Sporterized G-43 rifles are being seen more and more at gun shows across the country in the condition shown here and worse. The rifles with the rear sight base cut off with a plate welded over the top are some of the worst examples of sporterizing ever seen. We have no idea what Bubba was thinking. As awkward and useless as this appears, this modification was done on many rifles. These rifles sell for the value of the original parts that remain on the rifle. The receiver was considered to be a loss...until now. With painstaking attention to detail and careful craftsmanship, these rifles can be restored.
Above you see the fully restored rifle once again in military configuration and ready for the range.
Every step has been carefully planned out and measured down to five thousandths of an inch.	CNC machining guarantees uniformity when these crucial cuts are made.
What may have taken Bubba 15 minutes with a hacksaw will take many hours to restore.	Even with CNC machines, many hours of labor intensive hand tool work remains.
This is as far as the CNC machines can take us. Past this point, the work is more of an art than a science.	We don't know of any other gunsmith that would look at this receiver and consider restoring it.
Bubba was proud of himself at the completion of this project. We can hear him now, "That plate will never come off, you can't even tell I did it with a hacksaw."	Tedious welding places our pieces in position. The welds must be thorough and strong.
The welds are carefully completed so the interior of the receiver is not damaged or distorted.	After several hours of hand tool work, the basic form of the rear sight base begins to take shape.
Many times the sight leaf is placed in position to ensure a proper fit and allignment.	As the final shape is completed, we don't polish the metal so a more original appearance will be seen.
Here you can see that the sight base edges are shaped to match the rear of the receiver	When the final bluing is completed, the rest of the receiver and barrel still have an original finish.
Even our tool marks match the surfaces of the receiver. Afterall, hand tools made these rifles to begin with.	Like Bubba, we too are very proud of this completed project. You can't even tell what was done!

Since completing this project we have been asked to restore several rifles which need this kind of work. These rifles have sat in closets as the black sheep of the gun collection, rarely seeing the light of day. Once this restoration is completed, this rifle can once again be sighted in at the range. You can enjoy many hours of shooting this rifle with a Shooter's Kit installed. When asked about your rifle by others, you can tell them how hacked up it was, but will they believe you? Bubba certainly won't.

See Page 4