Buy the rifle not the story!!!!!

[Patrick Chadwick]

This rifle illustrates the "was is Bubba or was it official" dilemma perfectly:

https://www.milsurps.com/showthread....ht=Fianna+Fail

Thanks to the knowhow on this forum (and thanks again to Frederick and Peter) I now know that it was indeed an official makeover, and not Bubba. And until I knew, I avoided doing anything to it - apart from removing the horrible varnish, which definitely was Bubba. That was a tricky one: some aspects (new barrel, renumbered, extended butt) were part of it's history, the thick layer of varnish was not.

In other words, the most important aspect is knowledge. You need that before applying the knowhow. Otherwise it is possible to fall into the trap described by a delightfully compact German word "Verschlimmbesserung" - making it worse by trying to make it better.

I doubt that we will arrive at an internationally recognised "standard", but at least we are trying to clear the fog. I particularly like Seaspriter's term "malicious hoarders" !