Oh, you bet smellie. I've been a collector of many things, most of my life. I completely get the collector mentality, and the need to promote preservation. I just think that people should have some balance in their approach, after all we're all destroying the Earth and just about everything we touch, a little bit at a time, every day. I think its far more effective to win people over to the cause of preservation with reason. Making someone feel unwelcomed or stupid for having a slightly less preservation oriented view doesn't well serve 'the cause', or this forum, IMO. And I'm not pointing a finger at anyone in particular btw.
People can be preservation oriented without being extreme about making changes. I would never sporterize an original K98 for instance. If I had a K98, it would stay as original as I could keep it. But I will make some changes to a Mosin shooter that I feel are best for the preservation of the rifle.
As an example... a friend and I bought an ex-sniper Mosin from West Rifle. It's a 44 Tula. Very nice hardware & barrel. Crappy stock. Chipped wood, serious break repairs and cracks, worn shellac with bare wood exposed. In Soviet refurb, the dark shellac was put so thick on the butt end of the stock, that the seller at West Rifle thought it was a hardwood stock, when it was actually a laminated stock. The muzzle end of the stock was terribly worn.
Now, we bought the thing thinking we were going to keep it original to its refurb state - minus the cosmoline. But since this is going to be a shooter (target & hunting) I'm stripping the shellac, keeping the petina, not sanding. But I plan to refinish using a more durable modern finish. I'm going to celebrate the rifle's history by keeping the petina, all the dings & dents, and highlighting the various stamp marks that were burried under the old shellac and couldn't be seen before. For instance, a Tula star stamped into the wood. The way I see it, I'm not ruining anything. I'm preserving it. Not unlike anyone who removes cosmo rust preventative from a rifle doesn't consider themselves to be working against its preservation.
