Cheapest Mauser you have?

[WILCO]

Years ago, I found an 1895 Spanish Mauser sporter on the C&R rack of the LGS.
Bolt was missing. $50.00 price tag.
I bought it.

Asked the old guy behind the counter if he knew what type of Mauser it was?
He said if they knew that, it wouldn't be fifty dollars!



Have since bought a replacement bolt. Need to headspace it.
Still chambered in 7x57mm.

[pworley1]

1936 Turk I bought about 30 years ago. I think it was $87.00

[TNsailorman]

98 Turk in 8x57mm at $59.00 plus shipping. Was in very good bordering on excellent condition. Eventually re-barrel to 6.5x55 Swede sporterized it with a y grandson has it now as his "grandpaw" rifle. james

[beemer]

The two cheapest I have bought was a Chilean 95 and a Swede 96 for $100 each. The 95 was a bit rough but had a great bore , it cleaned up fairly nice. The Swede was in great shape with what looked like a new barrel, only needed a good home. Both shoot better than I can.

The cheapest mil-surp was a #4 Long Branch in good shape for $85. I have owned that one for close to 30 years.

Those days are long gone, just happy mine were bought before things went crazy.

[schutzen-jager]

rifles - 08/34 Brazilian 30/06 rifle $89.95 - Mexican 7 mm carbine $59.95 - - FR8 7.62 NATO Spanish $99.95 - Mudkin 8mm $19.95 - pistols C96 broom handle $79.95 - bolo broom handle $49.95 - all from Century Arms apx. 30 years ago - still have the Brazilian, FR8, + the bolo -

[15meter]

6.5x55 for $100, in beautiful shape, at a garage sale. Almost hurt my wrist digging out the wallet. Screwed up, there was a Siamese Mauser sitting on the table that I never even asked about, I was too busy getting out of there with the Swede before he reconsidered. Next was an almost gift, an 8mm Turkish Mauser that belong to a buddy who passed, got it for $100. Beautiful bore, OK outside. Probably worth 4 times what I paid for it when I bought it. And it ain't lost any value since then.

Cheapest Mil-Surp was a Long Branch SMLE, it was a buddy's first deer rifle.

It was a fully bubba'd rifle that his dad bought for $15. Barrel was bobbed, hand guards and hardware gone. Lower fore arm was held on with a brass wood screw threaded into a boss that had been very poorly soldered on to the bottom of the barrel.

Butt stock that had been sort of stripped, well, as well as you can do with a body grinder and 80 grit discs.

And a rubber shotgun recoil pad mounted upside down.

And a safety that didn't work. And a ladder sight that sort of worked. At least as well as could be expected missing half the parts.

Numrich Arms and about $200 in parts and it's a decent looking and shooting rifle, even if it does look like a cross between a WWI and a WWII SMLE.

Got a Carcano in like new condition, not sure it's ever been fired. I haven't yet. For a $100. That was used as replacement for a $60 Cabela's used rack orphan that my daughter talked me into buying. "But dad, it's only 60 bucks!" Sold that at the depth of gun paranoia 2 years ago for $300. Guess I need to listen to my daughter a little more often.

I think the $300 was helped along by the ONE 20 round box of factory 6.5x53 I threw in with the deal.

[36g]

Kar98k, byf 42, $19.99 from Sears.

[Harter66]

I have a 257 Roberts 95 and a really ugly 1908 Oviedo 95 in 45 Raptor. The barreled actions were literally snatched from the jaws of the crusher . If I remember correctly I think I have about $260 in the pair .

I have about $130 in a DWM 1916 with a Jaeger trigger, sporterized stock, and new as of yet unfired A&B 7×57 #2 barrel .

The piece de resistance' however is the Santa Barbara 98' in 358 Win .
$25 for the action.
Donated 1-14" 24" barrel with gifted fitting.
197? Unfitted Fajin stock still in its OM box from Herters $0
GI 2 stage trigger and sear , $0
Bottom metal ........$85 delivered. Inside the bow release , hinged floor plate spring and follower .
Finish reamed to 358 Win by MBT .
Tax , title , freight , finish and NICS $135 .

I did buy a couple of the Yugos for $89 bucks but I didn't keep them long enough to call them mine really.

[wilecoyote]

post-ww2 CZ-Brno_ technically a K98k Kriegsmodell. bought (and chosen among others) brand new. factory grease inside, etc._ my last racing Rifle, and my best buy for the money_

[Shawlerbrook]

Yes, the Spanish Mausers used to be dirt cheap. Like the Mosin Nagants.

[sukivel]

A few months back I got a 96 Swede all numbers matching with just the front of the stock cut off and some bubba’d recoil pad…$350. Metal is real nice too.

After shooting it I think I stole it.


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[Der Gebirgsjager]

Man--it's been so long and so many I really can't remember the cheapest. I think I was buying Turk '98s for $39.95, but I was a dealer.

DG

[Hick]

Paid $249 for a numbers matching DWM 1909 Argentine Carbine on my last trip to Hawaii-- 5 years ago

[Larry Gibson]

Back in '68 Payless drug store in Salem, Oregon had literally barrels of Mausers [the rifles were muzzle down in the barrels] which were all in very good to excellent condition with excellent bores. There were M93s for $14.99, M95s (Chilean) for $24.99 and M98s for $29.99. There was also a barrel of very nice SMLEs for $24.99. The M1903s and M1903A1s were in a gunrack behind the counter and were $10 to $20 more. Wish I could have bought the whoe barrels full, but alas I was a poor young man with a family.......

