M14 Forum

Originally Posted by Gus Fisher

I had one dealer customer who wanted me to glass bed and do every accurizing thing to two M1A's and two Garands BUT no modifications that would show from the outside at all. The metal parts had the parkerization almost entirely worn off them. The stocks looked abysmal.

OK, so I was a bit worried that after I worked on them, other people would think I only did Half A$$ work and tried to talk him into at least going over the stocks a bit. Well, no go on that, but I SWORE him to secrecy not to tell others who had done the mods on those rifles. This so my reputation wouldn't suffer. He told me with a twinkle in his eye, "No problem with that as I wasn't going to ever tell anyone anyway."

I didn't understand that, but he woudn't explain. Well, the reason he wanted the outside of the rifles to look crappy was so he could win more money in side bets when shooting at local clubs. People would look at the rifles, figure they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn and he had them suckered in good. Took quite a while for most people to stop betting him money when shooting against those rifles.

So accuracy is the most important thing, but making the rifles look better does have esthetic compensation.