Gratuitous Gun Pics – Page 18 – Splendid Isolation

Gratuitous Gun Pic – FN Mauser 24/30 (7x57mm)

November 23, 2021 Kim du Toit Gratuitous Gun Pics

It occurs to me that we haven’t had a decent pic of a gun on this here website in ages, so without any more to-do, here goes:

Like the similar-but-not-identical Czech Model 1924, the Mauser 24/30 rifle was made for the Venezuelan army by Belgium’s Fabrique National, and not by Mauser (the Germans having been banned from making weapons for being Very Naughty Boys between 1914 and 1918).

I’m not going to go on about the gun’s history — between Othias, Mae and Ian McCollum, the topic has been extensively covered — but what I am going to go on about is the rifle itself, and its cartridge.

I happened upon one of these beauties at a local gun parlor, and were it not for the fact that I had only the budget to buy Daughter her carry piece, I would have walked away with two guns that day — a not-uncommon occurrence during Times Of Plenty back then.

If you can find one in minty condition, this is not a rifle to be left on the rack. The action is (duh) Mauser 98, the chambering is for one of my favorite cartridges, and were I to see that same one right now, I would sell a child or something to get it. Here’s a comparison of like cartridges:

…and you can see that the 7x57mm is different from all the rest in that it has a long, thin bullet which provides excellent penetration. This, lest we forget, is the same cartridge which kicked the .30-40 Krag’s ass during the Spanish-American War, and pushed the U.S. Army towards the .30-06 Springfield as a replacement.

I like the 7×57 because its recoil is relatively light, although I will also concede that it’s not the flattest-shooting cartridge past 200 yards.

But for an all-purpose rifle that can handle most small- to medium game and errrr two-legged targets with the same effect, you could do worse — a lot worse — than have one of these in your safe.

Another Companion Piece

November 5, 2021 Kim du Toit Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing, Weapons

So I received this in the mail yesterday, after a decade-long search for a genuine 1907 bayonet which didn’t require a trip to the bank manager’s office first.

And a pretty pair they make, too:

Now, about that freelance Antifa-riot-control duty…

Update: after seeing this pic, Mr. Free Market sent me this:

And he’s quite right.

My Choice

November 3, 2021 Kim du Toit Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

Of all the cool stuff at Gunny’s upcoming auctions, I’d choose the Winchester 62 .22 pump rifle, because I lost my Taurus copy thereof in the Great Gun Theft Of 2021:

…although the old 63 semi-auto still has a special place in my heart, being as it’s the gun I learned to shoot rifles with, and it spoiled me forever:

I wish I’d never sold mine…

Happy Ruger Day

October 22, 2021 Kim du Toit Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

Reader Termite reminds me that it is indeed 10/22. Pick yer poison…

Yummy.

Belated Recognition

October 21, 2021 Kim du Toit Gratuitous Gun Pics, Gun/Ammo Tests, The Gun Thing

I have to say that I have not been remiss in not talking about Othias and Mae at C&Rsenal before, simply because I only recently discovered this outstanding EeeewwChoob channel.

That said, an impossibly-long amount of watching has since followed — I probably spend about two hours a day watching this pair talking about, and shooting, the old rifles that I love so much. Between Othias’s historical background on the guns’ development and manufacture, and Mae’s well-informed opinions on the guns’ actual operation, it’s just about a perfect show for an old gun geek like myself. And when they’re talking about a gun which I own, I feel an irresistible urge to get it out of the safe and work the action while I’m watching. (I won’t even talk about the irresistible urge to go to the range afterwards.)

Between this show and Ian McCollum’s Forgotten Weapons series, there is a veritable encyclopedia of information about guns — so much so that from now on, I’m not going to do any lengthy exposition on the guns I feature in my Gratuitous Gun pics, but simply hand them over to one or the other of these two channels where they are covered. (If I do a range report, however, I’ll put my two cents into the mix.)