Bob, if there weren't guys building customs like you and your friends did in the 80's I probably wouldn't have ended up with such a great deal on my 338 win mag. You know the one built on the H&H action with stainless barrel and brown precision stock. Don't know if you saw that one
.. Don't worry, I won't post a picture of it.. Anyway, I won't tear one apart to sell just to make a profit. However, I have taken stocks off of my rifles and sold them on ebay so I could invest in stronger more weather resistant stocks (Mcmillan comes to mind). In my mind, I'm always hoping I'm helping a good guy out when I do this. Maybe some poor guy has a beautiful fwt with a broken stock due to a tragic accident and he is desperately in need of a good stock. Maybe someone is looking for just the right stock and he comes across one of mine for sale. I'm hoping I just made his day and it helps me to get the stock I want. Sometimes I just hang the original stocks on the wall and admire them. I've had some sit in a cardboard box and I start feeling like: "Damn, someone could be using that stock instead of it just sitting in that box!!!!!". EricM's rifle (1951 std wt comes to mind). That rifle was a beautiful piece of history. It was all original until I took the stock off because I didn't want to mess it up any further. I'm a serious hunter/shooter and figured that rifle would benefit from a nice pillar/glass bedding job, but I'd be damned if I was going to do that to it's beautiful original stock. So I found a very nice subject to work on and the pillar/glass bedding turned out pretty good and the rifle is an absolute tack driver/sleeper. I still appreciate that rifle for what it was and is now. I actually used that rifle in some of our hunter class centerfire competitions here at my gun club and walked away with money every time. Eric knows how much money I had into the rifle after I sold the original stock, rear sight (22G/3C), scope, sling, original aperture sight (new still in the box) that came with the rifle when I bought it, you guys getting the picture?? Plus it won me money at the local shoots. Damn, if I add that into the figure you don't want to know how much I had into it!!!! I'm just glad Eric is a truly understanding individual and realizes what that rifle is!! I guess for his rifle I deemed some of those parts unnecessary for my use and this is why:
1. Original stock: Too nice to use and glass bed and mess up...
2. 22G sight obstructed too much to use a good modern scope..
3. Original peep/aperture sight would probably never get used..
4. Old redfield scope (3-9x40) was very nice, I just wanted a more modern scope on it....
Other things I'll do is glass bed magnums!!!!!!! I pulled a very nice stock off of my 375H&H and sold it on ebay so I could use a dual cross bolt stock because it is a stronger style stock. It's not as pretty, but it's stronger and sometimes that's more important to me. Being a hunter first, shooter second, and collector last, that's just the way I deal with pre 64's. Like I've said before, I keep it honest so a guy knows exactly what he is getting and let the rifle sell itself. What erks me is when a guy is selling a rifle that he deems "all original", when it is blatantly clear it is NOT!!!!
Good discussion here. I'm sure we will not all see eye to eye on this, but this is kind of where I'm at with it....
