So after the 2 world wars when these rifles were cheap and available as surplus, folks were buying them as a cheap alternative to a factory rifle. I'm told many were sporterizing them, including re-stock, rebarrel or ream, and other metal work for less cost than a factory rifle.

At toady's prices, even if the rifle was free I couldn't get half that work done for less than the cost of a decent or even good factory rifle. How cheap were these things back in the day? Was labor cheaper or just the materials?

It seems to me there's quite a few sporterized A3-03's and mausers floating around at pawn shops and gun shows. I have a sudden fever to own one and am wondering about the history.

I brought my frist mil o3 a3 for 30 bucks in 68 had the bolt bent and drilled and tapped and safety installed for 20. put a herters stock on for another 12 or so.

a lot of the sporterized 03's and mausers i see at the gun shows have been stuck in grandad's closet for the last 30 yrs or so,,, and the grandkids that inherited them are trading them off for newer black rifles or whatever the fad is for today... sadly the 40's, 50's and 60's styling of these older conversions is going away... i bought my first 93 mauser as a sophomore in HS at age 16 from the HS superintendent for $25.... got my rcbs reloading kit, press and dies for $29... loaded 7x57 with a case full of 4831 and a 175 gr sierra...

had the NRA deliver an M-1 carbine from the DCM for $17.00 sometime in the 60's

1961 in Jacksonville, Florida.

Your choice:

M98 Mauser, 1917 Enfield, 1914 Enfield, or a SMLE Enfield.

$19.95 each.

They were stuffed in 55 gallon steel barrels with the tops cut off.

Ammo was a buck for 25 rounds in a paper bag.

1963 at Ye Olde Hunter's in Alexandria Virginia. $35.00 would get you a Springfield 1903, a Walther P-38 or a Mauser HsC. Not able to make up my mind, I bought all three. I still have the Springfield.

Earlier, $12.50, as I recall, got you an 03A3 from the DCM. Mine was rebarrelled to .220 Swift for about $50.00 and fitted with a Fajan stock for about $12.50. I killed a lot of varmints with that rifle, then sold it in favor of a Hart barrelled pre-64 Model 70 in the same caliber.

I helped a friend with his varmint rifle. 98 Mauser from a gun show for $25.00, a take-off Buhmiller barrel in .250-3000 rechambered to .257 Roberts for $35.00, a Fajan stock for $12.50 and a Unertl 1" target scope (bought through my USMC Reserve unit) for $37.50.

In this same time frame I bought about seven Winchester High Walls, both complete rifles and actions, and the most I paid for one was $35.00.

Of course, corrected for inflation, it would be about ten times more. After all, a Coke cost a dime at that time and a gallon of gasoline $0.35. A new Volkswagen cost $2000, and minimum wage was not much above $1.00 an hour.

As a kid (born 1916) my father bought a 30-40 Krag Springfield for $4.25 IIRC from the NRA or DCM. I still have it, with a receiver sight.

quote:

Originally posted by xausa:


Of course, corrected for inflation, it would be about ten times more. After all, a Coke cost a dime at that time and a gallon of gasoline $0.35. A new Volkswagen cost $2000, and minimum wage was not much above $1.00 an hour.

Right so what did a Winchester or a Remington go for at the time?

Still seems like you got a good rifle for about $200-$300 in today's money, which would barely get you into a plastic centerfire rifle today. I'd take a worked over Mauser or Springfield over a Charles Daily any day.

In '63 an ADL 700 was $114.95, BDL $139.95. A Model 70 Winchester (Standard Grade) was $139.00.

In 1967, the going price for a used pre-64 Standard Model 70 was about $135.00. I bought several at that price from a dealer in Texas who advertised in Shotgun News. Featherweights were less expensive, unlike today's market.

I bought my first 1917 enfield (Winchester made) in stockton California from Sears & Roebuck for $10.00

In those days everyone was a custom builder.....a few of today's greats got started back then......Herter's supplied us with a lot of cheap stocks and supplies.....

I'd say a great number of Enfields and springfields are still sitting in closets and the owner guards them as "one of Dad's prize guns"....not to be sold.

