I totally understand your point about it being an honor to shoot a Historic weapon. At one point in my SASS career, about 16 or 17 years ago, I decided I wanted to shoot originals: I had a .38 WCF Colt SAA, a .38 WCF Winchester 1873, a .44 Russian No. 3, a Damascus hammered double, and a 44-77 Sharps Rolling block. It was almost a religious experience to shoot them. After about a year of breakage of original parts during matches (toggle crack and extractor on the 73, hand spring and hammer spring on the Colt, hammer springs on the double, and a couple different problems on the Russian), I decided that for shooting matches, modern replicas were best!
I do still have a few WW2 guns I shoot: Inland M1 carbine, 1944 Walther P38, and a 1941 S&W Victory model in .38 Special.