I think the main problem of blued steel and walnut classic guns is that they are built too damn solidly. There's so many of them out there in perfectly servicable condition that many people interested in that sort of thing are just going to buy them used and who can blame them? Firearms manufacturers get the short end of the stick here because they really can't profit off of used guns being sold, so the marketing departments think up some grand new trend to sell new guns with. With the state a lot of modern hunting and firearms magazines are in, it's an easy thing to shill even the worst of garbage to the general populace. You can basically create demand with a snap of your finger that way. It's only natural if you think about it: The whole AR-15 accessory market today is probably larger than the entire US firearms industry 50 or 60 years ago. A light here, a grip there and you can keep raking in cash for years with the same gun. Of course left handers like OP are a little screwed by this development since lefty rifles probably only make up a few percent of the ones already in circulation.
