I went to one of my favorite gun shows today that’s held every few months and saw a lot more battle rifles for sale than usual. I came away wondering why some people have this unfortunate urge to sand off all the cartouches and varnish the stock of a perfectly good battle rifle. I saw a M1 Garand, an Enfield No. 4 Mk 2, an Eddystone M1917 and a M1903 Springfield with varnished stocks. The M1 looked really bad. I suppose replacement stocks could be found and maybe some uninformed individual might think the varnish looks cool.
My trapdoor was varnished and looked sad when I bought it several years ago. The asking price was pretty cheap. The bore looked good and I saw that the varnish/poly was loose and peeling in several places, probably because of the oil in the stock. I gently peeled off the rest of the varnish and found that the rack numbers and cartouches were still fairly bold, although Bubba decided to carve a hand grip in the underside of the fore stock. I rubbed in some Ballistol oil that brought up the color of the grain and it looks pretty good. I bought a box of 45-70 black powder cartridges for it a few years ago and may shoot it this year (I say that every year).
I saw an unusual 30-06 Mauser from the 1950s that was for sale. Never knew they were made in that caliber.