I had an idea some years back that maybe it would be just as entertaining--and certainly a hell of a lot cheaper--to assemble a collection of the worst Bubba guns that one could find. Instead of trying to find a pristine K or an in the box T, you could search out the 99 with the most extra holes, the worst amateur stock carving, the cheesiest Clorox-bottle inlays.
On a related note, the guys in my deer camp have a rotating White Elephant gun that we swap off every year or so. It's an old pump action Mossberg with a plastic pump slide (predates the Model 500 by 20 years or more). The miserable thing sat in the hold of a fishing boat for a decade before we got it, and since then, we've "improved" it with each passing year (pocket knife carvings of a deer on the stock, a couple of compasses, a Buffalo nickle crudely inletted in the cheeckpiece, Dremmel tool engraving of a few choice slogans on the receiver). We've given it to each other for high-school and college graduations, weddings, Christmas, birthdays, etc. It's gotten so that nobody in the group wants to receive a gun-shaped box as a gift, for fear that it'll contain "Old Mossy." Maybe that's what ought to be done with this 99; maybe it should become the traveling door prize for Savage Fest.
Rod