[jonp]

Right now the Turk 8mm daughter gave me. One of her fellow soldiers asked her to look after it when he deployed the went elsewhere and elsewhere. She never saw him again so asked if I wanted it. That was a dumb question

[RustyReel]

I'm old enough to have bought $19.95 Mausers and even mint condition ones for $29.95.

But, the cheapest Mauser I currently own was purchased from a pawn shop a few years ago. Guys didn't know the caliber of the sported rifle and said I could have it for $100. I even paid the tax and background check fee without hesitation (something I always try to get the shop to "eat"). Turns out it is a BRNO VZ-24 with at least a grade A birds eye maple stock and a vintage scope. Chamber cast turns out to be 240 Weatherby Magnum. Only thing I did to it was strip off the old yellowing finish and put on some tru-oil. Even kept the very clear vintage scope on it.....not bad for $112.00 out the door. (Plus another buck or two in refinish supplies).

[TNsailorman]

I completely forgot about the first mauser I ever owned. My uncle had bought it to hunt with and had used it for 3 or 4 deer seasons and finally broke down and bought a 300 Savage 99. I was around 11 or 12 at the time and had a paper route. I bugged him to buy the mauser (it had the stock cut down some and "sporterized") but was in really good condition. He finally agreed to sell it to me for the princely sum of $8.00. I am sure that was a "family" price. The local Army & Navy Store had several barrels of mauser for sale but they were $15.00 and up depending on condition. When you are only making $.01 per paper, you are going to have to deliver a lot of newspapers to come up with $15.00. My Dad and I hunted with that mauser for years but Dad finally sold it. Our local hardware store sold boxes of 8mm for $1.29 cents or individual rounds for .08 cents a round. If I remember right, the cartridges were Remington and 150 grain round nose soft points. Those were the days. james

[Texas by God]

Cheapest Mauser I have?
Not HAD?
Not counting project guns or gifts;
I have a 1916 Oviedo that I gave $100 for and a friend gave me a 6.5x55 barrel to put on it. The 7x57 barrel was bad- just like the other two 1916s I’ve HAD…
I’ve HAD $50 Swedes, $40 Turk 38s, $100 VZ24s and 98/22s but the cheapest was a Siamese Mauser for $18.95 mailed directly to my house in 1976.


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[samari46]

Bought 4 1896 Swedish Mausers for $75 each. Frank

[firefly1957]

$18 for a gun at a yard sale the family said the gun came back from Egypt during WWI I figured wrongly that the gun was a early Mauser and might be unsafe . The gun had a dovetailed buttstock, .323 bore , and was a rimmed cartridge. I bought a NRA Mauser Booklet and found zero information on the gun I bought the gun wanting to blow it up so I did a sulfur cast of the chamber and found it to be very close to 7.62X54 Russian . I sized a 7.62X54 Russian in the chamber and modified a Berdan case to take a WW 209 primer . The case was loaded with Bullseye pistol powder and the gun clamped to a bench from 200 yards away I used a fishing pole to pull the trigger . The bolt held and I think the gun would have survived if my makeshift primer did not blow out around the primer ! The action was broken but barrel and chamber was okay .

I inherited my only other Mauser for my grandfather it is a bolt action GEHA 12 gauge . Below are some notes* on the guns from what I see I do not believe the action was to weak but that the bolt face ejected with the last fired case and the gun can still chamber and fir the round without support! The death mentioned in the notes is from just 2 counties away .

*GEHA shotguns were converted from GEW 98 Mauser rifles after WWI around 1919-1929, maybe later. These were made from surplus Mausers, in an attempt to "jump-start" the German firearms industry under the Versailles military arms restrictions. Shotguns in safe working condition might be safe to shoot if used with light loads only. A lot of metal and wood was removed in the modification to a shotgun. Current shotgun shell pressure specs are as much as two times what they were once loaded to and may not be safe with this shotgun. GEHA shotguns were made in 12, 16 & 20 gauge. In the conversion process the forward locking area of the receiver was removed in order to allow fitting a 12 gauge barrel, leaving the third "safety" lug as the primary locking lug, along with the portion of the bolt handle that fits into the receiver. Guns converted to 16 and 20 gauge had portions of the forward locking lugs remaining (more on the 20 than the 16 gauge) so the actions on these guns are stronger yet than the 12. One potential problem with these guns is the removable bolt head that was fitted to the modified bolt. They are held in place by spring tension - the bolt head can sometimes be ejected with a fired hull, so one should be careful with rapid follow up shots, perhaps limiting the rifle to use as a single shot. On the stock a good bit of material was removed around the magazine area in order to make them function with the rimmed 12 gauge shell, so another reason to consider using light loads only. Pictured is a "Hard Hit Heart" Brand shotgun with the HHH logo. Pictures provided by Stacy Wilson. A beautiful example!


There was a young man killed while shooting a 12ga GEHA near Midland, Michigan in the 1960's. The locking lug failed and the bolt,or parts of it, entered his brain through his eye. The gun was inspected and the blame was placed on a poor heat treat and parts failure.

We were pheasant hunting in the area and came upon the scene before the ambulance arrived. There was a MD with our party and he provided firstaid. The kid was a real mess and the father was a real wreck. He thought that he had saved some money buy buying a $35 gun.

That was one unhappy user. I own a 20ga GEHA but I will never shoot it. In my opinion, these guns are a good example of asking a gun to do something that it was never ment to do. Also, Im have inspected a few of the modified Mausers over the years and have noticed a big difference in the quality of work in these guns.

Nothing personal, just my experience and my opinion. I will never forget the wound that killed that kid.