Not encourage Bubba!
Why? What Erin did to her Mosin was interesting!
Because I am sick of seeing Bubba rape kiv/27's. I am sick of seeing Remington and NEW receivers drilled and tapped. I am sick of seeing US marked M1915 stocks shortened and cut for Timney triggers.
I am sick of Bubba buying a Mosin from someone who doesn't know what they have and "it's just a Mosin".
Erin's is a bog standard Izhevsk 91/30 (high wall round). The most common maker in the most common pattern. We're not mad at Erin.
But did she know she was modifying the most common form of Mosin-Nagant when she started?
Most of time Bubba don't know enough to even check.
Willard bought a nice Long Branch No4 Mk1* yesterday and near it on the rack was something that used to be a No4... Not any more!
Bubba, again.
It's especially galling that in addition to being a design that doesn't lend itself to sporterizing, Enfields are in a caliber that's not particularly common here in the US.
Krags gave Bubba the idea that you could get a cheap sporting rifle from a really cheap surplus rifle.
Mausers gave Bubba the impression that milsurp was a natural route to a good sporting rifle. A Mauser is a great place to start, really. In a lot of ways, Remingtons and Winchesters are Mausers. But the sporter conversion of a milsurp Mauser was a special case. They're just about the only old mil gun made in the 20th century that readily lends itself to being so converted and having half a chance of being as good as a new-made gun.
But the days of it being cheaper to convert an old Mauser than buy a new-made gun are LONG gone.
The modifications advocated by War Gun Mods, when added up ($678 including the original gun), are more expensive than one of Savage's package deals (Model 10/110 XP Trophy hunter with accutrigger in .308; $620). Spending the money in small chunks over a longer period of time is a false economy even if it added up to a rifle as good as the Savage... but in the end you spend more and have less.
Far too often, Bubba makes changes he can't reverse. Regret comes 20 years later when the supply of old guns dries up and the crufflers start fighting over what's left. The Mosin that's $240 on Gunbroker now was $150 last year. It was $70 five years before that.
Already modded guns are listed on Gunbroker for less than $500, and there's no bidders. In Econ 101, we call that a market indicator.
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I wonder how many people who've destroyed a SIG-barreled m/28 were aghast at ISIS dynamiting Palmyra?
ReplyDeleteThere were a few good professionally done sporterizations. For every one of those, ten thousand WECSOG guns. Such a pity.
ReplyDeleteAt 15 I went to Deer Camp in Northern Ontario . Half the guns were sportered Enfields with most of the wood removed and the bolt headspaced . They were 20.00 in the Eatons Catalog and 45.00 with a Parker - Hale stock . If you couldn't afford that the Cooey factory was sporterizing the 6.5 x 54 Carcano .
ReplyDeleteThe SMLE was actually very easy to sporterize .
Glenn
Easy depends greatly on geography. In Canada, where .303 isn't uncommon, there's more devotion to making the adaptation. Even so, the design of the receiver makes scoping one much harder than the Mauser.
DeleteCutting down the wood or restocking isn't all there is to to sporting it.
I get what you're saying: I feel like crying every time I see a "sporterized" Krag, '03, M1917, Swedish Mauser, or what have you: a little piece of history has been ruined.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand:
1. It likely wasn't seen as a piece of history when Bubba took it to his local 'smith (or his garage) and turned it into... what he turned it into. Nobody knows what will become a desirable collector's item in a few years and what will become an old piece of junk that fires a virtually unobtainable round. Should we all cosmoline and lock up our Glocks, Remington 870s, Savage Axises (Axii?), M&P-15's, &c. in their original boxes and in their original condition?
2. If we look at a gun as a tool, there is nothing fundamentally more wrong with butcher... er, modifying it, it - chopping off the stock, drilling the receiver for a $49 Wal-mart scope, spray-painting it, and so forth - than there is in modifying a Honda Civic or F150 as our fathers and grandfathers did their Mustangs, GTO's, Chevy coupes, Model T's or other cars.
All the being said, I want to wring the neck of the person who massacred that innocent Krag. It's like making Marilyn Monroe get plastic surgery...
There's no snob like a gun snob.
ReplyDeleteThere's no-one who wastes money like someone who cannot understand the sunk cost fallacy and false economy.
DeleteI've yet to see a Mosin chopped to bits that's actually a better shooting gun than before that did not cost as much as a new-made custom gun.
I've yet to see a "cheap" Mosin out-shoot a $500 Savage Axis or Remington 770. Rarely will the chopper give a full and honest accounting of what the gun actually cost. Rarely will they post before and after photos of a target. Often they will brag about how much better it shoots.
This is not snobbery, this is having realistic expectations.
I've got one of those sporterized Krags. It cost me a pittance. Unfortunately, with the cut barrel and the '03 Springfield front sight installed, It's never coming back. It's a classic bubba gun. Cut barrel, a chunk of wood sliced into the original stock to make a pistol grip, and 1/8" checkering that looks cut in with a steak knife.
ReplyDeleteIt'll never be the 1898 Krag that I want and can't currently afford. It is however, a sweet shooting deer rifle that is a historical artifact of amateur gunsmithing skills (or lack of!) and styles of the 1930's. I suspect that the rifle put a fair amount of venison on someone's table.
That being said, Bubba of 1930 didn't know any better and needed to feed his family. Bubba of 2016 should know better.
Marilyn Monroe did have plastic surgery. Nose job.
ReplyDelete