A Factory Sporter Winchester-Lee Navy Rifle

[Bob Riebe]

I am happy that the practice of sporterizing military rifles has fallen out of favor, but sometimes one can throw the baby out with the bathwater. Before decrying a nice rifle as Bubba’s sporterization project, it’s worth making sure the gun in question isn’t actually a factory sporting rifle. This Winchester-Lee, for example, is one of about 1,700 such rifles produced commercially by Winchester. These factory spotters could often have a wide variety of options, making them potentially difficult to identify sometimes…