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April 23rd, 2009 at 9:25 am
Maybe the snuff of gun porn?
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:32 pm
I was at a black powder shoot about 12 years ago and a guy there had a original model 1795 Springfield musket in excellent condition for sale. However, he had cut the barrel down to 30 inches (normal length, 44 3/4 inches) because “people like them that way”. I could’ve puked!
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:26 pm
If it’s your stuff, do with it what you like. I don’t give a crap. Just don’t expect me to be impressed with the results.
I have a bit of a problem with people who are super emotional in their dedication to “authentic” guns. Technically, there’s only one “authentic” hand-held firearm, and that’s the first one ever built– a bronze hand-cannon. No stock, no lock, no rifling and no sights. Just hold it in your hand and touch a hot wire to the touch hole. Now that’s keeping it basic and simple! Anything else is just bells and whistles, for posers, pussies, gear heads and wannabes.
Now if you butcher a collectable, and reduce it’s value to 1/10th, it’s your loss. The world will continue to rotate on its axis.
Then there’s that guy who declared, back in the early 1800s, that the caplock rifle was the ultimate culmination of firearm design. Nothing could ever be better. Whatever. You want to Dremel your gun, go for it and Godspeed. Maybe you’ll learn something– like not to ever do it again.
You want to pass a law against altering antiques; you’ll be shutting down much of the antique market. That, and you’re a dick who can’t mind his own business.
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Then there are the factory “butcher” jobs. Depends on what appeals to you. My Rem 700 came with a machine-turned bolt. Serves no purpose whatsoever. Then there are the white spacers and black forend caps on Weatherbys. Inlays, carvings, polished and fabulously blued finishes, and engraving might be considered “butchering” in some people’s eyes, and to someone else an anodized aluminum receiver is an abomination and a sin against John Browning or some shit.
That people may try their hand at some of these things on their own is a first step– either toward something better or to disaster. Gotta start somewhere. I’m guilty, and it resulted in my eventually selling millions of dollars worth of my own designs. If it pisses someone off, oh well. Not my problem.
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Picked up a nicely sporterized 1917 Winchester the other day. It had been rebarreled to 30-30. Works fine, but I’m fighting not to have it returned to original condition.
I’m old enough to remember the time when these things only cost $29.95. Back then, that’s what you did with them; you sporterized them. You made a .219 Zipper or a Donaldson Wasp or maybe a .300 Whelden(sp?) out of it. I had one 1903 that had two separate bolts so you could shoot 30-30 or .30 Remington with it. Personally I prefer the P-14 to the P-17. Different strokes, etc.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:37 pm
I’m of two minds about this. There ARE cases where someone has taken a rare, finely-designed firearm and reduced it to junk, and that’s always a tragedy.
On the other hand, I have stated that I am through, done, FINISHED with selling firearms—though not a ‘collector’, I am definitely an ‘accumulator’. Every firearm I’ve sold, I’ve regretted. So as for the ones in my safe now, well as Lyle sez, they’re MY guns. Generally my upgrades tend to be of the very modest, drop-in/bolt-on variety, because my gun skillz aren’t sufficiently 1337 to really improve on the original design, 9 times outta 10.
And since I plan to die with AT LEAST what I have in my safe right now, perhaps my own modest additions will, in time, become a part of the unique history of that particular gun…I have a Mosin-Nagant M1891 (not -30) that some guy dumped on me for 30 bucks. It’s completely shot-out, had the upper handguard replaced with what looks like a hand-carved piece and a leather shim, and has a slim leather sling the likes of which I have NEVER seen, that looks like it was dyed blue at some point. In such condition, it almost has to be from Afghanistan, or some similar garden spot, and it’s only good for decoration. I love to look at it, and imagine what it would say if it could talk. I personally think I got the best of the deal.