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"There is some reason that most times I prefer good used rifles - the bugs have been worked through and all the rough spots have been smoothed by time."

This is certainly my attitude, just as it is toward buying a new car. The benefits of a "new" car are far outweighed by the precipitous drop in value after the car has been driven once around the block. A nice clean car with 25,000 miles on it is the ideal buy for me. Similarly, a nice rifle which has spent its life in someone's gun cabinet somewhere is greatly preferable to one "NIB". I can use the money I save in buying "used" to configure the rifle to my own special wants and needs. The alternative would be starting with an action and working from the ground up, but I prefer to experiment with a rifle for a while to see if it merits further improvement in the form of a custom stock or other embellishment, and buying a complete rifle allows me to do this.

I am speaking here primarily of bolt actioned rifles, like one of my more recent acquisitions, a Mannlicher Schoenauer 1950 carbine in .270 Winchester already fitted with a Griffin & Howe side mount. A short barrelled .270 bears no allure for me, if for no other reason than the noise factor, so my first modification consisted of having the barrel rebored and rechambered to 9.3X62, which required some modification of the magazine as well.

A suitable scope mount is always an issue with a MS, and having a G&H mount was a plus for me, since it allows the absolute minimum in scope height, and makes stock modification unnneceesary.
All I needed to do was to remove the existing Lyman Challanger 26mm scope, which lacks a centered reticle, and substitute a 4X Lyman All American Perma-Center with my favorite post and crosshair reticle, and the little rifle was ready for the woods. So far I have used only 232 grain bullets and I suspect I will need to have the action glass bedded if I decide to use heavier bullets, since the stock does seem a little fragile for heavier recoil.

My old BRNO 602, which I did buy new years ago in Germany, had its barrel shortened and the front sight relocated before I ever received it from the retailer. My next modification involved a custom stock to replace the "American style" monstrosity with which it came. Then there was the addition of a Model 70 type 3 position safety to replace the "reversed" original safety, and now it is in the process of being rebuilt to .500 Jeffery. After many months of waiting, I am eagerly anticipating the outcome, which I am told is only a short time away.

I am sure I will never buy a new car again, and I doubt if I will ever buy a "new in the box" rifle either.

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