sporterizeing surplus guns

[Shane Tuttle]

There were over thirty million of these rifles made. Why do you think you can buy them for under $100? Still, even though they've recently become popular...there's just SOOO many of them. They won't have monetary value in my lifetime, or my son's, and probably not his son's...

People said this about aircooled VWs not long ago. Now, it's like finding a needle in a haystack the size of Texas to find an early '57 that hasn't been botched by Bubba under his shadetree. Beetles used to be throwaway German metal and considered a dime a dozen. Nowadays due to people hacking them up and the element of time, they're getting to the point of being as valuable as American muscle cares...

My opinion? A mil-surp rifle, regardless of what it is, should be left the hell alone IF it's in good useable condition. If it's at the point of diminishing return, then sportorize/hack at will. On the same token (and heartbreakingly more important), the current owner has the right to do whatever he/she wants...period. It's their gun. It's their money. It's their business...

[Tamara]

Originally Posted by tobnpr

Only an idiot would take what is already a valuable rifle and devalue it.

The reason that those guns are valuable now is because so many got bubba-ed once upon a time.

You know how you can buy all the Mosins you want now for ~$100? Well, it was that way once with lots of guns now considered "rare and collectible".

Time, attrition, and the market will separate the collectible wheat from the cheap milsurp chaff.

[Hawg]

I remember when you could get Mosins for 9.00 and nobody wanted them.

[zippy13]

I'm reminded of the story about the most collectible/valuable postage stamps -- only two of them remained in the entire world. When the owner of one of the stamps passed, the owner of the other bought it at the estate auction for a record price. Later, when asked how he liked having the two most valuable stamps in the world, the owner replied, "You don't understand, now's there's just one."

[Tamara]

Originally Posted by Hawg Haggen

I remember when you could get Mosins for 9.00...

When was that? I mean, I've been slinging guns across the glass pretty much since the Berlin Wall came down, and I don't ever remember them being nine bucks wholesale...

[Gunplummer]

I was just a kid with a rusty single shot shot gun when I saw an add for "Russian Trench Guns". If I remember correctly they were $15.00 dollars, but may have been 12.00. Anyway, I sent for my honest to Charley first deer rifle and got it in the mail. The damn thing was almost as long as I was tall, but that wasn't the worst part. The only 7.62x54 hunting ammo you could buy was Norma and one box cost more than I paid for the rifle. I don't know how old it is but it has a hex receiver. I never saw any cheaper than 12.00 to 15.00 dollars but it is possible. I still have it in original condition and actually did kill a deer with it once. If I had not been given an old rifle shortly after buying the Russian one, I absolutely would have taken a hacksaw to it. It was like walking around the woods with a '57 Pontiac axle. Other than lever actions, the only hunting rifles I ever used were military reworks or original military guns. Buy a Model 70? Why buy a copy when you can hunt with an original Mauser?

[Hawg]

Tamara the ones I saw were at a gun show in the late 70's.

[Tamara]

Well, with ex-military guns unable to be imported between GCA '68 and FOPA '86, and Communist Bloc guns being scarce as hen's teeth before improved trade relations with China in the late '80s and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in the early '90s, I just don't remember Mosins being all that common at all before about eighteen or twenty years ago. Oh, sure, I'd run into the occasional WWI-era Remington-made Mosin that never got delivered before the Czar fell and the Russians chickened out of WWII, but they weren't all that common and a lot of them had been (unsafely) converted to .30-'06.

Maybe they were more common where you were than they were in Georgia.

[Gunplummer]

Years later I was in my '20s and living in L.A. I used to hit the hock shops looking for deals and the shops were full of Russian and Chinese rifles and pistols. You could not get ammo for them and like the Japanese rifles were pretty worthless. I suspect they were Korean war bring backs. When you could still buy guns through the mail, most were sold by sports shops, department stores, and hock shops, not importers.

[Tamara]

Originally Posted by Gunplummer

When you could still buy guns through the mail, most were sold by sports shops, department stores, and hock shops, not importers.

And those sporting goods stores and department stores got them from importers, mostly. In a slow year, Bannerman's imported more Mausers than have been brought back to the States by every GI in every war America's ever fought combined.

Until the Iron Curtain fell, Mosins were comparatively rare compared to Mausers.

(And the ones that were around were shunned for just the reason you mentioned: Ammo availability. With the only source for ammo being Norma, they suffered the same problem Arisakas have always suffered from, which is that the rifle's Blue Book value fluctuated dramatically based on how many rounds were in the magazine. Speaking of comparative rarity, this is why Arisakas and Carcanos have always been comparatively rare, at least when measured against Mausers in the '50s and '60s and Mosins in the '90s and '00s: The latter two have been imported in the hundreds of thousands while the former were imported in trickles by comparison...)

[zfk55]

My Father has a few of these. Back in the 60's and early 70's Golden State Arms imported a couple thousand Swiss 1911sr Long rifles. They were all sporterized and rechambered to .308. You can still fiond them once in a while, but I can tell you that the process was super professional and ours shoot moa with a 175gr SMK or Berger VLD.





