Should You Use a Sporterized Military Rifle for Hunting Season? 

I have bought two sporterized rifles, one was a 1903a3, which I restored. The other was a 30-40 Kraig. It was was sporterized really nice, so I left it along. I am happy with it.

I am old school I still hunt with military surplus rifles its what I cut my teeth on back in the 70s and 80s they are still reliable even after all these years

Ive got a great Remington 1903 of some variant that was sportarized by someone who knew what they were doing. It is excellent how it is. Ill just use it as is.

I have built and sporterized five 98 Mausers. FUN! I rechambered all but one. All 98 mauserr 8x57 to 30-06, 257 Roberts, 7x57, 308 and one I left in the original barrel because it shined like glass. They are all drilled and tapped for scope new glass bedded stocks done by a reputable gunsmith. I did the barrel work, cut and crowned short chambered barrels, which I finished reamed. I intalled new safeties and timney triggers and a either bent the bolts or cut and re welded the bolt handles. 100 million Mausers were made they are not going extinct. I keep and collect quality curios but some guns make for fun projects. The 98 is strong and in my comfort zone. My 7x57 shoots nice 0.73 groups at 100 yards, 20 inch barrel really nice. I found the best way to blue these rifle is to parkerize and paint. I have done three this way. My 257 Roberts I blued at the Susanvile gunsmithe school while taking summer courses. I really like sporterizing rifles it is not a big huge mess like rebuilding a motor or changing a transmission. The rifle parts all fit in one neat drawer. I think a Carcano rebarreled in the original chamber with a twenty inch barrel and a mannlicher stock would be a nice fast brush gun. One thing this guy got wrong is real quality sporterized 98 Mausers go for bank because they are outstanding artistic quality rebuilds.

“Back in day” when milsurps were cheap, it made sense. Now with the cost of milsurps, it makes no sense, unless it is so f-ed up - then that’s ok.

Used a sporterized 7.7 arisaka to take a big buck yesterday

Americans would go nuts with the hundreds of thousands of sporterized military rifles in Europe. It's amazing how cheap & common they are over the pond. 🤠

The people wailing and gnashing their teeth over what my grandpa's generation did to what at the time was cheap surplus junk need to find a new hobby, like Beanie Babies... I'd never sporterize a rifle TODAY, but there is often an art to the old 20s-60s sport jobs. I had an 03 Mk1 with a scope once. Scope and mount appeared in a 1949 hunting magazine. Those by themselves were worth what i paid for it. It was a really well done piece.

I’m a 24 year old adult with a fascination for old military stuff 😅😅😅. Make fun of me if you want but I love sporters. It’s mainly due to the fact that the condition I prefer would cost too much in an original condition military firearm. Although I have a unsporterized Japanese arisaka type 38 that was a family inheritance, all of my other military guns are sporters. And I’ll have you know my 1903 A3 that my grandad sporterized with a help of a gunsmith is my all time fav. It has a custom timney trigger and although it has been reblued and sporterized of course, I have killed many deer with it. Out of all the guns I have the O3A3 fits me the best I’m short and small for my age and it fits me good, I guess because of the length of pull idk. And I think originally they had like 12.5 lop which is short but I figured since it was sporterized it would be a bit longer but it’s not and it fits me good and I love it. Hate sporters if you want but I’ve killed more deer than I can count with my sporter O3A3. Any of my other guns are too long and I cannot get full view of scope or reach trigger all the way except MY ALL TIME FAVE THE 1903A3 SPORTER WITH A MONTE CARLO STOCK CUSTOM TIMMNEY TRIGGER AND LUEPOLD VX FREEDOM SCOPE.

There's also in my opinion. 2 versions of sporterizeing theres works of art with beautiful Engraving and custom wood stocks. Then theres the looks like someone left there uncle alone with a 50 pack a beer, a chop saw and a dremmel tool. Art is one thing. A gun thats not even safe to fire because they drilled into the chamber in there attempt to drill and tap a non butchered k98k in 2017. The gunsmith ended up with it and still wanted 600$ because of some "dirty birds"

