Crazyhands is more right than wrong on this subject.
Swedish Mausers with threaded muzzles were generally done so by Swedish armorers on rifles that had already worn bores but not worn enough to replace, and were modified for the limited unit training rifles that were used when fitted with BFA's that shot their wooden training ammo which would shred up the bullet at the muzzle.
They never intended rifles with new barrels to be used with this wooden training ammo as it often accelerated the wearing out of the rifling. You will never find a real Swedish Sniper rifle with threaded barrels (as the firing of wooden training ammo in them was forbidden) or any rifle with a perfect condition bore disk fitted unless someone else besides the military put one on after it left service.
There is a reason that wood bullets wear out barrel rifling faster than what would be expected while Steel is much, much, harder than wood.
Yet somehow that soft organic stuff manages to dull a steel cutting edge. Consider a hand plane, planing some nice clean (that is, no included grit) piece of lumber. Sharpen that blade to a surgical edge, plane for a while, and the blade is dull.
Same deal with wood saw blades (including chainsaws) and axes, wood drills and other wood cutting and working tools is that most wood contains silica. There are other things involved as well, but the biggest culprit is the Silica Content of a given wood species. Silica is a natural abrasive compound and when driven at high speed down a bore will wear out a barrel faster than copper or cupro-metal bullets would ever do.
Some wood contains a higher content of Silica, this is the reason that some woods will dull cutters very quickly. Some Species are loaded with Silica, and they can and will dull a cutter QUICK.
(The build up of pitch and sap can also cause heat build-up, which can attribute to a blade or in this case rifling losing it's edge even more prematurely as well. It pays to keep 'em clean of pitch and sap.)
The Swedish being longtime wood/timber cutters and saw/axe makers knew this fact well.
When the barrel was finally toast from shooting this wooden training ammo they would then get a new non threaded barrel and would stay un-threaded until they reached a point of wear that warranted turning them into blank training ammo using rifles.
Some Swedish 6.5x55mm blank ammo with wood bullets had red coloured bullets and others from a earlier time period were plain wood -
Be careful... Swedish Mauser M 38
- Thread starter polaris
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- pallisers triangle
the bbl has been shortened. it is obviously a milspec bbl no matter if it was re bbled her or where ever as it fits the wood and has the correct front site. however it is missing the threaded section, or, the section that wasn't threaded 1/2 inch infront of the front site. so not original or correct M38. as a bayonet wouldn't fit anymore
infideleggwelder
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
pls for me as well. i do the occasional deal here and like good deals, but do like to get what i pay for.
Show me an all correct excellent specimen for $400, or even close?
As above ^ not only the one this thread started over sold but another 96/38 in rough-er shape went for $500 fairly quick
And the one I bought in the same price range all in the last month ( none lasted two weeks) . Looks like their worth more to some than the sceptical on here agree with
And the one I bought in the same price range all in the last month ( none lasted two weeks) . Looks like their worth more to some than the sceptical on here agree with
I did state '...can still be had for around $400..' - obviously individual circumstances vary.
Tradex had quite a few until very recently. They still have plenty of CG-63s however that are varying from $350-600.
Check your local gun shops or gun shows.
The fact they are coming up infrequently as of late on this site or we are seeing for sale posts with over the top asking pricing is not indicitive of realistic market prices.
x3 here. I'm branching out of Russian milsurps now and will be in the market for various Mausers etc and want to avoid a guy that "just doesn't care" about the accuracy of his ads.
Cheers!
I agree, this site can be close or favourable with respect to fair market value....or at least used to be.
Now it seems everyone is asking Joe Salter money for their beat to sh!tte, mixmaster milsurp.
Not to disparage Mr. Salter, as you can sometimes find a gem from him, but you are going to bloody well pay for it.
Gems on CGN are few and far between.
Now it seems everyone is asking Joe Salter money for their beat to sh!tte, mixmaster milsurp.
Not to disparage Mr. Salter, as you can sometimes find a gem from him, but you are going to bloody well pay for it.
Gems on CGN are few and far between.
This is so true.
Recently I went to the range to check out a couple of decent K98s along with an M38 and M96 Swede. There were about a half dozen folks there that were chatting after their initial shooting session and trying to discuss why they were shooting the groups shown on their targets. One of them said "Let's ask the OLD GUY." (It happens to all of us eventually so be gentle)
I went over to look at their targets and one of them gave me a welcome cup of coffee. How to be polite????? Nice but uninformed as well as inexperienced fellows. All but one were shooting 22 rimfires, all of them were Ruger 10-22 plinker grade with dubious scopes that were built for centerfire rifles and the parallax was all over the place at the 25-50 meter ranges they were shooting. Not one of them had AO settings. The other fellow was shooting a 17HMR in a CZ. Just to make it clear, all of the rifles were well maintained and tight in their stocks. The scopes may not have been appropriate but they were of good quality and clear. Their biggest issue was the 125 meter parallax setting.
I told them I liked their firearms and what I felt their issues were. Then I showed them how to minimize parallax by placing their heads further back to minimize the target image and cross hairs. This causes the shooters to place their heads on the rifle in the same position each time.
Even this wasn't going to correct their real problem which was lack of training and practice. Their brain to trigger discipline was low. They just weren't serious and were actually more into plinking and seeing how fast they could burn through a mag of ammo. Fair enough. We all follow the regimens that suit us best.
They wanted to check out my stuff as none of them had done much if any shooting with centerfire rifles. At least they had a good attitude.
I took the two K98s out of the bags along with the two Swedes and put them in the rack. None of them had any idea what a K98 was or its importance in history. The differences between the 98s and the Swedes had to be pointed out. One of them made the comment to his bud that the Swede action was smaller because the cartridge it shot had a smaller diameter bullet. He had no idea about pressures and design. It was getting close to the end of daylight so I asked them if they wanted to shoot the rifles. All were eager. Not a one of them had ever shot with iron sights previously. Thankfully they were all right handed and right eye dominant.
Each of them were very surprised by the recoil generated from the 8x57 rifles and the 6.5x55 rifles. They all preferred the Swedes.
After each of them shot a mag full out of each rifle they had a whole different outlook on centerfire and milsurps. They were shooting at 50m and getting better groups than they were with their rimfires. The only fellow that shot better with his rimfire was the CZ owner.
What really impressed them was how well they did without scopes. I told them about a test that was done back in the early sixties showing that shooters with iron sights often shot tighter groups, both off hand and from the bench than shooters with scoped rifles. They were skeptical of course but to polite to say so. It's true though.
The questions they asked about the rifles were almost embarrassing because of their nature and general hype. They had all watched Band of Brothers as well as Saving Private Ryan and were sure the Axis weapons were inferior to the Ally's weapons.
It was getting to dark to shoot and I just wasn't into giving an hours long history lesson and I don't believe they would have appreciated it anyway. Not because they weren't thrilled with the milsurps but because they would never pursue the game. They were satisfied where they were and when they found out 20 rounds would cost as much as 500 22rfs ??????????????
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- Steel Town and The Peg
As usual, another interesting and amusing story by bearhunter. Sir, you showed great restraint with those boneheads. Personally, I wouldn't have shared my milsurps with them as they wouldn't have appreciated the history associated with the rifles or your wisdom and experience.
