Thanks for the info, Lancaster. I expect you're right on the cut down stock and conversion. I pulled it out of the back of the safe and took another look at it. When comparing it to the others in this thread it does look like the rear sight was filed down and the express sights added. If someone was doing a sporter from scratch I'm sure they wouldn't have used the nasty looking front sight either. It is the original military sight, isn't it?
The stock has a cheek piece that was added and it also has a dowel under the checkering plugging a through hole in the wrist. Someone probably just took a file to the action to give it the hexagon shape. I wonder what that would have done to the action strength?
Too bad it wasn't a full length stock, I really like the looks of those. Removing the barrel band and hand guard wood, shortening the forend wood and adding a horn or ebony tip would go a long way to improving the looks of this one. Adding a barrel band swivel and replacing the front sight with a nice ramp would be even better.
Thanks again for posting the pictures. The only way I'll learn more about my vintage firearms is from the experts such as yourself.