SPORTERIZING A SPORTER?

ENBLOC

It's nonsense to take an original military bolt action and covert it today into a sporter. What do you think of taking some of these "bargains" in bolt actions that were "sporterized" out there and having a gunsmith really do a custom job? Or just clean up some of these "attempts" at a hunting rifle. Just wondering?

Hawk Carse

Great idea. Take a 1960s sporterized Mauser or Springfield and you have a good source for an action, maybe a barrel And the scope mount holes might even be straight.

sandwarrior

ENBLOC,

I've got several. I made the mistake of sporterizing a 1909 Argentine about 17 years ago. It was a realy nice shooter. This time around I'm even having a hard time tearing up the Turk '38 I bought specifically for that purpose.

But, I've a got Chopped up M48 that's going to become a short 7mm. And another 1909 that had it's chamber reamed out to 30-06. It's got a 30-06 case but gets loaded with .311 bullets.

As long as there is plenty of meat (metal) on the action and the boltface/lugs no problem.

Restoring one of these won't make it more attractive to a collector because they want one in original condition. Some collectors would take one that was brought back to original equipment. Just no where near the money they'd pay for an original. Most times it's cost prohibitive to do that. So if you want one that looks and feels like an original, go that route.

fastcarsgofast

That's my plan with an Enfield. I figure if the rifle is already ruined by some hack then why not clean it up and make something nice out of it.

spec.4

When CIA had the 5 for $$$ u-fix-em deal, I brought 10 yugo. M48 and 5 98/22 Czach mauser. I put 5 good rifles together and the rest used the action for projects. Sold one mauser to a friend because he needed a hunting rifle. I order the taller front sight and went to the range and file it down for him. Sold the rifle for what I paid for the lot of 5. Told him and he did not care, because he knew that he was getting a nice rifle. Chamber was tight on the go guage and it look like it was never fired, just had a broken handguard, which was replace from a donor rifle.

Spec.4

beantownshootah

quote:Originally posted by ENBLOC
It's nonsense to take an original military bolt action and covert it today into a sporter. What do you think of taking some of these "bargains" in bolt actions that were "sporterized" out there and having a gunsmith really do a custom job? Or just clean up some of these "attempts" at a hunting rifle. Just wondering?

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me, and actually I think its potentially a good way to go if you know what you are doing.

In general, the biggest reason NOT to alter milsurp weapons is that you're destroying their collectors value (or a piece of history, if you prefer to think of it that way).

But if the gun in question has already been altered/converted, there may be no collectors value to destroy. At that point, you might as well work on making the gun a GOOD "shooter" instead of a lousy one. If you can get the benefit of a cheap gun to start with, why not?

I think the biggest thing to be careful of here is just not investing too much in a gun like this. It pretty much goes without saying that unless you are doing the work yourself, or starting with a base gun that cost almost nothing, the final market value of your sporterized conversion will probably be less than your total cost.

That's fine, so long as you're left with something you like.

That's also a good reason why buying someone ELSE's conversion might be smart. . .you may end up paying less for it than the cost of creating it.

Just consider that if you start adding together the costs of a new modern stock, new chamber (and/or barrel/headspace), drill and tap for scope, maybe bending bolt, trigger job, etc, plus the cost of the original gun, you may be out of the "cost effective" category. If the total costs of your project approach (or exceed) the cost of just buying a more modern used gun in the same caliber, you have to ask if the project is worth it.