It wasn't Bubba per se' that altered those rifles.
When they were first released into North America, they came in through International Firearms out of Montreal.
They were never plentiful. I don't know how many went to Finland, likely courtesy of the Germans after occupying Norway and some were even issued to second line troops, in and out of Norway. Most were never seen again.
Many of them were Stomperud marked, before being reissued or given away.
Several companies, such as Globe Firearms and some British firms, picked up these rifles very cheap in the early fifties.
The vogue of the day was to convert as many milsurps as possible to what were considered to be "useable hunting rifles"
The Norwegian Krags weren't as popular in North America as ammo was difficult to come by.
Dominion was the only North American manufacturer of ammo and it was only offered in 160 grain, lead tipped, round nose, to my knowledge.
The commercial smith companies did what they could to recoup their costs on these rifles and often did a pretty good job on the conversion.
Around 1966 I went into the International warehouse with Alan Lever to see what was on hand, that he could turn over for a quick profit.
One of the things we saw were just over 3500 Norwegian Krags that were marked as parts rifles. Most had been converted to Drill Purpose rifles in Europe.
They had all had their chambers milled away at the top and the tips of the firing pins were ground off.
They had all been ridden hard and put away wet. There were both full length rifles and carbines on those pallets, complete with most parts/furniture.
We were told they were all going to be broken down for useable parts, which would include workable receivers that needed new firing pins, including trigger guards.
The stocks would be graded and offered for sale in the US as well.
There were another 1500, mostly carbines and a few rifles on other pallets that were in Very Good to almost Mint condition. Those pallets all had Globe Firearms posters on them.
I believe International had a deal with Sidney I Robinson and Sears for them to be converted into sporters for their catalogues.
I do know that a few pristine examples were held back and likely jtaylor has one of those. I don't believe more than a few hundred were held back.
At the time, US Springfield made Krags chambered for the readily available 30 Gov't or 30-40 Krag cartridge were flooding the surplus markets as well. So was the ammunition for them, which was also being offered commercially in a couple of different bullet weights in just about every LGS and hardware store.
John, does your rifle have the Stomperud stamps????
It may have come out of the crates of unissued rifles we saw, maybe ten to twelve at most.
Right beside them were crates of brand new in the wrap Greek 6.5 Mannlichers. I was given one of those rifles and promply converted it to a sporter. I liked it so much that I even went thorough the process of making up and mounting a Claw Mount base with special dovetail rings to accept one of the very nice Carl Zeiss, DDR scopes that were available from International at the time.
I still have that rifle in my safe, with a Hensoldt Wetzlar scope and rechambered to 6.5x57
In 20-20 hindsight, I should have just left it alone.
I did manage to pruchase a couple of very presentalble Greek Mannlichers later at good prices, but they moved on as well because of expensive and often unavailable ammo.
