Look, what I do with a rifle is irrelevant to the discussion, but in answer, I don't give a cat's rat about the gun itself if I have a project I want to make of it. Realistically, if I could make an easy sale and get rid of the "Holy Grail" and bring in more than the cost of a gun or project I wanted to fund, I'd do that, but selling some of this "junk" for top dollar is not as easy as some suggest. And the difference between the value of the unmolested and the molested is...who cares? Having said that, yeah, if I saw a neat action on a stock condition Mauser of whatever date of birth and wanted Szihn to make me up a nice neat wholly-transformed mountain rifle, I would ship it to him postehaste!

And I really couldn't care less, I mean, any less, what some other guy does with his. EXCEPT if I was a collector. ESPECIALLY if I was a collector {and once upon a time I was, of M/N's, and had quite a number of them, some rare, some not-so}. Then I would care and more than that, I would keep on hand a fresh stock of brand spanking new hacksaw blades to hand out at every gun show I visited! As I said, if you are a collector, you should rejoice every single time you see some Bubba take an angle grinder to a model you have purchased. Bubba is your best friend!

Milsurp collectors very frequently express a conviction that large numbers of folks on the street are dying to get ahold of their preferred objects of desire, when nothing could be farther from the truth. Most people consider this stuff junk. It is hard to argue with them, overall. To say "So and so" shouldn't have done what he did because he could have gotten X amount for the thing over here in faraway land is, seriously, kind of silly. And getting that big money for those "rare" milsurps even over here at home is not as easy as the collectors seem to think. Most non-collectors have zero contacts in order to make that "killing in the market".

Honestly, I confess, I've been a mutilator of milsurps. But I have gained far more enjoyment over the years cobbling on "rare" milsurps than I ever would have had just "knowing they are sitting there in the gunsafe". But some are collectors and for them, that is great. Tenderly care away! Have at it.

I don't begrudge anybody any chopping and slashing, or preserving. To each his own. To me these issues don't rise to the level of important in any way and I sure wouldn't disparage a guy for chopping any more than I would the guy that wants to keep a pristine collection of them.

I am not going to retire on milsurps. For those that plan to, I suggest you keep them pristine, and encourage others to do just the opposite.

And let's not forget that EVERY SINGLE 27, 28 or 28/30 ever made is "rare" and thus should, buy some people's standards, not be touched whether it is in factory new or talvisota-troubled wrecked condition, as, you see, there are actually those collectors who WANT the battlehardened versions. So to them, even carving up a battered example is sacrilege.

I am pretty opinionated about many things, but when it comes to guns, I really have no opinion as to whether they are preserved or cobbled on. To each his own.