I'm kinda on the post-bubba'd part of this equation. One of my milsurps is a Yugo Mauser M98/48. It's a really nice rifle built on a German action with a German bolt. But it's had its Yugo crest ground off with what looks like a carbide burr operated by someone with Parkinson's disease. The bluing is little more than a memory in some spots with some pitting on the barrel. Other markings are still present, but the stock has been cut down, finish stripped down, non-matching wood blocks glued on and poorly shaped to extend length of pull. This one is the one I'm debating simply going full on into the conversion to a sporting rifle. I might leave it in 8mm Mauser although the bore isn't the cleanest thing in the world. It still groups OK, but the rifling has definitely seen better days. So if there was a reason to change it to a more common caliber in the USA, that's a good excuse. Get a decent stock for it and fit it with a rail for optics. It needs far too much work to restore and it's not all that valuable right now. The action is long enough to handle almost anything I'd reasonably expect to shoot, but .308 and 6.5 Creedmoor seem like good bets. Maybe .277 Sig Fury if it catches on as a sporting cartridge...which is funny because you'd think someone would have come up with a .308 necked down to .277 before Sig did it a couple years ago. I don't need the crazy high pressure one. The other milsurp I have is an old Springfield Model 1899 carbine in .30-40 Krag. This was actually my grandpa's deer rifle. Still has the military sights on it and I know he's bagged a few deer and antelope with it. It still has all the markings intact but the stock is long gone, although it's wearing a nice Monte Carlo style black walnut replacement that really is a nice stock. This one is definitely worth restoring, but finding a correct stock is very pricey. Not too many 125+ year old pieces of wood still floating around out there. And .30-40 Krag is not easy to come by these days, so if I luck into a deer or elk tag, stopping at Big-5 and grabbing Krag ammo is not gonna happen. I guess the real question for me is whether or not a restoration is worth the effort. You're probably not going to turn a profit on a resto unless you got the original gun for cheap/free. Getting old correct wood is not cheap. You could also be restoring a rifle that is beat up and shot out with a dark, pitted bore. It will still safely fire but your accuracy is going to be frustrating at best. By the time you find a replacement barrel, have a gunsmith fit it, get a stock and fit it, you're probably at the price of a new sporting rifle. Ruger and Savage make really nice budget rifles as a starter. But if you just want a project or you want to make a sporting rifle, go for it.

the why is rather simple. After every conflict you have a military force which has disbanded and often has gained possession or the enemy small arms. During a conflict, there is less demand and supply of sporting small arms (this includes ammunition). In business terms, its supply and demand. Moreover, former military members are familiar with their indigenous surplus and captured surplus so that is also a consideration. The victorious forces are often awash with captured weapons that are are not part of their standard issue (again, over supply which drives down price). More importantly, the victorious military force does not want the enemy small arms, so this increases the quantity and to some extent the quality of the small arms chosen for "civilian modification". You also have the question of potential clients who are usually citizens of the victorious nations who have had relatives and friends killed by these small arms, not good optics. In short, that is why the small arms of the vanquished find their way to the armorers benches for modification.

If so many hadn't been sporterized, the original ones wouldn't be worth as much as they are now. That being said, I hunted this year with a sporterized Mauser K98 in 7x57. The checkering on the cut down original stock looks amateurish, but the bedding of the action and rebarreling look professionally done. The barrel is also free-floating. It came equipped with a Leupold M8 6X scope from a private seller for 450. And it is definitely more accurate than I am.

I love the surplus stuff. I’d never sporterize one myself. That said, I’d buy a nice one! My uncle made one back in the 1960’s on a broken stock 1903 Springfield. He did a fantastic job.

Back in the 40's/50's. Why buy a rather expensive sporting rifle when you can buy a surplus military rifle for a few bucks and cut the stock? They did the job amd fed families just as wel as a hunting rifle costing a lot more.

Beautiful hunting story.

To me Historically yes cause the military rifle during those time is almost the same or not to different from as a civilian hunting rifle in some cases it mostly performs the same and instead spending something new that prices tremendously higher than a "used surplus rifle" that performs relatively the same you don't need to be told which one is more feasible

Yup. I pretty much share your opinions Dan. Thanks for the pics of the Enfield and the video. Cool stuff.

I have a decent looking Krag that has been sporterized. Yeah, if you're looking for a cheap hunting rifle, it's not the worst idea in the world. But the kicker is that you can buy an intro hunting rifle for cheaper than a sporter gun these days.

There’s a difference between sporterized vs bubba’d

Swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. History remembered but brought forth to peaceful purposes. I guess I'm ok with that.

What’s with the mouth area of one of the deer pictures blacked out? 🤔😜