Estonian Mauser in .303

Apparently they were only made as a salesman's sample. Maybe. Kind of like the Mausers made in 7.62x54R for the Imperial Russian Cavalry.
 
I have been looking for one of those since 1965 and the only thing I have see are pictures. I am under the impression that Estonia bought several thousand of them but can't prove it. I would think there would have to be a certain number that would constitute an order?
 
Heres two photos from Robert W. D. Ball's 'Mauser Military Rifles of the World 5th edition'. The first photo is the production numbers made by Czechoslovakia, note this just lists the prototypes that are accounted for. The Estonian order is mentioned later in the book but there is no mention of production numbers, what they looked (at least markings wise), and where they ended up (likely in the smelter somewhere). The second photo is a photo of what the rifle looked like from a catalog. It is interesting that they tried to sell these rifles to Thailand (makes sense as they did order a number of No. 1 Mk. 3 Lee Enfields so .303 British would have been a round that was in there ammo supply system), as well as some South American countries.



 
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sail32 said:
Nice book on Mausers, I wish he had not used a red background for the colour photos.
Click to expand...

I like it, it works for me because I am more a generalist when it comes to collecting (as opposed to focusing on a specific area or model, e.g. Lee Enfields, K98ks, M91/30s etc.), it is also useful for being able to identify exactly what Mauser you have in your hands (say at a gun show) though there are some errors and models that are missing it is definitely a good buy if someone was looking for general information (also excellent as it divides it up by country as opposed to model).

I wish someone would come up with a book similar to this one but having all models of bolt-actions or even throwing in the early semi-autos in there too.
 
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