Rifles

Our first look at the Mitchell Mauser gave us hope that here we had an essentially new 98 Mauser to play with. The bore, finish, wood and all the stuff that came with it looked new, except that some of the accessories showed some age marks. This version came with a fancy certificate along with a leather sling, bayonet in scabbard, leather frog or bayonet hanger, leather ammo pouch, and a field cleaning kit. The certificate stated the rifle had been in military storage since its manufacture in Yugoslavia during the 1940s. It went on to state the rifle had been inspected and tested every five years since its storage, essentially stating these are not newly made replicas, but older original Mausers. The M48 Mausers were made in Yugoslavia after WWII — presumably in 1948 and after — so there is no reason to doubt these are in fact all original. They came from a factory or arsenal that has been in Yugoslavia since the late 1800s.

There is, in fact, lots of commentary online to the effect that these so-called all-original rifles from Mitchell's have been gussied up, restamped (all the numbers of our test rifle match, even the stock), reblued, refinished, and the like. Was this rifle ground down, restamped with all-matching numbers, and then reblued? Then how come the crest is pristine? Was the metal completely buffed, reblued, new barrels stuck in and the wood sanded and refinished? No, it was not, because in the first place there would be no profit in doing so. Also, the stock is by no means skimpy. It's proud of the wood everywhere, which refinished wood would not be. The M48 rifles were made after WWII, and they could easily have been put in storage because there was no great need for them. Because the Germans had nothing to do with the making of these rifles that came from an ancient armory or factory, there is no reason the Yugos would have used older German stamps to mark them, and that puts the lie to some claims the numbers don't have the right font characteristics. At any rate, we took a look at the rifle as it was, not from the viewpoint of the conflicting opinions online.

One thing is for sure, this rifle has all nice stuff throughout. The barrel is pristine. The stock is in excellent condition, as is the bluing. The accompanying certificate told us the stock was in fact "teakwood," not walnut. We wonder about that, but don't have any teak on hand to compare with it. It does look like photos of teak we've seen online. The wood is very hard, has some decent grain, and has a dull finish of some sort. It seems to be a reasonable stock wood. All in all, we thought the rifle looked pretty good, and would make a fine display for some folks, whether or not it would satisfy every Mauser collector. Of course the intent is for it to be shot, so of course we shot it. We did that with three types of ammo, mil-spec hardball of unknown origin from 1983 with a 198-grain, steel-jacketed, boat-tail bullet; Remington 170-grain Core-Lokt SP; and PMC 170-grain PSP. We were going to try another mil-spec steel-case ammo from Romania, but it would not chamber. Here's what we found.

Beasts usually like to keep as much woodlot, coulee, or cornfield between us and them as possible, and that may mean shooting our rifle farther than the sighted-in distance. Essentially we use old-fashioned Kentucky elevation and take our best guess at crosshair hold over. Combine a good sense of distance with shooting experience, and you could fill out your tag. If not, youll kick up dirt below two sets of hooves, whiz a round high, or, sadly, wound an animal.
Riflescopes with ballistic reticles purportedly take the guesswork out of long-distance shooting by combining a typical crosshair with additional aiming points at set distances. The reticles are calibrated to popular hunting cartridges with muzzle velocities in the range of 2800 to 3000 fps or more. The usual suspects fall into that range-243, 6mm, 25-06, 270, 308, 30-06, 7mm Rem. Mag., 300 Win. Mag., including a slew of others. Since the aiming points are not calibrated to a specific load they, offer general approximations, which means you will need to shoot your rifle to understand how the reticle will work with your specific rifle and cartridge combination. The reticles are chockfull of aiming points and seem cluttered compared to a typical hunting scope, but they are quite easy to master. You may want to make a cheat sheet on an index card or a piece of masking tape and fix it to your stock so you can remember what aiming points are for what distances. Finally, you will still need to know the distance to the target, and some scopes have this covered with built-in range estimators, as you will see.

To read more on reticles including our recommendations, purchase the ebook, Bolt-Action Rifles & Gear, Part 2 from Gun Tests.

