I would say that maybe 90% of the CMP rifles I see posted by happy owners in the forums look real nice. Some look great. I must be unlucky or the CMP folks have it in for me. Both of my CMP rifles looked like hell. I bought the HRA from the mid 1950s because others said these tend to be nicer than the WW II vets. Well, mine looked like it was dragged behind a truck over 10 miles of bad roads.
I sold one rather than spend many hours trying to salvage it and the other now has about 10 hours of labor invested trying to improve the appearance of the stock. But after much steaming and sanding it still looks worse than what I wanted, which was a decent shooter.
I bought the SGs, and they looked more like RGs to me. Everyone says "read the grade descriptions." OK, read them. Except for a couple words in the last sentence of the RG text (the rack grade will generally be rougher) they are virtually identical, word for word, actually. The photos I see posted by other owners all show rifles that look much better than what I received.
If I were to buy another CMP rifle (and I won't) I would probably order the rack grade and plan on buying a replacement stock for it. But that's me. I wanted decent (not perfect, I know they won't be new) wood and buying a new stock solves that problem. I hate to spend the money now after doing all that work on the old one but I may still do it.
Or, just count on being (unlike me) in the 90% who get good ones.
Here is where a bunch of guys jump in to defend the CMP products. Well, I am only reporting my experiences.
