In defence of "bubba"

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King carp
Posts: 539
Joined: Mon Apr 01, 2019 4:43 am

In defence of "bubba"

Post by King carp »

Almost all the firearm collecting sites I view constantly mention "bubba". I would like to remind all of you that without "bubba" there probably would not be much of a collecting community. The "golden"age of surplus was fueled by hard working "bubbas" that could not afford brand new winchesters and Remingtons that would cost them a months salary. Instead they bought used military surplus weapons that no one else wanted and converted them into lightweight affordable hunting tools. Without their effort most of those rifles would have been smelted into car bumpers and various other appliances. Lest we forget Francis bubba bannerman. Bubba segley and the western bubba scrounger who saved the regular bubba time and effort. If no one messed with Krags, springfields, enfields and mausers they would probably been junked as unsellable surplus. I think a lot of the collecting community has some "bubbas" in their ancestry. I think they should be thanked for being creative and fueling a fun hobby.
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butlersrangers
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Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 11:35 pm
Location: Below the Bridge, Michigan

Re: In defence of "bubba"

Post by butlersrangers »

Normally, I only use the term 'bubba' for current guys that do horrible things like drill & tap a collectible and fasten a scope-mount made from a lawn chair.

I'm pretty forgiving of older "sporting guns" made from 'military clunkers', back when things were cheap and plentiful.

We've all done some 'bone-head' things.

Zac952
Posts: 159
Joined: Wed Apr 07, 2021 1:37 am

Re: In defence of "bubba"

Post by Zac952 »

I do agree that the term may often be overused, and many of these surplus firearms were so affordable that it was a very economical way of having a hunting rifle so its understandable making a rifle into a better hunting companion at that time. Now I generally use the term for shoddy work. A well done sporter can be a collectible itself, with fine craftsmanship and attention to detail that cannot be considered "bubba". But when you find a sporter that has scope mounts drilled in canted, unlevel scope mounts especially on mausers where the clip bridge is filed off, forends cut so short that the band cannot be retained on Krags, lightening cuts crudly filled or even left open, these are considered "bubba" and even though this "Bubba" may be a nice guy, a good hunter, he is simply not a good craftsman. Now I'll admit you have to start somewhere and mistakes are inevitable, I have a Ruger M77 that I shortened the stock and installed a recoil pad, and the work I did at that time was not good. Since I have refined my skills and am approaching semi proficient. I also have had "bubbas" in the family, and these rifles were looked at much differently then.
Now even if the work is well done, if you put a picatinny rail on your Krag and mount a red dot, you are a bubba, lol I saw a picture of this somewhere
Last edited by Zac952 on Fri Aug 20, 2021 4:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

FredC
Posts: 1991
Joined: Fri May 31, 2013 4:38 pm
Location: Dewees Texas

Re: In defence of "bubba"

Post by FredC »

Yeah, Br has done some nice kitchen table (Khyber Pass) work. Carbon outlaw and Madsonshooter have done some awfully nice work also. Well thought out and with good execution. Actually we have seen a lot of good work by others, it would take some time looking back through the pages to note them all.

Yeah, some of it makes bargain buying opportunities. My 1917 had 3 broken off drills in the stock, rear sight added the tapped holes were not drilled straight, I leave the sight base on the barrel to cover up the ugliness. That Bubba in the true sense of the word also brazed one of the sight protecting ears back on the to receiver as well as ground off a portion of the receiver that should not have been touched trying to make the receiver lighter. Paid $89.00 for it. No plan plus no skill equals "What a mess". Swapped the stock on to my dad's 1917, that is how I found all the broken drill bits. I broke both sight ears off with a hammer then rounded the rear bridge to the front bridges height and made a one piece scope base that utilized the 10-32 hole Bubba tapped into the rear bridge. At least there was not broken off drill or tap in that hole. This one is still ugly but I killed a lot of pigs with it. None have sued me or otherwise protested about being shot with an unsightly rifle.

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