This is not directed at anyone here, but it is a statement in general!
I'm always curious how everyone assumes when they see these rifles that they are a definitely a bubba put together?
Yeah, they are a mixup of miss-mashed parts that look like bubba put them together.
But that is not always the case!
I'm far from being new to the Milsurp world, lets say 50+ years experience, so please don't say it comes with experience!
When I was in the CDN Forces I was mostly attached to the Weapon Tech world, myself staring out and 99% of all my close buddies were WPN Techs.
Some of the last Ranger No4's were pretty dam rough rebuilds and even the odd No4 MkII was thrown in the pile for good luck in the last of their remaining days.
I saw plenty at base maintenance at Borden and my close buddy who is now a deceased was a senior Wpn-Tech at the school. (SGT R.J. Cosgrove RIP)
They were ridden hard and put away wet as the saying goes.
In the late 80's and very early 90's the Forces were dumping and destroying all the inventory No4 parts, including wood furniture as they had become surplus to our needs.
They had MLVW's and APC's driving over the parts before they made their way to the dumpster.
You guessed it, with everything crunched, all of a sudden Ranger No4's were entering the system for repair at Borden by the boat load.
With no parts left at Borden, a call out went across Canada for any depots to return any unaccounted No4 Parts and as you would guess, sweet bugger all came back.
Some of the Techs started attending local gun shows and buying up the surplus Irish No4 MkII's to be stripped for parts.
You may call this BS, but I was there to witness it first hand.
They handled these Ranger rifles all the time and I will say, I witnessed some of the worst No4 mix-mashups.
In the end, if the part fit and the weapon was serviceable, they were good to go.
Beggars could not be choosers in those days.
Same goes for battlefield repair during war time, if the part for repair was serviceable, the weapon was good to go.
When the No4's of whom ever make left the factory, very few remained as factory original, as there was always upgrades in the system over the years and sometimes the upgrades were not necessarily using a Longbranch part or what ever make the parent rifle was.
Hell, Savage parts were used during wartime on LongBranch rifles directly from the factory.
Long story, in my world, they are all a put together unless they are in the wrap or still have that factory tag hanging on the trigger guard like the 1950's Longbranch's from a few years back when they came in from Greece.
Now beyond the Forces, I was a CDN Firearms business for a number of years and my main interest was military surplus.
There were grades of excellent, good and bad on the wholesale market and some of the No4's that were brought in from Pakistan, Iran, India and Greece made this one in the original posting look mint.
A lot of these rifles were bought up back then and now some of the owners have their lives timed out and they are now re-entering the surplus market once again.
Do we really know bubba did it?
We can always assume, but to me, it's just part of their history!
