Show your work horses and bubba rifles

[Warbeast]

The hose clamp is absolut top level bubba engeneering.

Absolutely love it.

Sometimes i wish for a rear sight on my smoothbores. I guess you call em fowling pieces then.

And congrats on the house.
Carpet looks fine to me.

 

[PanhandlinPat]

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Old coast to coast pump action 20 gauge, killed many hundreds of ducks, pheasants, and deer.

My dad realized he couldn’t hit anything with the “damn thing” so he put a hose clamp around the barrel, and adjusted where it sat, using the V of the screw head meeting the body as the V of a rear sight in a pinch. Once he had it sighted in it worked so well he never felt the need to take it off. Once the original got too rusty to leave on, and his last year alive that he hunted, he replaced the hose clamp with a new one and sighted it in. Was his go anywhere do anything gun for anything too big for a 410/22, which was his favorite.

The second image got rotated wrong and the rear sight is a bit out of focus, but I think it shows well enough how he used the sight.

Now onto my own personal “workhorses”

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Top to bottom: Winchester XPR in 350 legend, LC smith field grade 1944, mossberg 500 from 2006-2008 ish?

The XPR has a pretty durable finish on it and I really don’t purposefully knock it around, so it doesn’t look too dinged up. However the wear on the bolt and the cerekote where the ejected rounds hit the back of the receiver show how much it’s been used. I’ve taken probably 30+ deer with this gun in the last 6-8 years, whenever the 350 was released. I preordered it at launch to immediately not have to use a shotgun slug on deer anymore. As someone who cares about accuracy that was huge for me.

The LC smith I bought when I was in high school, I’ve taken a good amount of pheasant with it. Haven’t shot it in a year now, the forend needs a replacement piece I can’t remember the name of and there’s no gunsmith near me willing to do it, I just haven’t been bothered enough to ship it somewhere. If someone knows of a reasonably priced side by side gunsmith feel free to message me.

The mossberg 500 was the gun my dad bought me for passing hunter safety when I was 10-11 ish. It’s taken many deer, thousands upon thousands of clay pigeons, to various clay competitions in college before I upgraded to a browning Citori, many pheasants before I bought the LC smith and even a few after I got it. It actually looked a lot worse before I re blued the barrel and magazine tube, although the wear on the magazine tube is already appearing again lol. I used to have a slug barrel for it but it was stolen at some point, and I don’t have a need for it since I use my 350 for deer in Iowa now.

Ignore the hideous carpet lol I haven’t had the budget for flooring yet, just got this house a year ago and have had other priorities lol.

I bet if you made a post here about the smith you’d have a few options by the end of the day. With that said if you ever find yourself in the Texas panhandle holler at me, I know a guy here who can fix just about anything. An old ford machinist who would rather rework a part or make something from scrap in his shop than buy from a parts dealer. He’s fixed some doubles for friends of mine. His pricing is also very good.

 

[Rifleman97]

I bet if you made a post here about the smith you’d have a few options by the end of the day. With that said if you ever find yourself in the Texas panhandle holler at me, I know a guy here who can fix just about anything. An old ford machinist who would rather rework a part or make something from scrap in his shop than buy from a parts dealer. He’s fixed some doubles for friends of mine. His pricing is also very good.

I know what it needs mechanically speaking. Not sure on the terminology but the spring loaded lever that clasps to the underside of the barrels to lock the fore end in place had its tip broken off so it doesn’t lock securely anymore. Welding on a new piece longer than the original, filing to fit, and re blueing is what it needs. Pretty basic fix, take maybe an hour or two of skilled labor.

I used to go near that are quite often when I was in college and dating a girl from the north part of west Texas, but now that all my exes live in Texas I’m not sure the next time I’d be in that area will be at this time.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

That 21” barrel handicaps it a bit. Mine is a highly compressed load, have to crimp the bullets. Very accurate though and very consistent. Point I was getting at is the old cheap stock is well designed so it’s easy to shoot. Much easier than my FN 338 win mag pushing a 210 grain partition at the same velocity.

