Quote Originally Posted by englishman_ca View Post
It is oh so easy to buy a $300 rifle, spend $500 on it in parts and end up with a nice $400 one.

I concur with No4MkI(T) in that sporter rifles are great projects to practice upon.

When I restore, I often replace modified, broken, worn or poor finish parts. The take off parts just get tossed into the junk drawer. Eventually, I will have enough parts to assemble a complete rifle. When I do, it feels like a freebee!

This is when I get to test out some of my more severe processes for restoration. With the less than stellar parts I can draw file, sand blast, acid soak, drill and tap, weld or paint without any quarms.

I'll play the Devil's advocate;- There are lots of No.4 rifles out there. They are not an endangered species. I say go for it and apply your techniques, you won't devalue it from the way it is now.
The English seem to not worry about refinishing a gun like collectors in North America. Like a collectable car, if the paint is bad,,, then repaint it.
If your rifle has no finish to start with, so you are destroying nothing, its collector value has already been lost.
You could however, bring it back to presentable.
G"day englishman ca, thanks for the comments and viewpoint.

As I just managed to tap out to No 4, I am adopting your (collective) suggestions of using this as a test bed for techniques.

I'm thinking about Peter Laidlericon's accurate comments regarding in-service repairs and maintenance. Aside from the first issue of the rifle from the Factory to the District Logistics Unit armoury, Service rifles are 'used' in varying degrees. Whether there is FTR work, or Unit EME work done on the rifle, it will have been changed, maintained, repaired along the way. So, if one is to restore a rifle, sympathetic to the period finish and material and process, then I wonder just how much arguing the fastidious collector can make over the 'authenticity?'

I really like your analogy of a collectible car. If one was to present a 1926 Model T Ford at a Concourse d'elegance, in "as stored condition" meaning dragged to of the back of a shed from the back of Old Jones' farm where it had been parked up since his grandfather died, it would be certainly 'original' but in a very shabby state of repair. Conversely, a three year restoration process, new paint, new upholstery, new tyres and current spark plugs that work certainly don't diminish the value of the artifact, but enhance it. Each to their own point of view on that.

I'll qualify my understanding of restoration. The commonly discussed US based commercial re-manufacturers of Service rifles, with rock or river in their logos, are certainly not restoring rifles. They are manufacturing, or re-manufacturing reproductions. Often very well to good quality. But never the less, not genuine.

This is a very helpful forum and in a short time I have been impressed by the passion and the genuine interest by others in expressing what is held important to them in authenticity and relevance. If one can't learn from others like the people in this forum, then I doubt if one could learn much at all.