They named them Alpine Sporters. Some of the finishes are super refined and all of the wood was Walnut. I really like the feel and accuracy of these conversions, but I'd never ever convert a 1911 or k11 of my own.

Latigo

[OscarTurner]

I have my grandfather's sporterized M1917 (Winchester) in .30-06. It mean's as much or more to me sporterized as it would as a mil-surp. It put a ton of dinner on his family's table and I'm sure it was an upgrade to what ever he was using before he got it. I still don't know if he sporterized or if he bought it that way. Either way, its an Enfield that I can do what ever I please with now.

[DG45]

I generally don't like to see old military rifles like Mausers and Enfields Sporterized, particularly not the way a lot of them used to be "sporterized" which was just to saw off some of the wood furnishings. But there are exceptions. I've seen some nice sporterized mausers - but I've wondered if they didn't cost more than the owner could have bought a new Remington bolt gun for.

But there are some guns that just cry out for customization. There's a thread over on the pistol colum about S&W and Colt Model 1917 45 cal. revolvers, including the S&W Brazillian contract revolvers from 1937. Everybody on the forum who owns one of these 45 cal service revolvers has been invited to show a picture of theirs.

These run the gamut from Brazilian contract guns like mine that are beat up but still original, to pristine military models that I'd hate to see anybody customize, to between the wars commercial guns, to guns of all types that have been customized, some radically. Some of those customized guns have got me drooling; particularly the ones that are cut down like the S&W Model 1917 that was used in the first Indiana Jones movie, and a couple of others that have been chopped down into 45 cal. snubbies. One guy with one of the last posts had a beat up old Brazilian gun like mine, and you should see what he's done with it. It's FINE. Take a look at it on that thread. I don't think you'll find a lot of fault with it.

[PIGMAN]

I believe some of you may not be seeing the bigger picture here.I am buying as many of the really fine sporterized 03's and K-98's as my budget will allow.These rifles represent a tremendous oppertunity to buy essentially hand made and fitted rifles at fire sale prices. Because these are truly beautiful firearms both in function and form they have enduring value over time.
One hundred years from now imagine the comparitive value of a Reminton Stainless with a composit stock or an AR compaired to a butter knife set trigger sporterized K-98 with hand select euro-walnut wood.

[Hawg]

I've seen some nice sporterized mausers - but I've wondered if they didn't cost more than the owner could have bought a new Remington bolt gun for.

I could have bought two for what it cost to build my Mauser. I could have bought three for what it cost to build my 03A3 but they will out shoot anything you can buy off a rack.

[Tamara]

Oh, collecting vintage Jerry 98 sporters or old-school '03s could be a hobby in itself.

If a rifle's a basket case, I generally have no qualms about using the action to build something nice, rather than condemning it to a life as a wall-hanging tomato stake.

[mikerault]

Rifles are made to be shot. I sporterized a Yugo M48. I doubt (at least for the next 40 years or so) it would ever be a collectable. I would never carry the full military dress Yugo into the field for deer or any other hunting. I am proud of the sportster I created.

[mikerault]

Only 21 million VW Beatles we manufactured world wide by the way...

[Hawg]

Only 21 million VW Beatles we manufactured world wide by the way...

And they made great mud buggies.

[jtb1967]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hawg Haggen
I remember when you could get Mosins for 9.00...
When was that? I mean, I've been slinging guns across the glass pretty much since the Berlin Wall came down, and I don't ever remember them being nine bucks wholesale...

It wasn't that long ago you could order the excellent condition refurbed guns with accessories for $49.00 each (or it may have been $39.00 each) with free shipping if you ordered a pallet full. The market was flooded and they were turning them over cheap. A few years before that I jumped on them at $175.00 each

[Shane Tuttle]

Only 21 million VW Beatles we manufactured world wide by the way...

And you further prove my point...

[Ignition Override]

Amen.

[Tamara]

Tell me about it.

I bought my first Enfield, a horribly bubba-ized No.4 Mk.I, for right around a hunnerd bucks in early '86. Not a few months later, FOPA '86 went through and before you know it, the market was glutted with fresh intact imports for the same price...

[Volucris]

Rifles are made to be shot. I sporterized a Yugo M48. I doubt (at least for the next 40 years or so) it would ever be a collectable. I would never carry the full military dress Yugo into the field for deer or any other hunting. I am proud of the sportster I created.

If you kept talking I bet you could fill a cesspool. That M48 had collector's value until you butchered it up because you were too cheap to just buy a used deer rifle instead.


Another great condition M48 turned into a fudd's wet dream.

Next time you get an unmolested surplus rifle, message me and I'll trade you a random fudd deer gun for it.

[Cheapshooter]

If you kept talking I bet you could fill a cesspool. That M48 had collector's value until you butchered it up because you were too cheap to just buy a used deer rifle instead.

Yep, he could have probably prowled around gun shows and found a Mauser that someone had already Bubba'd up. Then he could do a resurrection worthy of the pride!