Time marches on, and I'm glad I won't be around to see the ultimate demise of blue steel and walnut should it happen. I'm old enough to still view a greasy old Mauser as the basis for a custom sporter, not as a collectible relic. About the only thing I wouldn't touch would be a mint G33-40 simply because of its insane value. Beyond that, they're all fair game as far as I'm concerned. I think it harks back to the time when all that stuff was viewed as "spoils of war", to be done with as one saw fit. I think too, it was a natural reaction of a generation of folks (and their children) who witnessed the horrors of war and had a subconscious need to transform the tools of that horror into tools of peace- sporting arms with more sensitive aesthetics if you will.
What better way to further erase the stigma of the Nazi's, for example, than to tear apart every 98K built between 1933 and 1945 and transform it into a sleek pretty sporter? My uncle shipped home a minty BRNO 98K from France in 1945. I did quite a number on it years ago, and would do it all over again now.
Very well said. Good Post.