Older Mauser rifles are getting scarce. We used to be able to pick them up for a song, well under $100 in recent memory, but no more. Our Idaho test team recently had a chance to examine and shoot two old surplus Mauser rifles in standard military configuration, one a Swede M38 bearing the Husqvarna stamp on its ring (about $500), and the other a Brazilian 1908 DWM M98 in 7x57 (about $450) — or about five times what they used to cost — and these were far from perfect.

The 1908 DWM M98 was one of the longest rifles we've tested, with its 29.2-inch barrel. The Swede, in 6.5x55mm Swedish, had a decent birch stock and a more reasonable barrel length. We shot them with Remington ammo (both calibers) and a variety of other types. A reader suggested we be sure to try non-U.S. ammo in the Swede. We had some Swedish surplus on hand, so we were able to do that. Here's what we found.

Husqvarna Mauser Model 38
6.5x55mm Swedish, $500
One of the first Mausers adopted by Sweden was called the Model 96, which later got truncated and lightened into our test rifle, which was then renamed the Model 38. Considered a small-ring Mauser, the Swede has an extended cocking piece with checkering on top. In front of that is the standard turn-over, wing-type safety. The Swedish Mauser cocks on closing, which means the final inch of closing the bolt is done against spring pressure. The follower of our test rifle had not been altered, so the bolt would not slip closed on an empty chamber. That's of course a wartime expedient to make sure the soldier knows when to reload in the heat of battle. The wood of our test rifle was birch, and in very good condition. The grooves in the forend and a few other places on the stock were dark, indicating the wood had been at some time refinished, leaving behind some of the old dirt. There were no significant markings on the stock save for a "T" on the left side of the stock near the finger groove for stripper-clip loading. There was also an insert on the right butt-side, which indicated barrel and throat wear. This barrel was marked a "3" and should be replaced.

The metal was mostly in the white, which means there was severe bluing wear throughout. Actually, some of the parts looked like they had never been blued, while others clearly had bluing worn extremely thin. The white metal showed signs of incipient rust in many places. The floorplate was particularly bad. The barrel was tapped on its end for a flash hider, but was missing any sort of protective cap. The action ring had the Husqvarna name and a date of 1942.

The rifle was relatively clean outside, but its barrel was a mess. We cleaned it as well as we could, but had no great hopes for its accuracy. The trigger was a common military two-stage item, with a clean break on the final part, though a touch heavy. The sights consisted of a rear U-notch adjustable to 600 yards, and it had a clever idea incorporated. If you flipped it up 90 degrees, you can see the yardage markings repeated on the bottom, so the soldier could make adjustments without taking the rifle down from the shooting position, or without exposing his head to look at the top of the sight. The front blade was in a dovetail and was essentially unprotected. It had a flat top, which was an improvement over the common German pointed-top front sight for determining elevation.

All in all we thought this rifle needed a thorough disassembly and cleaning to make all its parts work better, especially the sight adjustments. We left that for the owner, who kindly loaned this to us as soon as he got it. All the numbers we found matched on this rifle, so it would be a good representative of the type if it were fully cleaned up. Many collectors have no interest in shooting their collectibles, so they tend to ignore the condition of the inside of the barrel. We think that's a mistake, because the heart of any rifle is its barrel. If that's neglected and generally in poor condition, we would not rate the rifle highly even though the outside looked like new. That's our two cents.

As for ammo, there is no shortage of it available for this caliber, and we had Remington, Hornady, and some Swedish surplus with steel-jacket bullets. This latter ammo looked quite nasty in the box. As it turned out, it gave reasonable groups, but bolt lift was hard, most likely from the poor condition of the cases. The hot Hornady ammo got much higher velocity and gave zero sticky bolt lift, and also gave us the best accuracy. Smallest group was 1.1 inches, and average was 1.6. There were no problems with the rifle, though ejection was generally not very strong, no matter how hard we worked the bolt.

