Re: Easiest WW2 era rifle to DIY gunsmith?
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: DPRoberts</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Sporterizing vintage military rifles is a deadly sin in my book.
By improve I meant taking a rack grade infantry rifle and getting it to the level of the handpicked sniper rifles of the period. I'm just looking for a project that has the head room to let me make a noticeable difference in the accuracy and function of the rifle. Anyone can slap a scope on a rusty Nagant and call it a sniper rifle but I want to make a rifle worthy of the name.
Maybe I just have delusions of grandeur... </div></div>
It depends on how good your skills are and the tools you have at your disposal, or at least have easy access to.
I have had a couple of replicas made (98k and No4T) and am in the process of getting a third (M1903A1) madde now.
ON all three, there are challenges that require precision engineering if you are to do a worthwhile job that does not run the danger of devaluing the rifle, ending up with a rifle that will never shoot straight or, worst of all, destroying the rifle completely.
I would recommend that you do not try to make a DIY No4T - this is far and away the hardest to do properly.
There is a good reason why there are a lot of scoped 98k and Moisin - these are probably the simplest to achieve but are still very easy to f*ck up if you drill the receiver in the wrong place and then have to start welding and re-drilling or shiming/grinding the scope mounts or rings.
After the scope/mpunts, you may wish to polish or replace the trigger and bed the action (either by traditional means or with more modern techniques/materials.
However.....all this is just window dressing if the rifle you choose to convert isn't capable of holding a better than average group in the first place.
Most of the contenders in WW2 (certainly in the UK, germany and US)were pre-selected as they were proven to shoot better than millions of similar rifles of the same type.
