What's with the 'Bubba' thing?

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ratherbefishin

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I've got a bone to pick with the general sneering attitude by some of the wet behind the ears snot nosed 'purists'....before you look down on 'bubba',please remember that many if these 'bubba'd ' milsurps were cut down and sporterized for one and one reason only,by returning servicemen who had served their country,endured the hell of war and now were 'forging their swords into plow shares' by using what was designed to kill men into a tool to put meat on the table ,rather than sitting home collecting government handouts so before you look down on 'bubba' and run off at the mouth, just give that a moments thought.

Would I ,today, chop a milsurp? ( but I did,as a kid,it the $8 Lee Enfield 303 was all I could afford ) no,obviously not ,but would I refurbish and clean up and refinish a fine old 'sporter',carry it with pride and shoot it ,take a deer or moose with it?you better believe I would....and with no apologies either....some serviceman left his home and served his country with that rifle and then turned his weapon of war into a peacetime useful tool.
 
Usually the cut down enfield's are described as sporters, not bubba's, the term is usually applied to really poor workmanship, and not generally as a term for modified enfields, someone cutting a barrel down half crooked with not a thought about trying to recrown the barrel would be considered "bubba" or glueing a scope on for instance.
 
What set me off?....ignorant comments by ignorant people out to remove any shadow doubt about how ignorant that were...tell you one thing ,though,and that is the guy who chopped his old 303 was probably more concerned about making it a 'carry rifle ' than a showpiece,and if a hack saw cut some weight off , so be it...he wasn't a gunsmith and didn't pretend to be..but as long as the bubba'd rifle could be picked up cheap after he moved on,it made a great project to practice some skills on-and a fine shooter .My Ruger No1 stays home on rainy days and my sporterized swede 65x55 takes its place

One thing I have noticed and that is you generally don't hear old guys who actually have gone to war or been shot at looking down their nose at 'bubba'd ' milsurps...and my goal as a kid was to 'save up' enough to buy a genuine 'Parker Hale'...
 
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I try to reserve the term bubba for badly executed "custom" work including contemporary attempts to make an old milsurp tacticool. When surplus rifles were plentiful and cheap and not yet collectible, and sporting rifles were in short supply because war production of arms and equipment had diverted so much of the manufacturing capacity and it had not yet returned to serving the needs and wants of civilian consumers, converting military rifles to sporting rifles was not a bad thing. It's all part of the history, worth remembering, and sporter conversions are artifacts of that history too.
 
Speaking for myself, I only use bubba to describe people who still chop and mod pieces of history. I know rifles like Mosin's are a dime a dozen, but so were Lee Enfield's at one point. A mans property is his to do with what he will, that is his right. But it's also my right to think he's a dink.
 
kamlooky said:
The Buhbubba photos should start any time soon now?
And there arrrrr sum dewzee's.
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Sporter Enfield:

img_2164-jpeg.61033


Bubba Enfield:

DSCF0295.JPG
 
NicholasN said:
Speaking for myself, I only use bubba to describe people who still chop and mod pieces of history. I know rifles like Mosin's are a dime a dozen, but so were Lee Enfield's at one point. A mans property is his to do with what he will, that is his right. But it's also my right to think he's a dink.
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Well put, cousin.
kamlooky said:
The Buhbubba photos should start any time soon now?
And there arrrrr sum dewzee's.
Click to expand...
I wonder if anyone can top (go lower?) than grelmar's example of a bubba'd LE in the photo above?
 
Bubba is reserved for the hack job specimens, the poorly done garage hacksaw and rockerguard coated guns. Sporter'd rifles done right, tastefully are not bubba'd.

Example: A friend of mine took a nice numbers matching pre war 91/30 (not a hex thankfully), he sawed the front of the forend off at a forward downward angle and painted the stock flat black. It's a bubba'd rifle now, but hey it's his and he likes it. I'll keep mine stock, or if I mod a Milsurp it will be reversible and all original parts will be saved in case I need to put it back to stock or sell it.
 
