it.
 
Bought my .303 L/E already sported, nice gun

As for going to Hell, I was stationed in New Jersey, already been there pal.
 
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