Point of view...
Only the ones that were done badly!
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.
but what we did with many fine old military rifles was a shame!!!
Only the ones that were done badly!
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.