Personally I really don't care about what your opinion is. Your entitled to yours, just as I am entitled to mine. I just find it funny, about arguing that purists are ignorant, when they have a much larger grasp of the history involved with these firearms then most people who cut them up ever did. The fact they understand the history also shows they are not ignorant (the definition being 'lacking knowledge or awareness in general') as they are aware of what has happened and understand what has happened, which in actuality makes them educated.

The fact is, to collectors, the cutting down of these firearms is one considered of the worst atrocities ever committed. It has happened so there is no reversing it, however people do wish to prevent it happening to the current run of milsurps because even though they are common now, doesn't mean they will be later.

There is so much which has been lost because someone wanted to make a military rifle into a hunting rifle (plenty examples of pieces which should have been in museums which were instead cut up). In this day and age especially it is a true atrocity to do it, as hunting rifles aren't even expensive now.

Some were really well done, and I personally don't really consider that Bubba, most however were done by amateurs who didn't have a clue what they were doing. If you like them, that's your opinion, enjoy them.
 
Bubba is reserved for the hack job specimens, the poorly done garage hacksaw and rockerguard coated guns. Sporter'd rifles done right, tastefully are not bubba'd.
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Exactly. It's for the kind of rifles that look like they belonged to Frankenstein's monster and were worked on by brutal methods.

Best I saw was a repair on a Winchester rifle stock done with a nailed on bit of soup can complete with jagged edges and sharp corners. :)
 
The odd war souvenir was sportered by the vet who brought it back though not many from what I've seen in my area. Most were cut down and modified by backyard "gunsmiths" back when you could get an original k98k or Lee Enfield for less than $20. Not much value was placed on these rifles historically or otherwise. I have seen no small number of special order Winchester lever actions that were cut down and hacked up years ago when they were considered "just an old gun". Collectors have nightmares about this stuff but at the time these rifles were not valued highly and fair game for the hacksaw.
 
Robert Nicholson said:
I wonder if anyone can top (go lower?) than grelmar's example of a bubba'd LE in the photo above?
Click to expand...

That was a quick easy find with google image search. I'd be surprised if no one went lower.

But I was trying to make a point. There's taking a beat up old milsurp, and trying to do right by it and make it into a useful gun. That's just making a sporter, and in some cases, that's probably the best possible outcome for some of these rifles that have been rode hard and put away wet.

Then there's... Bubba.
 
Eaglelord17 said:
Personally I really don't care about what your opinion is. Your entitled to yours, just as I am entitled to mine. I just find it funny, about arguing that purists are ignorant, when they have a much larger grasp of the history involved with these firearms then most people who cut them up ever did. The fact they understand the history also shows they are not ignorant (the definition being 'lacking knowledge or awareness in general') as they are aware of what has happened and understand what has happened, which in actuality makes them educated.

The fact is, to collectors, the cutting down of these firearms is one considered of the worst atrocities ever committed. It has happened so there is no reversing it, however people do wish to prevent it happening to the current run of milsurps because even though they are common now, doesn't mean they will be later.

There is so much which has been lost because someone wanted to make a military rifle into a hunting rifle (plenty examples of pieces which should have been in museums which were instead cut up). In this day and age especially it is a true atrocity to do it, as hunting rifles aren't even expensive now.

Some were really well done, and I personally don't really consider that Bubba, most however were done by amateurs who didn't have a clue what they were doing. If you like them, that's your opinion, enjoy them.
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If the historical significance is that important go buy more so you can keep them out of the hands of bubba.

Its not like we are talking about hacking up rare guns here. Sure supply has decreased but there is still plenty of decent specimens available. Any collector could easily purchase a good condition mosin or enfield, and this fact won't change any time soon. Are they $12? No, but nor is anything else these days.

There were literally millions of these rifles made. If you want to spend your money on a good one and butcher it, then your stupid - not because there is a problem with modifying something you paid for, but because you should have gotten a cheaper one if you wanna mod it. Why pay collectible prices for a (soon to be) non-collectible? That just doesn't make sense...

But nobody is ever going to cry over a non-matching beat up wartime production mosin. They will never be collectors items - at least not in our lifetimes (or our kids)
 
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