If you haven't noticed, what used to be called the AR-10 platform has made a comeback. Eugene Stoner's design in 308 Winchester (7.62x51mm NATO) has gone on to unprecedented popularity with military and civilian consumers. But many shooters prefer an even older military-style platform — a compact variation of the M1A rifle, with lineage credited to the John C. Garand M1 rifle. We recently tested two production rifles built on these different platforms, the $2200 Ruger SR-762 and the $1900 Springfield Armory Socom 16, to see which one we'd buy as a handy rifle for self defense, hunting, and all-round fun. Both had barrels around 16 inches long and used gas-piston mechanics to operate.

We began by breaking in each rifle using a variety of rounds featuring different bullet weights. We tried two different types of less-expensive 150-grain 7.62x51 NATO jacketed ball ammunition from MagTech and variety of rounds, such as Black Hills 175-grain boattail hollowpoints that have been known to excel in bolt-action rifles. We settled on three Black Hills rounds that shot the best, the company's 168-grain BTHP, 165-grain Gold Nosler Ballistic Tip, and 155-grain Gold Hornady A-Max ammunition.

For break-in and accuracy shooting, we used the same $310 Leupold FX-II 2.5X28mm IER (extended eye relief) Scout scope No. 58810 on both rifles. That was in part to accommodate the Socom 16, which offered only a short Picatinny rail above the forend. The Ruger SR-762 had a long top rail able to accommodate any type of scope. We could have added a receiver mount to the Socom 16, but, in our view, that would change the platform significantly. For accuracy, we fired five-shot groups from the 100-yard benches at American Shooting Centers in Houston.

Beyond accuracy and reliability we also compared the rifles based on practical handling. This included methods of loading and switching magazines as well as reviewing each gun's strengths and versatility.

We had the privilege of examining and shooting three double rifles from a private collection, all from the 19th century, and all being, for their time, reasonably powerful. They are that primarily because of their bore sizes. The test firearms were two 12-bore and one 14-bore double rifles, all by Scottish makers. The 14-bore was a Thomas Kennedy percussion rifle that took 500-grain balls, 14 of which make a pound. The other two were cartridge rifles, one by James Erskine taking a short 12-bore paper or brass case with a 0.735-inch ball, and the other by Alexander Henry, taking a 2.5-inch brass or paper case and a huge charge of powder behind a bullet of about 900-1100 grains, the bullet being either a grease-grooved bullet or one paper patched to fit the 0.770-inch bores. Prized collector's items, they have relatively high values as shown. Let's take a look at each in turn, oldest first.

Remington Outdoor Company has announced that several plants are being consolidated into Remingtons new facility in Huntsville, Alabama. Of particular interest is that Remingtons R1 1911 handgun production will be leaving the town of Ilion, New York, along with Bushmaster AR-15 production - both products are effectively banned by New Yorks stringent new gun laws.

In the April 2012 issue, Gun Tests magazine tested three semi-automatic rimfire rifles that showed promise of being more than just plinkers. They were the $325 Savage Arms model 64 TR SR V No. 45200 22 LR, CZ-USA's $465 model 512, and the $595 Remington 597 TVP. Following is an excerpt from that test, used with permission:

Thompson/Center Arms is currently offering mail-in rebates for consumers who purchase any new T/C Venture rifle. Where allowed by law, the mail-in rebate program will be available to consumers who purchase a T/C Venture rifle from January 25, 2014 through April 30, 2014 in the United States or Canada.

Savage has sold thousands of Model 110 rifles to hunters seeking an inexpensive rifle. Watch for several things when they need fixing.

GunReports.com issues a Special Report on the Ruger Model 77 repairs and improvements. Includes schematics for major areas of gun breakdown. Derived from American Gunsmith magazine, and AG's Gunsmithing the Rifle book. Ruger Model 77 rifles have been popular for years. Here are some things to watch for when one comes across your bench.

GunReports.com finds that it’s relatively easy to spot trouble in a simple bolt-action design, and the Browning A-Bolt is about as simple as they come. Adapted from American Gunsmith book series, Gunsmithing the Rifle.

GunReports.com relays information from Gunsmithing the Rifle about the much-praised and oft-maligned AR-15 rifle. An early model was dressed in green, and still had an Armalite logo on the side of the lower receiver. The ammunition designation was not 5.56mm, but the familiar .223 as manufactured by Remington. It was the summer of 1962.