Hi all,
Took a while to get this one done but the restoration of my M38 Swede is finally "essentially" done.
A bit of background - I bought this rifle off TradeEx about a year and a half ago. It's a 1943 production Husqvarna and tastefully sporterized with all matching metal parts. There are a few things like barrel bands, rear sight and so on that were missing and a few parts modified. It was drilled and tapped for unknown scope bases. The only irreversible modification was the safety which was filed down to clear a low mounting scope such that the first digit of the serial number is gone.
Given that it's already drilled and tapped and my eye sight is pretty poor I planned to put some glass on it. A period-correct 4x AJACK scope proved to be a bit too expensive and too difficult to mount up without making further modifications but I still wanted something that is in keeping with the spirit and function of the era.
Between Numrich and eBay it took about a year to source the stock and all the bits metal bits and pieces. The stock only needed some minor fitting and otherwise fit very well. I also got an unmodified safety flag but it is not serialized.
I received the glass yesterday. It is a 1960s production Kahles Super 6 with a German #1 reticle. Mounted up with Leupold STD rings. I haven't had a chance to shoot it in the current configuration yet. Previously using a PU stand-in it would do ~ 2 MoA with 130gr bullets after some rudimentary load development.
I'm quite happy with how it turned out so far. A few minor issues still - Leupold high rings turned out to be just a hair too low to allow the use of the unmodified safety. I'm also missing a stop screw on the rear sight that prevents it from falling off the ladder completely. The Leupold rear base fits but the front screw hole doesn't quite match up - it is solid right now with only 2 forward base screws and 1 rear screw and I expect it shouldn't be a problem on a soft recoiling cartridge like 6.5x55 but I would like to extend the screw slot on the base at some point for a more secure mounting.
If anyone has a set of 30mm Leupold super high rings they'd like to trade with me (I have 30mm high and mediums) or if anyone knows what thread that screw is in I'd very much appreciate it
Here's a picture:
Took a while to get this one done but the restoration of my M38 Swede is finally "essentially" done.
A bit of background - I bought this rifle off TradeEx about a year and a half ago. It's a 1943 production Husqvarna and tastefully sporterized with all matching metal parts. There are a few things like barrel bands, rear sight and so on that were missing and a few parts modified. It was drilled and tapped for unknown scope bases. The only irreversible modification was the safety which was filed down to clear a low mounting scope such that the first digit of the serial number is gone.
Given that it's already drilled and tapped and my eye sight is pretty poor I planned to put some glass on it. A period-correct 4x AJACK scope proved to be a bit too expensive and too difficult to mount up without making further modifications but I still wanted something that is in keeping with the spirit and function of the era.
Between Numrich and eBay it took about a year to source the stock and all the bits metal bits and pieces. The stock only needed some minor fitting and otherwise fit very well. I also got an unmodified safety flag but it is not serialized.
I received the glass yesterday. It is a 1960s production Kahles Super 6 with a German #1 reticle. Mounted up with Leupold STD rings. I haven't had a chance to shoot it in the current configuration yet. Previously using a PU stand-in it would do ~ 2 MoA with 130gr bullets after some rudimentary load development.
I'm quite happy with how it turned out so far. A few minor issues still - Leupold high rings turned out to be just a hair too low to allow the use of the unmodified safety. I'm also missing a stop screw on the rear sight that prevents it from falling off the ladder completely. The Leupold rear base fits but the front screw hole doesn't quite match up - it is solid right now with only 2 forward base screws and 1 rear screw and I expect it shouldn't be a problem on a soft recoiling cartridge like 6.5x55 but I would like to extend the screw slot on the base at some point for a more secure mounting.
If anyone has a set of 30mm Leupold super high rings they'd like to trade with me (I have 30mm high and mediums) or if anyone knows what thread that screw is in I'd very much appreciate it
Here's a picture:
Last edited:
