My 92 year old friend proudly showed me the M1903 Springfield sporter he built back in the early 60's. Its very pretty pre-war style sporter stock made me do a double take. But then I saw the serial number and thought "uh oh". It's a low number job. Then he told me the chambering: 8mm-06. I asked him why and he said because he thought 8mm was a wiser choice than anything else. (Remember this was 60 years ago and 8mm bullet selection then was abysmal.) Oh well. He said if I want it it'll be mine someday soon. I figure the wood will look good on something else....
Guys routinely re-chambered war surplus 8mm Mausers to 8mm-06 back in the post-war era because it was a way to make the guns go bang in an era when 8x57 factory ammo was nigh nonexistent. But to purposely choose that chambering for a custom gun would've made no sense when there were like, maybe, three or four dodgy bullets for it on the market.
