We settled for buying a cheap military surplus rifle for a WEEKS wages and SPORTERIZING it. Lacking this they would be equally satisfied with a Griffin and Howe sporter or an Al Linden conversion, costing 3 months wages. Most folks would have like to have a Model 70 costing two months wages. In the 50-60 era a military rifle was considered to have poor sights, poor stock design, poor triggers and they were excessivly heavy for a SPORTING rifle. If you are lucky enough to find a complete one in good shape, it will be a good shooter with cast bullets, too.īTW, even though the receiver on the old ones is long and "clunky", the bolt stroke is actually a little bit shorter than that of the K31. A lot of these were not well cared for by their owners, either. 308 Winchester and so-marked, usually on the rear sight base. The breech threads and cone were recut and then it was chambered for. The second variety was made from the Gew 96/11 the barrel was shortened and set back about 1" at the breech. If you find one that has not been abused, they usually will shoot very well with cast bullets. They were inexpensive, "odd", and usually not well cared for by their owners. The bolt face, extractor and magazine lips were tweaked for use with the 30-30. The Gew 1889 was shortened the 7.5 x 53 chamber was reamed out and an insert was brazed in (sort of like the Chilean long rifle conversions to 7.62) and chambered for 30-30. The Gew 1889 and Gew96/11 were declared surplus by the Swiss around 1960, so these provided the "raw material" Lets face it, you're a day late and a dollar short.Īlpine sporters came in two varieties initially. You weren't there, you have no idea what you're talking about, get over it. So I take exception to your comments about what you would like to do to those of us who cut them down. He bought me a really minty Argentine, all matching, for $13.00 at Sears. My dad bought me a very nice byf 41 P-08, all matching with a matching fxo mag for $49.00. Navy marked S&W M10's were about $25 or so. Broomhandle Mauser pistols for $35 or so and Bolo's for about $10 more. Now, as I was even then a collector of original military rifles, I kept a lot of them as issued but sporterized a lot of them also. I later bought a very nice JP Sauer (ce) 43 and all matching for $35. It was costly then, I think about $13.00 per hundred. This was before Norma started selling brass for the Japanese rifles. We bought the T99's because they were cheaper than the T38 6.5's and easier to make brass for out of 30-06 brass. They shot very well with cast bullets and 50 grains of H4831 which was less than a dollar a pound. Must have done at least a half dozen of them. We cut the barrels to 18", sporterized the stocks, put Williams ramp front sights on them and Lyman 57SME rears. We bought T99 Japanese rifles, but only the good ones with chrome bolt faces and bores, for $10. A lot of what I am today I owe to that man. I didn't have the money to buy a 22 rifle to trade him. My old high school English Lit teacher had a new Browning High Power that he had taken out of the Browning plant that he wanted to trade me for a 22 selfloading rifle. You could buy the finest of Lugers for $40/50, P38's were about $35 and I had at least three of them. A new Winchester M70 was about $129 but no one had that much money so we bought the cheapo military jobs and sporterized them. I'd say probably 90% of those old military rifles were sporterized. This gun had to have been taken out of the manufacturers factory. The guy had just moved into the house and found in the attic a brand new Gustloff Werke Kar98k. My dad had a guy come in his lab one day from a house next door. There were Lee Enfields for $10/15, Kar98k's were about $30/35, I bought and sold a lot of Chilean M95 short rifles and carbines for $20 or so. BTW, back then those NRA conditions applied to the bore condition also. If we bought three or more the price went down to $18.00 or so. We bought NRA VG/EXC M1917's made by Remington and Winchester for about $28.00 or so. What you guys aren't old enough to realize is that back then we bought those guns really cheap, even then. I never saw any of the 30-30's or 308's so I have no idea how the conversions were done. Some of the later 89/96's were redone to 308 Win and sold. Whoever did the work did a good job on it. I had an 89 that had been sporterized but it was in the original caliber. They sold a bunch of these back in the late fifties/early sixties.
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