I’ve also got a 1942 Springfield .30-06 with Lyman peep sights on it (never wanted a scope as I didn’t think it helped with brush hunting). My dad, retired now, had a patient who was a gun maker. The gun used to belong to my grandfather, and my dad took me to this guy’s house when I was about 17 and the guy had a barn with drills for barrelling, and he took me out back where he had a stack of axels from old Model T cars…kind of rusty, but thick. he said, “Pick one.”
I did.
Three months later, that axel was my new barrel. I would have loved to have been in that old guy’s will. He had probably 500 guns mounted on the walls in his small (900-1000 sq ft) house. Floor to ceiling. He showed me the gun he made for a safari in the 50s, with which he bagged an elephant. He showed me his first gun (a four-barrel .16 guage shot-gun he used for poaching geese as a kid…crudely made, and freakin’ heavy. Said he set the butt on the ground and just pulled the trigger).