Most collectors don't realize how much action these rifles have seen. They were used above the tree line on high mountain European Alps glaciers, in the forests and in the trenches. Very reliable and accurate rifles that many say Ross copied to build his rifles.
Whatever, for many years the only ammo available for them was a bit of surplus that trickled in on occasion. If you were lucky, it was on chargers. If not, your rifle became a rather awkward to load single shot. Not only that, the ammo was usually Berdan primed, with an unusual diameter .329 bullet. When they first came out, you could pick up a 3 pack for $75. One long rifle, one cut down to carbine length rifle with the long rifle rear tangent sight and one made specifically as a carbine, with the short rear carbine sight. Both of those are shown in the OPs pic.
The carbine I kept for myself, has the long rear sight and is of course a refurb. The bore is pristine and with issue ammo, shoots better than my old eyes will allow. I was lucky enough to pick up a few thousand rounds when it was available 30+years ago. It was only available for a very short time. Most of it went into the US at about a third the price it was offered for up here. I actually picked up 5000 rounds of it from Ed Karrer's Gunatorium for less than what a thousand rounds would cost here. I was down there anyway so there weren't any shipping costs.
Funny thing is, they got the ammo first and the rifles about a year later. That's why it was so cheap. They were selling it at cost.
These are very well made and safe rifles. A friend of mine and I, converted 4 of them to 45/70s. We found a cheap reamer, that had seen better days and proceeded to fit some cheap Numrich barrels. They shot quite well. The biggest problem was that darned mag well. We cut the clips in half and silver soldered them back together so the rims of the 45/70 cases would fit. The bolt faces were easily opened up and the extractor only needed a bit of judicious grinding. The original stocks, had lots of character and after discarding the top wood, we just opened up the barrel channels and rounded off the fore end. They were lovely, well balanced rifles that would take high pressure loads, up to 45,000cup without a hiccup.
Many of these old girls were converted to 7.92x57 as well, as secondary issue, rear echelon weapons. I have one done in Hungary, at least that is what the receiver says. The barrel and sights are identical to those on a K98 but the mag has been fitted with spring metal lips to hold rimless cartridges and be filled with chargers. Very similar to those done by Turkey on the Commission rifles. These rifles went all over southern Europe as war reparations after WWI. They will have the marks from many nations.
Can't say enough good things about these rifles. Thanks for showing yours OP and for those not interested in playing with the original cartridge there were many imported into Canada in 8x57. Sadly most of them were cut back into sporters and D&Ted for scope mounts.
