Rant: A customer brought in a sporterized 1903 Springfield last week, wanted it 'restored' to original.

He had already taken a file to the receiver bridge and cut the stock down himself. Told me he saw a video on how to do it. Now the metal's messed up and the wood is too short. How do you even start explaining that some things can't be fixed?

2 comments

2 Comments

rayc8915d ago

Tell him you're a gunsmith, not a time traveler. Saw a similar thing once where a guy tried to fix a cracked lug with epoxy because a forum said it would work. You just have to lay it out straight. The metal is gone and the wood is gone. You can't put material back. Best you can do now is maybe make it a decent shooter again, but that original rifle is dead.

martin.margaret15d ago

But what if the original rifle isn't just the metal and wood? The history is in the dings and the repairs. I've seen a stock spliced with a period-correct walnut graft, and a lug rebuilt by a jeweler who understood old steel. It's never the same, sure, but calling it dead feels wrong. It's more like a really hard save.