Was'nt the red stripe on lend-lease guns put there by the Britishicon to indicate non-standard caliber? It looks like 30-06 has been painted over the stripe using black paint. There was a batch of Garands imported a while back that had the stripe with the numbers 30 or 300 on the red to indicate they were .30 cal not .303. I would leave the stripe alone, it's part of the rifles history.