Tag: Guns and such

My favorite toy

Gratuitous Gun Pic – Mauser Sporter (8x57mm)

Gratuitous Gun Pics

Here’s the last in our series of “droolworthy Mauser Sporters” (see here for the 7×57 and here for the 8×60):  a “standard” Mauser Sporter rifle from Collectors Firearms, this one chambered for the common 8x57mm cartridge:

Like the first two, this beauty has a full stock and double set trigger;  but unlike the others, it doesn’t have a scope, nor is it even drilled and tapped for scope mounts:

But it has attractions all of its own, with a double-leaf rear sight, case-hardening finish on the action, and a half-octagon barrel;  and those features alone would put this on a list of “guns I’d snap up in  a heartbeat after winning the lottery”.

Longtime Readers will be familiar with my love of Mauser rifles, but should someone have stumbled on this website from another planet, allow me to explain myself.

Mauser bolt-action rifles are almost without exception the best large-scale production guns ever made, whether during the late 19th century (the Swedish M96), in the early 20th century (the WWI G98). the mid-20th century (K98) or since then (M03 and M12).  They are strong, beautifully machined, accurate and reliable, and it is no exaggeration to say that it is the one rifle that no gun owner should be without — because long after all the modern rifles have expired from heavy usage, parts breaking and/or abuse, the Mauser will still work pretty much as well as the day it left the factory.  And  quite frankly, its chambering is irrelevant, whether a military one (6.5x55mm, 7x57mm, 7.65x53mm, 8x57mm), a “hunting” one (6.5x57mm, .270 Win, 8x60mm, 9.3x62mm, .375H&H, .416 Rigby) or in more “modern” ones such as .308 Win, 7mm Rem Mag or .300 Win Mag:  whichever cartridge you choose, the Mauser will never let you down.

Over the years, I’ve owned well over a dozen Mausers at one time or another, whether military, customized, re-chambered and sporters, and I regret getting rid of each and every one.  The very first rifle I ever bought was an Israeli mil-surp Mauser rechambered for 7.62 NATO, and the first gun I bought when I emigrated to America was a full-stocked Mauser sporter similar to the one pictured above, only with a single trigger.  Other than during the bleak years of 2015-17, I have owned at least one Mauser rifle every day of my life, and a multitude of Mauser-style bolt actions (e.g. CZ 550) as well.  Of all the millions of choices one can ever make during one’s lifetime, choosing a Mauser rifle will always be one of the best.

Here endeth the lesson.

Ban Them!

Crime

Here’s a good one, from Brazil:

Masked man who took 37 hostages on a bus in Rio de Janeiro is shot dead by a police sniper after a three-hour standoff — and cops then discover it was a toy gun.

Now quit that sniggering, you lot.

From this tragedy, it is clear that the only answer is to ban toy guns.

 

Or buses.

En passant, the word “sniggering” above was flagged by SpellCheck when I typed it in.  (No prizes for guessing why.)

 

Change Needed

The Gun Thing

On my way back home this morning, I got a call from the NRA, wanting me to renew my membership.  The lady was very pleasant, with a deep Southern drawl, but was obviously reading from the standard NRA fund-raising spiel about upcoming legislation brought by Democrats, Chuck Schumer wants to take your  guns away, etc. etc.  Then she switched to the “Now I need you to renew your NRA commitment, so let’s get that taken care of” closer.

My response was not what she expected, nor I think what she wanted.

“Frankly, I’m more than a little disappointed in how the NRA is spending our membership dollars — for starters, I don’t want my money being spent just so Wayne LaPierre can look good on TV, and I’m pretty sure Col. Oliver North could point to a few similar misuses of the NRA’s cash.  So I’m not going to renew my NRA membership today, or, most likely, in the near future either.  Instead, I am going to send the equivalent amount to the Second Amendment Foundation who, it appears, have been quite successful in arguing our cause before the state courts and the Supreme Court as well.  Feel free to pass these sentiments on to the senior management of the NRA.  Good day to you.”

…and I hung up.

Or have I missed something here?  (I should point out that I have a three-year membership of the TSRA, which I have every intention of renewing.)

Feel free to enlighten me in Comments.

Gratuitous Gun Pic – Mauser Sporter (8x60mm S)

Gratuitous Gun Pics

Here’s another take on last week’s GGP of the Mauser Sporter 7x57mm rifle.  This one (also from Collectors Firearms) is more conventional-looking, and chambered for the unusual 8x60mm S cartridge:

And the action is likewise quite lovely, with a polished knob bolt (rather than the butterknife) and conventional scope rings.  Still with the full stock and double set triggers, though.

