I suppose it kinda depends on what you want; what you want to do with the rifle. I have two 52's, a pre-A and a D. I paid $55 for the pre-A in 1958, and $150 for the D in early 1962. I only have one set of sights, Redfield International Match, generally considered a step up from the Olympic. Just went and looked, the box for the receiver sight says "no base" and the price was $29.80 -- this from around 1960 or so, when I first put them on the pre-A to replace the Lyman sights.
In other words, money-wise, all were talking about is inflation. A lot of inflation.
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My 52D has a serial number of 114,xxx, so the trigger is the C Micro Motion, not the later D. Your will be the same. While you cannot adjust it to a light pull, the trigger piece can have it's pivot hole re-drilled, and you can get a benchrest-level pull -- maybe 3 to 5 ounces? BTW, mine was done by a smith who had just done this for one of the the Browning re-creations. He didn't need a carbide drill for the Browning, but we did have to get carbide for the "real" Winchester.
Bottom metal in mine is aluminum, so no rust. Maybe the CMPs are different?
The general feeling was that the barrels on the D's weren't as good. More precisely, you weren't as apt to get a really good one as with earlier models. My pre-A has a Titherington barrel, and it always outshot the D. But a new barrel is easy -- I got a Shilen ratchet for the D. (Not particularly a recommendation, they were readily available when I wanted a new one.) I glued the action into an old-style McMillian BR stock I had on hand, purchased without any inletting.
After fitting the barrel, a tuner, and testing with three different lots of ammunition, the entire first brick (Ely Black Box Match) shot nothing worse than a 10. Of course, that was all indoors, on the easier IBS target.
Except for the trigger modification, going only this far will not make the rifle less valuable as a collectible -- it could always be put back in the original stock & the original barrel reinstalled. I suppose if you did the trigger work, you would need another Micro-motion trigger to be stock again -- or you could perhaps get by with the extra hole in the housing & trigger piece? I dunno.
In any case, I went further, since back in the 1960s we'd machined a slot in the bottom of the receiver to act as a recoil lug. With that, it wasn't stock anyway. If you're going for accuracy, you will need to check that the threads on the receiver ring are true -- at least true to the front of the action. Best is true to the raceway, but true to the receiver ring face is usually good enough. Mine was, many were not. Remachining that would take the rifle out of the collectible class. And more carbide tooling, I'm afraid...
You also need to check that the locking lugs are both bearing, more or less evenly. If not, again more machining, and then the boltface needs checking. Perhaps not worth it.
Stocks are easy as well. Just as an example, Don Sith if you want wood, a McMillan for fiberglass, or make your own...
In all likelihood, this isn't going to be a rifle capable competing at a National level. Too much luck that the action didn't warp in heat treating, or too much work to straighten it all out. In my case, the threads were straight, so the machining was only to fit a barrel, and the cost beyond what was laying around was only $250 for the barrel. If I were going to set out to build a RF match rifle, I wouldn't start with a any of the 52s. Having said that, the odds are good that a rifle properly built on a 52D is fully capable of winning most club-level matches, after paying attention to the things one has to regardless of the build -- ammunition & tuning.
Or just enjoy it for what is already is.
Good luck with it,
Charles
