What a Shame

[rgs1975]

This rifle is 75 years old. It belonged to my great grandfather originally. He bought it new in 1933. From great granddad to my grandad to my dad and to me. My dad has childhood memories of my grandad putting food on their table at the old farm with this very rifle. It's been sitting in my safe for about a year. Before that it was in my dad's safe for about 20 years. Dad can't remember the last time it was fired but he says it was probably before I was born.

The "customization" you see is from my dad as a kid. For what ever reason he didn't like the original peep sight on it so he took it off. He then took the sight off of his BB gun and installed it onto this rifle. That hose clamp has been holding that sight on the rifle for about 50 years. HAHA

It's a Montgomery Wards Western Field Rifle Model 35A (made by Mossberg) in .22 caliber. Single shot, bolt action.

I took it out to snap some photos tonight and discovered that the chamber is pretty severly broken. Very dissapointing as I'd really REALLY looked forward to taking this to the range and doing some plinking with it.

[762cavalier]

Hard to tell from that pic but that looks more like carbon build-up than a broken chamber.

[bigthaiboy]

Your chamber isn't broken. Many rifle chambers including those on .22s have those cutouts. My Marlin .22LR has an almost identical cutout in the chamber.

The "customization" you see is from my dad as a kid. For what ever reason he didn't like the original peep sight on it so he took it off. He then took the sight off of his BB gun and installed it onto this rifle. That hose clamp has been holding that sight on the rifle for about 50 years. HAHA

Whatever gets the job done!

[g17owner]

I bet you could still fire it with low powered 22's. Although i would probably just put it back in the safe and keep it as a momento

[phbiggs]

Wouldnt the extractor need clearance in order to close the bolt, resulting in the relief cut there?

[bigthaiboy]

Wouldnt the extractor need clearance in order to close the bolt, resulting in the relief cut there?

Bingo! I've never thought of why the relief cut was there, but I think phbiggs nailed the explanation right there.

[rgs1975]

Well, color me purple!

It's going with me to the range the next time I make it out and I'll post about how it does.

[Gwenzilla]

I have a Savage/Stevens mod 120 that looks almost exactly like your Wards single shot. Its way - way old and we shoot it all the time. It has the exact same cutout as yours (although ours is slightly more polished than yours, probably from being used and cleaned so much).
Is that band clamp being used to hold the sights on ?

Wear eye protection make sure the bore is clear and... Shoot it.

[Mitch]

I have a couple of gunsmithing books from around 1950. From reading the books, it's pretty clear that the primary business of a country gunsmith was sporterizing Mausers and Springfields into deer rifles, what we today call "Bubba rifles."

The only reason we look down on these sporters today is because the basic platforms are now more rare in an unaltered state, but back in the day a sporterized Mauser or Springfield (or even an SMLE) was your father's main hunting piece. It was less expensive to sporterize an old milsurp (which were available mail order for very little money) than it was to buy a fancy factory-made deer rifle from Winchester or Remington. Of course, today it's the opposite. I'm sure it would cost a thousand dollars to have a proper sporter job done on an old milsurp, if I could even find a gunsmith to do it. It's been something I've thought about doing for a long time, starting with an old Turkish Mauser action, just for the sake of history.

Anyway, all that to say I really think there is some value in these old "Bubba rifles," since they represent a particular moment in the development of the shooting sports, when milsurps were plentiful and so were the skilled gunsmiths who could sporterize them; and people bought mail-order working .22s and customized them to their own particular tastes (the way we do today with ARs and AKs). My father has a Springfield M1903 he sporterized back in the fifties, and he's always shaking his head telling me how much he regrets doing it now. But I have two USGI Springfields in armory condition I got from the CMP, so it's not as if they are unavailable. Yet a nice, good-shooting sporter Springfield like his is not so common anymore. It's a beautiful rifle, much prettier than my USGI Springfields, with a unique history of its own.