I believe some of those are still in use by some of those nations. When I was in Haiti, some of the Nepalese UN soldiers were using ancient looking, wood stocked military bolt actions of some sort.Many were used to arm 3rd world nations,
I believe some of those are still in use by some of those nations. When I was in Haiti, some of the Nepalese UN soldiers were using ancient looking, wood stocked military bolt actions of some sort.Many were used to arm 3rd world nations,
Dunno when you were in Haiti but this indicates the "antique" weapons were purchased by an arms firm in 2004, ostensibly to help fund purchases of "modern" weaponry.I believe some of those are still in use by some of those nations. When I was in Haiti, some of the Nepalese UN soldiers were using ancient looking, wood stocked military bolt actions of some sort.
Must not have purchased all of them, cause I was there in 2010 and they still had some.Dunno when you were in Haiti but this indicates the "antique" weapons were purchased by an arms firm in 2004, ostensibly to help fund purchases of "modern" weaponry.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Military_Antiques
A bit of perspective. At the end of WW II 40+ million bolt action rifles were rendered obsolete. Many were used to arm 3rd world nations, some sold to civilians (for $5-10), the rest fed into blast furnaces, 1000s per day.
A Vet making $1.25/hr who wanted a Deer rifle could pick one up for a day's wages. It had crap sights, trigger, and stock. A Lyman sight, trigger, and a chopped stock gave him a legitimate deer rifle, and saved one from the blast furnace.
35 million got melted down, cherish the ones that got saved.
Great pictures, what mount is on that.
Bubba must have won the lottery.Here are a couple rifles that began life as respectable 1909 Argentine Mausers before being "bubba-ized" to .338 Win Mag and .257 Roberts. View attachment 934533 View attachment 934534 View attachment 934535 View attachment 934536
I like a WELL sporterized rifle - where it was done with attention to detail and not "half-assed". An actual replacement (wood) sporter stock, not a cut down original or a cheapo ATI. They need to be properly drilled and tapped for GOOD scope mounts - not a gimmicky "scout mount" or flimsy "no gunsmithing" mount. The barrel needs to be professionally shortened (if necessary) to no more than 24". Bonus points for extra fancy wood grades, replacement/adjustable triggers, and various other accouterments.
[...]
As someone else said - if the pool of available rifles hadn't been thinned the ones that are "collectible" wouldn't be very collectible anymore. Besides a lot of these aren't rare at all and its just the fascination with military rifles that makes people want them. They made FAR more Mauser 98K's than Remington 722's yet people will view the former as an untouchable holy relic whilst the latter is just another rifle that nobody cares what you do with it.
Particularly if you plan on keeping the rifle for a long time, then by all means do with it what you like. Nobody else will be owning it for a while anyways. Now if you're buying one, cutting it up, selling that, buying another, doing the same, rinse repeat ad-naseum, then yeah I frown upon that. Sort of like the guys buying old shotguns and the first thing out of their mouths is "I'M GONNA CUT DOWN THE BARREL FOR A 'HOME DEFENSE' GUN!" . . . and after they're bored with that they sell it and are chopping up another one.
Now that I have the correct Enfield I coveted, and a couple others that were not quite right for me — but correct, I actually want a Mick Dundee sporter for piggies. .303 works as good as the next caliber for piggies. I have plenty of .303 ammo on hand, and I “need” a new iron sighted piggie gun anyways. It’s also hard finding iron sighted centerfire rifles anyways, especially with a good stock. So I’d probably re-stock a modern rifle anyways, and possible fiddle with the sights.
The problem is that I can’t find sporterized enfields for dirt, like I did back when I was looking for the correct ones.
Perhaps after WWI, when the pay was poor, and the times hard.A lot of these guns were converted by returning servicemen after WWII who couldn't afford commercial rifles.
No. NOT shame on you! You took a rusted and abused piece of junk and restored it to a functional, beautiful shooter! No collector will criticize you for that.Shame on me!
My father was never pretty flush. He was living with his uncle and working at his uncle's butcher shop for communal support of the family when he was drafted for WWII. He'd been doing that since age 13 when his father died, and left school at that time to do this. He had seven brothers and sisters.Perhaps after WWI, when the pay was poor, and the times hard.
After WWII, most GIs were actually pretty flush with back pay, combat pay, and the like. Rather a lot of them had "bring backs" too, which included some oddball European hunting rifles, that the local gun plumber took a reamer to, the better to feed ammo from the hardware store.
The children of WWII GIs (and the "missed the war" generation) probably nearly equaled the amount of sporterized arms in the 20s & 30s. That latter group were the ones that eagerly read the stories in F&S an the like about taking a Mauser action and putting a .257roberts (or an Ackley, or some other similar exotic) barrel in it, then fitting up a fancy stock.
There were plenty of too tight, too stingy types that did all their own plumbing and hacking at arms pulled from a bucket or crate at some store, too.
I used to have an uncle who had taken a 1917 and put it in a short Mannlicher stock with the barrel hacked down to suit (call it 19-20 inches) . Which was rather loud and annoying in .30-06, if not horrible from behind the 4x Weaver on top. He used to take more abuse about his Ross, which was a commercial, not a bubba-ed military in some odd-ball 270-ish caliber (like 6.9x54mm, made from fire-formed belted cases, and necked to .270).
Thanks for the date reference. One of those links shows they kept some Ishapore 2A1's still in primary service, a sort of Lee Enfield "clone" manufactured for 7.62X51mm in India. Guess International Military Antiques snagged any and all originals.Must not have purchased all of them, cause I was there in 2010 and they still had some.
Ab-so-lute-ly! I have found that to be true (IMO) ... but ... it still bothers me, to some degree, to see one of the old milsurps that has been "reworked", no matter how well-done. S'just me.A well done sporter can be an uplifting piece of usable art. ...