bubba will never understand the horrors of his actions. Best to love the rifle for what it was and what it currently is. All while doing your best to prevent future horrors
One serious bit of reality needs to put forward here.
At the time those rifles were disposed of by dozens of different governments, from all over the globe, there were millions of them available, of every different type, from every manufacturer in the world.
Many of the identical actions had been sourced from the same manufacturers, to be made into not only very functional but beautiful sporters, by hundreds of different small gunsmithing operations as well as large international corporations. Purpose built sporting rifles were well beyond the budgets of most citizens of the times.
Think back a bit further to "The guns that won the west." Most people believe it was done with Colt single action pistols and lever action rifles. Hardly, the average Sodbuster and settlers used shotguns more than any other type of firearm. They seldom owned anything else.
When military surplus rifles were made available, at affordable prices, people weren't interested in collecting them. This was their first and maybe only chance to get a firearm that was powerful enough to extend their range to more useful distances.
All of the extra wood and stock ferrules/bayonet lugs, sight protectors, etc were surplus to their needs and frankly took away from the sporting rifle appearance that was the fad of the day.
A huge and highly profitable industry sprung up around "sporterizing" mostly very functional and reliable rifles/handguns, whose fate would have been the smelters.
Many of the people that bought those rifles on a whim, just squirreled them away and forgot about them. Those are the little treasures we search out today.
Then there were the home workshop aficionados. They would purchase the best that was offered and start cutting almost immediately. Often the rifles were factory fresh and floated in preservative, then wrapped in protective coverings for long term storage.
It was less than five years ago that I purchased a cut down mod 1935 Brazilian Mauser barreled action and complete receiver. $200. The rifle had been purchased in the mid seventies from a local gunshop for $75.
I bought this from the original purchaser and he had taken off the stock, burned it in his wood stove, thrown away all of the metal bits not needed for his sporter build.
A bud of his, with a lathe, had cut off and recrowned the bbl at 24 inches. Then cut off the bolt handle and welded another with a more pleasant contour in place. That's where the build stopped. Life got in the way and hunting/fishing weren't as attractive anymore.
He was quite smug about the fact that he had almost tripled his money, until I pointed out to him that he had missed out on a 20 bagger, if he had just left it alone.
All said and done, you should thank all of those "BUBBAS" for helping to preserve our hunting heritage and inadvertently preserving many pieces of history in a useful manner.
I sometimes cringe at what's happened to many of those firearms. Then I reflect on what's happened to many more of them that met their fate at the smelters.