As for the 8x60mm S cartridge:  it’s basically a lengthened casing derived from the military 8x57mm cartridge, and was created to circumvent the Versailles Treaty restrictions on the production of military chamberings — the thought being that hunters and their clubs could become ersatz  reserve units for the Wehrmacht.  (I know, stupid, but that’s gummint for ya.)  So DWM simply changed the cartridge while keeping the bullet (the “S” denotes .323″) — and the longer casing meant more gunpowder, ergo  a more powerful cartridge.  As such, the 8x60mm is very close to the .30-06 Springfield in terms of performance.

So why buy this rifle, when the cartridges are hard to find?  Actually, one might think that the 8×60 S is rare, but it isn’t — quite a feat given that it was made solely for pre-WWII German hunting rifles.   True, you do have to look around for them, but they’re made in quantity by Serbia’s Prvi Partizan company, and in keeping with PPU’s philosophy, they’re inexpensive — I found them selling for just over $22 per 20, which makes the rifle a perfectly acceptable purchase.  (The only problem is that this rifle is horribly –and I think unjustifiably — expensive, even by Collector’s standards.)

Now… where are those lottery tickets?

Pretty Much Forever

The Gun Thing

I’m going to add my two cents to this opinion (found via Insty, thankee) about keeping your magazines loaded:

Even when kept fully compressed, a magazine spring will retain its energy long past the operational life of the ammunition.

Here’s my take.  I own dozens of magazines, of all types and calibers, fitting all sorts of guns, and I’ve owned most of my Chip McCormick (CMC) 1911 PowerMags for close to twenty years.  I keep all of them loaded, all the time.  When I was cleaning out my house, I found a box of what I first thought was junk (but wasn’t).  At the very bottom, underneath all sorts of stuff like photos and old papers were two 10-round CMC Powermags, loaded.  Judging from the other stuff in the box, I packed it when we lived in suburban Chicago back in the late 1990s, and had never fired the two mags — for twenty years.

With some trepidation, I unloaded them, expecting to find that the last couple of rounds were loose in the magazines — i.e. that the springs had “taken a set” when loaded to capacity and lost their tension.  In both mags, the bottom cartridges were held as tightly against the mag lips as the first round.  So I reloaded them.

The next time I went to the range, I fired off both mags through the Springfield 1911.  Both mags and ammo functioned flawlessly.   I put another ten loads of “new” .45 ACP through each (200 rounds in total) and the mags again worked as though I’d just unwrapped them.

The same has been true of every single magazine I’ve ever owned.  The only time I’ve ever had an issue with a magazine was a cheap one that came with a Taurus .380 pistol — the “second” mag, not the one actually in the gun — and I think it was broken from the start.  Magazine, say hello to Mr. Hammer.

As I said earlier:  all my magazines are loaded, all the time.  An unloaded magazine is just a box with a spring inside, just as an unloaded gun is just a heavy (and expensive) cosh.  Whether they’re .22 LR mags for my Marlin 880SQ rifle, the Mec-Gars for the Browning Hi-Power or the many CMC PowerMags, if I pick one up or take it out of the bag, it’s ready to go.  Even the several AK-47 mags that were tragically lost along with the gun in that canoeing accident were kept loaded.  (As an aside, the mags that absolutely MUST be kept loaded are those that would be needed for your carry- or SHTF guns.)

That has been my experience, and that is my advice.  YMMV.

Gratuitous Gun Pic – Mauser Sporter (7x57mm)

Gratuitous Gun Pics

Looking over the posts for the past week or so, it occurs to me that there are far too few entries which conform to the original premise of the GGP series, namely, providing pics of guns that we gun-lovers can drool over, for whatever reason.  Allow me to remedy the situation forthwith.

Here’s one being offered by Collectors Firearms:  a pre-WWII Mauser 98K Sporter in one of my favorite calibers, the venerable 7x57mm.

Good grief… this gun rings just about every single one of my rifleman bells:  Mannlicher-style full stock, “butterknife” bolt lever, and  a double set trigger?

The only way this rifle could be more beautiful is if it had breasts.

I know that modern-day shooters look askance at the old-style scope front claw mount (which grips the bell rather than the barrel), but there’s nothing wrong with the concept — having two barrel grips just simplifies the production process and therefore the cost thereof.

Okay, it’s expensive,  because a) rare and b) Collectors.  But like I said about the Colt 1903 pistol, this is not a “first gun”, at least if you wanted to go hunting:  other more modern guns might be a tad better.  But in a pinch, this gun could  be your go-to hunting rifle, and I very much doubt that it would let you down, whether in its operation, accuracy, reliability or chambering.  And for a hunting rifle, that’s pretty much all you can ask for, isn’t it?  The fact that it is more beautiful  than 90% of modern hunting rifles is just a bonus.

Speaking for myself:  if I won the lottery, I’d buy this gun in a heartbeat.