doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com With all due respect

The collectors of 1903 Springfields (of whom I'm one sort-of) would have a collective apoplectic fit if one were to take an original uncut rifle and build a high quality sporter per the likes of which Michael has been showing us. But at the risk of sounding like a 1960's-era sporterBubba-izer where would the harm be if one created a truly high end sporter with such a one?
Not that I'm contemplating doing it mind you (sidelong glances at the couple of nice ones in my cabinet notwithstanding), I'm just curious as to the philosophical stance of y'all on this subject.

I see nothing wrong with taking a rifle that has been previously stripped of all collector value and turning it into a fine sporting rifle. Now is a great time to be doing that at reasonable costs, it isn't hard to find deals on used parts, scopes, bubba'd rifles, vintage scopes, sights and mounts. Also, it is a good idea to buy beat up stocks to practise checkering, inletting, mounting Niedner buttplates, etc.
All the best

If I had a real nice 03 and wanted to build a sporter I would use it. Why should I have to build out of junk parts when I had a excellent donor.Then let a collector have the orginal stuff left. JMO Whitey

J.D. is currently building me a G&H t;ype sporter on an '03 action. Rather than find a complete rifle, and use it we spent a good deal of time tracking down a decent action that was no longer part of an intact rifle. I was also looking out for a parts rifle or a Bubba'd rifle with a decent action to use.

15 years ago I'd have used a complete, intact '03 and not thought about it. 10 years ago I'd at least had a twinge. Today I just cannot sacrifice a complete, decent '03. Like a lot of old soldiers they are becoming fewer everyday.

Jerry Liles

The artisans who created the work we admire used rifles or actions that were readily available, of acceptable quality, and were relatively inexpensive and did the best they could with them. There was very little collector interest in "old army rifles". And there were lots of them available. There were very few other options than 1903 Springfields or 1917 Enfields, especially if the client or customer wanted a 30-06 or longer cartridge. The Winchester 54 first showed up in 1925 and had some stamped parts. The Model 70 did not show up until 1935, the middle of the Depression. IIRC, the Remington Model 30 showed up in the late 1920s. If you build a custom sporter today, you have many other options. The old masters did not.

I hope you all saved a few parkerized GI .45's as well!
The're not worth much if you spent $500 accurizing them.

Complete and original 1903’s are hard to come by and command a premium these days. There are literally thousands of armory rebuilds and bubbaised 1903's out there to play with. Last month at a local gunshow I bought a 1915 1903 for $200 that was not in the best of shape with a cut down stock, D&T for a 48, got it home and ran the number and it’s a NRA sales rifle. For some reason there seem to be a lot of nice sporter stocks running around so maybe people are trying to convert them back to military. It’s kind of funny in a way because both the Wundhammer and the Adolph stocks that I restored would have had an original NRA sales rifle that was only the barreled action and metal parts needed for a sporter and was never a complete rifle in the first place.

If you are unsure please run everything by someone with knowledge of what it might have been or is.

IMO the prizes are rifles from makers who did not mark their work. Wundhammer made a couple hundred sporters and after collecting info on him for twenty years I know the whereabouts of about fifteen.

Michael, don't forget my Wundhammer Krag

No doubt. Just try buying a decent stock or parts for an 03. I looked all over for a rear barrel band at the Tulsa show. Finally found one. It and two screws were $50.00..... I had to pass on that. Decent 03's and 03A3's are generally running $600 to $1000. Decent Krags with a shootable bore are hard to find at less than $800-900.00

Mark,

Your Krag is one of the fifteen, I checked the records and fifteen is the number.