In fact, by today's standards of gun building, the vast majority of them was butchered. Many rechambered to .300 Norma Mag....very few rebarreled as barrels weren't cheap...

The 30-06 became King of all the shooting world as everyone had one and wanted to reload and shoot every bullet conceivable in it....It was a great time for shooters!

WoodHunter,
flashback to the old Army/Navy surplus stores of the 50's and 60's, every town had one. Dark and dusty with the overpowering fragrance of cosmoline and old canvas.Those 55gal drums stuffed with any and all military rifles. I remember riding a NYC bus with my Mom, a 1917 Enfield and .99 cent bayonet and nobody giving you a second look after a shopping excursion to the local Army/Navy store in Queens, NY.
Thanks for the memory
Bob

In the period from 1945 until 1960 Mausers, Springfields, Swedish Mausers, Enfields, Greek Mannlicher Schoenauers were widely available and cheap. During that period I bought only Mausers built from 1930 until 1942 at no more than $12, Springfields (high numbers) for less than #15, Enfields (Win and Rem only) at less than $10, and Greeks- 5 at $6 apiece and the actions were good. Most of these were purchased from Bill Rogers at Springfield Sporters. His son Russel, still has the firm and I am happty to say he has been a good source of parts. The Jaeger side mount sold for $30 from Paul Jaeger in Jenkinstown, PA. Herters and Fajin suppplied stocks at very low prices, together with finishing materials and fibre glass.
Many of us found surplus rifles that shot reasonably well for that time- say 2 inches at 100 yards. That was accurate enough for our purposes. Gunsmithing was limited to rechambering, rebarreling, drilling and tapping.Scopes were just coming into fashion- Lymans for those with some cash and Weaver K series for the rest of us. There were more stock butchers than you can imagine but often the metal was left unharmed. It was a fun time, taking an old surplus (that was absolutely dependable) and changing it into something more pleasing to the eye (of the builder). I can only guess at the number of pristine 1909s, DWMs, G33-40s (obviouslly I like Mausers) and Springfields, etc have gone through my hands. It was a great time to be alive.

But in Germany, at the close of the war,all weapons were gathered and placed on piles the size of small houses- and destroyed. Drillings, fine shotguns, double rifles, gorgeous Mauser sporters. A waste that was incomprehensible at the time, and,looking back, just another example of the futility of war.

quote:

Originally posted by dfcjr:
But in Germany, at the close of the war,all weapons were gathered and placed on piles the size of small houses- and destroyed. Drillings, fine shotguns, double rifles, gorgeous Mauser sporters. A waste that was incomprehensible at the time, and,looking back, just another example of the futility of war.

It hurts to read that but haveing to see it would be terrible.

quote:

Originally posted by dfcjr:
But in Germany, at the close of the war,all weapons were gathered and placed on piles the size of small houses- and destroyed. Drillings, fine shotguns, double rifles, gorgeous Mauser sporters. A waste that was incomprehensible at the time, and,looking back, just another example of the futility of war.

As a former Assistant District Attorney, I was involved with confiscated weapons as evidence for a number of years. Theoretically, once their evidentiary use was accomplished, the weapons were periodically taken to a local foundery and melted down.

However, it was quite noticable to anyone who took the trouble to check, that none of the really good weapons, Colts, Smith and Wessons, Winchesters, Brownings, made it to the melting pot. They somehow were saved for the benefit of certain members of the police department.

I have no first hand information on what happened in Germany after the war, but the number of drillings, double rifles and commercial Mausers which survived indicates to me that there was a similar system in effect there.

I have heard stories of soldiers being marched past such piles of weapons and being allowed to select one each to take home as a "trophy".

Unfortunately for me, there were no trophies to bring home from my war in Vietnam, except my intact ass, which was all the trophy I wanted at the time.

quote:

xausa: none of the really good weapons, Colts, Smith and Wessons, Winchesters, Brownings, made it to the melting pot. They somehow were saved for the benefit of certain members of the police department.

This was abundantly clear to me several years ago when I attended a confiscated firearms auction held by the police department.

