Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.

Over at Lagniappe's Lair are some beautiful photos of an early-war Steyr-manufactured Mauser 98k that was retained by the rebuilt Norwegian army after WWII and converted to .30-'06.

It is in remarkable shape and the nicely-done stock repair shows that the Norwegians were definitely not in the habit of throwing things away if they could be fixed.

I have an especial fondness for military 98's in .30-'06, but I have to say that this one makes my Brazilian 1908/34.30 look shabby by comparison...

7 comments:

Old NFO said...

Those ARE nice pieces, and rebarreled as .30-06 they are basically the best of both worlds, a great action, and commonly available rounds!

Anonymous said...

One thing I really like about the Norwegian reworked K98k is the rear sight. Instead of the "inverted v's" found on the original German guns, the Norwegians took a file and made a U notch in the rear sight. Amazing how much that improves the sight picture.

Rob

Bubblehead Les. said...

Drool, pant, sweat, crying because I don't have the Bucks....

John Venlet said...

That long gun and its story should somehow become the number one search result for the search words "recycle reuse." It would drive the greenies crazy.

Rob Reed said...

The Norweigens also used leftover MP-40 SMG's as tank crew personal weapons until the 1980's or 1990's.

(Heck, we used the Grease Gun for the same purpose until about the same time frame).

Ed Foster said...

I just sold a very clean Chilean 98, Steyr production model 1912, in 7.62 NATO. They rebarreled them in the early 1960's so their reserves could shoot the same ammo as their regulars.

Sadly, the barrls used were 1903 and '03A3 barrels that were turned down to '98 Mauser profiles. Supposedly some of them shot very well, but my two-groove barely benched 8 ring at 100 yards with good ammo, and sprayed mil surplus ball all over the black.

So, the pretty 1912 went to a good home, with fair notice about it's accuracy potential or lack thereof, and I got a nice Model 12 pump to play with. Something like a 28 or 30 inch barrel with a really tight choke (won't take a dime), but still, it's a model 12.

Firehand said...

Speaking of 'make it do', shot a Finn M39 with a long crack in the stock, from a couple of inches behind the grip to the buttplate: they'd originally drilled and placed two dowels as well as glue. Over the years the crack had opened back up some, but nothing was shifty or loose.

And it still shot great.