Shooting-wise, most of them were in pretty fair shape when they got to this country. And most of them haven't been shot a great deal because ammunition, for many years, either was rare or non-existant.
There is a recently-installed STICKIE at the top of this page which gives you just about ALL the information you would ever need on this fine rifle. Included are detailed photographs of the entire stripping process and all safety features which you must know.
BEST thing for one of these rifles is the installation of a small set-screw with a tiny lock-nut up into the Gas Block of the rifle. Adjusting this will stop the thing from wrecking your brass and throwing it several provinces away, possibly knocking out an errant Tiger tank in the process. Yeah, they REALLY wing those empties hard..... hard enough to hurt someone..... and you can't reload them (which saves half the cost of ammo).
Once you have taken care of that, you have one of the most military accurate rifles ever built..... in a fantastic calibre. AND you can reload the brass!
Likely this is the single most undervalued milsurp there is. Although prices have just BEGUN to rise, you can still find them in the $350 range. There were just about 6 million Garands made, as opposed to around 30,000 or these.... and a Garand these days tops a grand. Go figure. As shootin' irons, they are worth MUCH more, especially if you like superaccurate, very damned LOUD rifles. But they will win matches if you can hold one.
BTW, Canada is a Free Country. I do hope that magazine has been pinned to 5 rounds, just the way the California tree-huggers and Ottawa Liberals all demand. A word to the wise; when these rifles were imported, we didn't have stupid laws such as this.
Most important of all: have fun!
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I really appreciate the advice. i know it is hard to tell the condition of the gun from the pictures, but the wood seems to be in pretty good shape. If the action functions and the little bits of rust clean off how much is one of these worth in it's pictured condition?