In the early '70s the county sherrif's dept here switched from Winchester 94 carbines to ARs. To this day "nobody knows" what happened to the Winchesters. More than a few people do know where they went.

I am very partial to sporterized 1903 Springfields. I have three of them (6.5-06 AI, 338-06, and 35 Whelen). Over the years I have completely upgraded them into reasonable custom rifles (new barrels on 2 of them, Timney triggers, bolts turned, Leupold V3 scopes, and fancy English walnut stocks).

I do admit that this has been a 10 year process, and I know for a fact that I could have bought new factory rifles for less -- but it was my decision and my money. The nostalgia comes from the fact that I took my first four elk with the 35 Whelen (my first Springfield) in the mid 60s when it was still wearing a peep sight.

Then I inherited my second Springfield from a close friend which had a shot-out barrel and I just did not want it to sit there unused. I inherited the third from my father when he passed away, but it had a boroken sporterized stock and a "sloppy" chamber.

Again, why have any memorable treasure that was unshootable, so I slowly fixed them all up. I enjoy them and accuracy-wise I would stack them up against any factory rifle.

Barstooler

In answer to original poster's question, I believe greed was not as dominant in that society as in this one.

Most families lived in houses of about 1,000 sq. ft. in the cities, and were tickled pink to own it. Ours was 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, 1,050 sq. ft., on a lot 62' x 137' and the mortgage shocked my folks to where they actually cashed in my college-fund insurance policy with Lincoln National to help pay for it. It was $52 per month.

To us, it was outrageously priced. We had sold our similar sized house on 1.25 acres in Phoenix for just over $2,000 total, and our house before that had cost us less than $250 cash and a lot of "sweat-equity". (We moved to California to escape the Arizona heat in those days before air conditioning.)

In 1955 I was working as a switchboard installer for Western Electric in Los Angeles...for $28 per week (take home). On that I could afford an apartment of my own, a car, an occasional bottle of scotch, food, clothes, and a couple or three guns a year. Movies were 17 cents admission. And in our area at least, Cokes were a nickel, not a dime. Bread went up from 7 cents a loaf to a dime a year or so before that, but a bus token to anywhere in town was still 7 cents, if a person didn't want the expense of a car.

Inflation was there after the war ended, though. By 1959, I had to pay $100 for a custom-stocked Mauser in .22-250 with a Pfeiffer barrel and a Unertl 2" "Programmer" 20-X target scope at the local used gun emporium. (They threw in 125 rounds of handloads.) My virtually new Krieghoff Luger cost me $15. So did a Remington 1911 .45 Auto. I got a Colt .45 SAA for $35.

I bought a brand new Ford 1/2-ton pickup in 1959 for $1,700...and sold my 1955 Austin Healey roadster which I had bought for $1,200 and driven the heck out of.

The biggest difference of all, though, was that most folks still believed in doing most things for themselves. Except for the people in apartments, most everyone raised a few chickens, had a big garden, maybe a few rabbits, perhaps a cow for milk.
We repaired our own cars, built our own houses, installed and repaired our own plumbing and electricity, made a lot of our own clothes, re-soled our own shoes, created our own recreation, and YES, even did our own gun work. And if we didn't, our next door neighbor, or brother-in-law, or some other close friend or family member did.

We weren't dependent on international corporations and unable to do for ourselves the way this society is. So we didn't have to pay whatever those guys with the $20 Million annual bonuses want to charge. And we didn't have to support the social welfare system that is obliged to give every lame Dick enough money that his precious self-esteem isn't compromised...and to which everyone now feels constitutionally entitled.

Personally, I preferred the older system, even with all its hardships.

And I thought that $165-$180.00 a pop for 1908 Brazilian Mausers with matching numbers at Toonerville Junction in Allentown, Pennsylvania was an amazing deal in 1998-1999. I bought five of them.

I should have bought 20.

Now a good one is $350-$450.

Sincerely,

Chris Bemis

10 years ago VZ-24s were going for $69.95 at the Big 5 chain stores out here, and they had them "on sale" now and then for $49.95.