Well...it's romantic to think the gun was screwed up by some desperate chap trying to keep his family fed (Jed Clampett?) but it's just as feasible that it was owned by some clunk who generally abused it and decided he would do a little of his own gunsmithing while he watched Lawrence Welk.
People are generally screwy....a close relative of mine owned a machine shop for 30 years and kept every machine in 'eat off of it' condition. But then every three years he was buying a new truck and cursing the maker of the old one for building such a piece of junk. Of course, in those three years he never once washed the exterior, cleaned the interior, or opened the hood. Imagine a three year old truck with 130,000 miles that had never had the oil changed.
