Springfield garage sporter and the Lee soup can

[Buckshot]

..........I thought it'd be fun to try a few of the Lee soup cans (C309-113F) in my rather ratty tatty garage Springfield sporter I'd slapped together a few months ago.

http://www.fototime.com/47BAB9213B49993/standard.jpg

The above is what it looked like when I got it. It'd been laying in a steel box out with a bunch of other junk on a buddys property in the desert. He'd bought the place a couple years ago (complete with junk) and was rooting around in it and ran across the box with several barreled actions in it. Who knows how long it'd lain out in the rain, snow and sun?

http://www.fototime.com/8EAE60F542F4147/standard.jpg

This is what it looks like now. A pal sold me a bolt and a sporterized GI scant grip stock for $25. Another friend sold me the steel Lyman 57 reciever sight for $15, so I had $40 tied up in it. It looks like a 1950's sporter put together in someone's garage.

http://www.fototime.com/E9343A12D3693E4/standard.jpg

This is 5 rounds at 50 yards. Lee soup can and 8.0grs of Red Dot rattleing around in the case. Fed from the magazine and fired. Well the right side stripped and fired. Wouldn't feed from the left side. Group in the photo is almost life size. Measures 9/16" C to C.

Next Tuesday for the match we're shooting centerfire. Guess I might as well load up some more, eh?

................Buckshot

[Bass Ackward]

Richard,

Admirable effort on the rebuild. What did the bore look like if it produced that?

[Buckshot]

Richard,

Admirable effort on the rebuild. What did the bore look like if it produced that?

...........Was brand new. Shiney as a freshly minted dime. Barrel was full of cosmolene.

..............Buckshot

[MT Gianni]

The free gun I can live with, the stock also, but $15 for a receiver sight makes me jealous. Nice shooting. Gianni.

[Buckshot]

The free gun I can live with, the stock also, but $15 for a receiver sight makes me jealous. Nice shooting. Gianni.

.............Hey Gianni. Well he was going to give me a Williams 5D. He has a drawer full of sights. While he was pawing around in it he pulled out a Lyman 48 short slide and stood there looking at it a few seconds. Then he said, "where'd that come from?" :D. He has a ton of'em. He asked is $15 would be too much, and I hemed and hawed but finally said I'd take it.

..............Buckshot

[StarMetal]

Gosh Buckshot, you're dispicable!!!! and Bugs Bunny said so.

Joe

[Scrounger]

Gosh Buckshot, you're dispicable!!!! and Bugs Bunny said so.Joe

Daffy Duck

[9.3X62AL]

Rick--

There's no flies (or fliers) on that 50-yard chrysanthemum you fired. If that rifle is the critter to be used on Tuesday, I'm almost glad to not be there. Well, not quite. The burritos are pretty good, even when my shooting is distasteful. Good luck with that Garage Sporter Special--hopefully you'll spend all your good shots this coming week, and I can return on the 15th when your skills return to their "mere mortal" settings.

[Blackwater]

Buckshot, I just got through, or NEARLY through, redoing an old Fajen sporter stock for one of my '03's, and I think I kinda' outdid myself on the stock work - for a change. Trimmed down the forend to a nice schnable, cut the monte carlo off, trimmed down the cheekpiece a bit, streamlined and slimmed the buttstock, and generally slimmed 'er up. If it shoots like THAT one, I'll be positively ecstatic! Great job!

Ain't it nice when a plan comes together?

[Buckshot]

...........Al, why aren'tcha gonna be there Tuesday? You're home from the great frozen north, right?

...........Blackwater, Well I didn't really have the money to spend on a nicer stock so that and what it cost me (zero) to that point kind of set the pace. I'd recalled some of the sporters I'd seen over the years which I guess now are called Bubba-ized.

I dislike hatchet jobs, but have no problem with something someone has made an honest effort to accomplish. Not that even those I've set out to do really well have been so great. Yet in the decade after WW2 there were lots of military surplus rifles out there. The dollar was a lot more valuable and the average guy didn't have a whole bunch of'em, so lots of 1950's era sporters were pretty simple affairs. Well done, but simply done.

For some reason the whole idea appealed to me and as it turned out that's about what was created, so I call it the garage sporter. A modified scant grip military stock, polished bolt (same bolt handle) and an added reciever sight. The stock has it's dings, bings, and oopsies. The black forend tip is a bit loose and the added recoil pad is about petrified :D.

Just about what you'd find bouncing around in the back of a surplus Willy's pretty much anywhere in the country. I kind of enjoy the way it looks.

Speaking of that, my house was built in 1954. There is a faint bootprint to one side in the concrete driveway up by the garage door that looks remarkably like that made by a lugsole combat or maybe even a jumpboot. Maybe not, but I look at that print often as I pass by and I like to think that a 30 something year old WW2 vet turned carpenter helped build my house. There might have been several.

...........Buckshot

[Blackwater]

Buckshot, your take on the military rifles seems about like mine. I've got four '03's, and only one is as issued. The others were all "sporterized" when I got them, and what I tried to do, and had at least some success with on this one, is just making them what they OUGHT to be. My stockmaker 'smith buddy has helped me a lot, and he volunteered to rough it out for me. Must'a been in a good mood for a change? [smilie=1:

I wanted something like a 1930's style rifle that had been "worked on" by someone who put more thought into it and had more talent (kudos again to my stockmaker buddy who roughed out the road for me) than just lopping stuff off and smoothing it out. I think I want one similar to yours, though, and with 3 to work on (2 more left), I may just get my wish. Can't quite decide just how to configure them, but a HB target jobby with a Marksman style stock and 27 or 28" barrel is a real possibility. Something like Whelen, Hatcher and the rest might have shot way back when. It'd return a semblance of their past glory to them, I think, but probably none of them (except full military fighting style, of course) would top exactly what you say - one that would have rode many, many miles in the back of an old jeep or logging truck or pickup way back when, and took all the jostling and rough treatment in stride just like the battle rifle it was. Seems the older I get, and the less tough, the more I appreciate things that take a lickin' and keep on tickin'. A fitting use of a grand old battleaxe, IMO. Ya' done GOOD! REAL good!

[Fireball 57]

Bucksnort: That rifle is great! But the shot group has to go!!! "Where's the love" left with that ragged hole? There's NO frustration left. :veryconfu

[Buckshot]

Bucksnort: That rifle is great! But the shot group has to go!!! "Where's the love" left with that ragged hole? There's NO frustration left. :veryconfu

...........Fireball, well I WAS just a weensy upset. Ya see that one shot there to the left? If it had just been maybe 1/8" more to the right I'd have been a lot happier. Probably a loose GC er sumthing. :D

..............Buckshot