@PanhandlinPat
Mines and old Stevens 200 aka Savage 110 with a plastic stock. That stock fits me like a glove so recoil is like a kittens caress.
With CFE223 you can load 70gn behind a Sierra gkbt without compression.
Bob

 

[DG870]

I just bought this rifle. Excellent mechanical condition but worn from being carried a lot. Wish it could talk because I’ll bet it put a lot of meat on the table in its day. I’m going to try and shoot a deer with it this fall. It’s a Savage 99 in 300 Savage manufactured in 1953 so it’s only a couple of years older than I am., but it’s in better condition .

 

[Rifleman97]

The hose clamp is absolut top level bubba engeneering.

Absolutely love it.

Sometimes i wish for a rear sight on my smoothbores. I guess you call em fowling pieces then.

And congrats on the house.
Carpet looks fine to me.

I don’t have it anymore, but he also used a “sling” on that shotgun. It was a sling that was just a really thick white rope with a knot tied around each end. Whenever he’d kill a deer he’d until the knot, tie it around the deer in whatever way he thought would work best, and use it as a tow rope. He had an extra piece of rope in his orange vest he could use to tie the gun to his toe rope, and be able to put the gun across his waist and walk, spreading out the weight out so he could go further before needing a break.

He never washed the rope, so it had a decent amount of several year old dried blood on it lmao

 

[Humphrey_Ploughjogger]

1917 made Mauser 98az from the arsenal at Erfurt. In original 8mm, but stock cut back. I bought it this way, and it makes a dependable bounce around in the truck companion.

 

[steve white]

I just bought this rifle. Excellent mechanical condition but worn from being carried a lot. Wish it could talk because I’ll bet it put a lot of meat on the table in its day. I’m going to try and shoot a deer with it this fall. It’s a Savage 99 in 300 Savage manufactured in 1953 so it’s only a couple of years older than I am., but it’s in better condition .

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If it was scabbard wear it would show on the barrel, too. Guess it just rode in his hand.

 

[DG870]

If it was scabbard wear it would show on the barrel, too. Guess it just rode in his hand.

You’re right, no scabbard wear. Looks like it was carried a lot by hand. It has the Parker hale hook style sling swivel studs installed and they look like they have never been used so it appears never to have been used with a sling - just carried a lot by hand.

 

[TaylorM456]

Not a rifle but I've had this SBE1 since I started hunting on my own, a personal point of pride that all of the wear on it was caused by me. Originally it had a walnut stock but it got broke on a decoy sled about 15 years ago. Yes that's electrical tape holding on the old small Easyhit sight they don't make anymore. That piece of super 88 is going on 5 or 10 years now, much longer than the factory adhesive or my glue job did. A couple of pics from this year.

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Love that Chessy! Have one myself.

 

[steve white]

IMO all AR platform/plastic or metal stocked, are automatically "bubba rifles". Thinking about getting one for my first dedicated thermal, though.

 

[7x57Joe]

I just bought this rifle. Excellent mechanical condition but worn from being carried a lot. Wish it could talk because I’ll bet it put a lot of meat on the table in its day. I’m going to try and shoot a deer with it this fall. It’s a Savage 99 in 300 Savage manufactured in 1953 so it’s only a couple of years older than I am., but it’s in better condition .

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That's a fine old "R" model heavy rifle. I bought one from a fellow in Oklahoma years ago and it was the most accurate 99 I had. A friend talked me out of it a few years back and his son absconded with it.

 

[ftrovato]

I just bought this rifle. Excellent mechanical condition but worn from being carried a lot. Wish it could talk because I’ll bet it put a lot of meat on the table in its day. I’m going to try and shoot a deer with it this fall. It’s a Savage 99 in 300 Savage manufactured in 1953 so it’s only a couple of years older than I am., but it’s in better condition .

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If she could only talk!

 

[PanhandlinPat]

@PanhandlinPat
Mines and old Stevens 200 aka Savage 110 with a plastic stock. That stock fits me like a glove so recoil is like a kittens caress.
With CFE223 you can load 70gn behind a Sierra gkbt without compression.
Bob

I’m running accurate 2495, purely because I bought kegs of it at an estate sale for hardly anything! Happens to be the powder of sierras accuracy load for both their .358 offerings. It’s a grain below max and I almost have to use a drop tube to fit all the powder. Can’t imagine what the max load would look like. Your Stevens sounds like the definition of what this thread is about!