Scandanavian Show and Tell Time

[Der Gebirgsjager]

There just isn't much to say about this, other than I like it, and I wish it would quit raining! It missed the magical antique cut off date of manufacture by a couple of years. Stock disc says it has a condition No. 2 bore of 6.53mm diameter.

166236166237166238166239166240166241

[Scharfschuetze]

Sweet!

[Swede 45]

Nice to see our old rifles still living on..

[leebuilder]

Very nice. They are the nicest of the mausers.
Be well

[leadman]

I have the same year 96. Bought it cheap with the stock and some metal sanded. I refinshed both but left the stock the natural color but I like the color or your rifle stock better. May have to redo mine.
So no targets yet to post??

[Themoose]

I had one about 35 yrs ago. Shot great but not near as pristine as yours. Wish I had kept it. Thanks for sharing.

[Adam Helmer]

Gebirgsjager,

Very nice M96/38. I have always liked the 6.5MM and have a M1896 rifle with the identical rear sight as your's, and a pair of M38s. All my Swedes have the stock discs, but I would not put a lot of stock for any disc representing a bore condition today. A decade ago I was in a gun shop that had a dozen Swedes on the rack. A few regular customers picked out a Swede each and they, with the shop owner's permission, swapped out discs before purchases were completed.

Adam

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Thanks for all the nice comments about the Swede. Here's what I believe to be true about the stock discs and bore condition from reading various sources. Apparently the Swedes believe in pristine bores, and you don't run across many with the indicator at "3", because when they reach condition "3" they were changed out. That doesn't mean that you won't encounter a "3" or worse, because they sold them off and many have been neglected since. As for swapping the discs, I can believe it. Reminds me of my Basic Training days at Ft. Ord when, at the end of the Train Fire cycle all the M1s were detail stripped, parts dumped into barrels of solvent, and then each trainee scrubbing a part and reassembling a rifle with only the stocks and barreled receiver remaining original. Collectors used to wonder why their rifles didn't have all Winchester (or whatever) parts!
The Swedes must have been very picky indeed, because this bore looks like new to me. The stock--well, I did refinish it. Most of them are made of shockingly white birch or beech after you remove whatever the stain they used is. Birch is very hard to stain nicely using oil based stain, but I learned somewhere that one can use alcohol based leather dye and get better penetration. If I remember correctly, this was Lincoln Leather Dye, Brown, that turned reddish on the wood. A couple of fellows who have examined it in the past thought it was Cherry wood. Sorry, no targets yet, but if it will quit raining....

[Hardcast416taylor]

My older brother told of how they cleaned the battlefield pick-ups of M-1`s. They were stripped as was said and the barrels of cleaner were filled with parts. Later details of G.I.`s would scrub the parts and reassemble them into a cleaned rifle, broken or missing parts were replaced. I remember seeing pictures of Marines doing the same cleaning detail after each island campaign was over in the Pacific Robert

[leebuilder]

Time to warm this up

166862
From the top
M96, mismatched refurbished, wears the same vertris rear sight
M38, original
CG63, rebarreled with M38 barrel
M98 Israeli mauser, 7.62 × 51

166863
M38 hunter, Bubba rescue mint barrel
M38B Bubba rescue with boyds stock
M38B Bubba rescue, my goto hunting rifle, bore and headspace/chamber are out of spec but oddly it is the best shooter. Homemade scout mount.
Stiga, production modified M96 converted to 30,06.
Pass the meat balls!!

Be well

[Stewbaby]

Don't forget the Ljungman!

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160424/eca812218781038bf365b3fae4adbb31.jpg

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Nice, Gentlemen, very nice!

Since my original post I thought that perhaps I should have named the thread "116 year old Swedish model still turns heads". I'll bet it would have had 1,000 hits by now!

[jhaston]

Those old swedes are wonderful shooters I have one made in 1910 with a threaded barrel, one of my favorite rifles to shoot.