Wolverine Sale Pictures Thread
- Thread starter buffdog
- Start date
Got my rifles today. Top is a Romanian contract VZ-24 with the King Carol II crest intact - these are VERY rare, as almost all of them were ground off post war when the communists took over. Ball's Mauser Military Rifles of the World only has a picture of a partially ground crest. Not much bluing remaining and the stocks dinged up with a cracked handguard, and it's missing the cleaning rod but that's ok, it's been through the Eastern Front. The bolt is actually from a Kar 98K with waffenamts, but I don't think I'll have much trouble sourcing a correct straight VZ-24 bolt, or a cleaning rod for that matter.
Bottom is a Polish wz.29 in somewhat nicer condition external condition, a few dings but no cracks on the stock and lots of bluing. The receiver markings are scrubbed to disguise it's origins when it was sold to the Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War. It also seems to have a 98K style bolt installed, this one with no waffenamts. That might be harder to find a correct replacement for. It's also missing the front sight, although I have a line on a replacement, and the locking tabs on the rear sight slider.
All in all, neither rifle is perfect, but I don't feel like I was mislead or ripped off. I got them for a good price (the VZ-24 espescially) and I like them both a fair bit.
Bottom is a Polish wz.29 in somewhat nicer condition external condition, a few dings but no cracks on the stock and lots of bluing. The receiver markings are scrubbed to disguise it's origins when it was sold to the Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War. It also seems to have a 98K style bolt installed, this one with no waffenamts. That might be harder to find a correct replacement for. It's also missing the front sight, although I have a line on a replacement, and the locking tabs on the rear sight slider.
All in all, neither rifle is perfect, but I don't feel like I was mislead or ripped off. I got them for a good price (the VZ-24 espescially) and I like them both a fair bit.
- Location
- Ottawa, ON
^ very nice pieces to me, would be happy to own both of them. Thanks for sharing. 
stickhunter
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Victoria, B.C.
Congratulations, Nyles, and that's a good attitude to have. Quite frankly, just getting a hold of a receiver with the crest in tact would make the purchase worthwhile for myself.
What sort of shape do the bores appear to be in?
Nice piece! How's the bore looking?
Jocelyn
Sale pictures
This is getting interesting. It does look like this collection had a fair number of scarce, (or even rare) firearms in it, and some of the Members here are finding out that they have some real treasures that were well worth the price.
I am sure that NYLES is tickled pink with that Romanian contract VZ-24 with the King Carol II crest intact. What a score.
And a Finnish captured SVT-40? Not a lot of them around either.
Another post in the Milsurps sections shows a pre-war Walther P-38, and I know of a Dutch Beaumont rifle that was purchased.
What else will turn up?
.
Late addition: I just finished cleaning the bore on the m/70/87/15 Vetterli that I bought. Had to add and extra section to the cleaning rod to get it all the way down that 32 inch barrel.
I must say that I am happy with it. The bore is crisp and shiny, with very good rifling. I tried a .264 bullet lightly in the muzzle, and it left rifling marks on the ojive of the bullet, so it has a tight bore and should be able to shoot the .264 bullets well. We will have a range session later this spring, as SMELLIE has a m/70/87/15 that he bought at the Brandon Gun Show in December and he is itching to fire it.
This is getting interesting. It does look like this collection had a fair number of scarce, (or even rare) firearms in it, and some of the Members here are finding out that they have some real treasures that were well worth the price.
I am sure that NYLES is tickled pink with that Romanian contract VZ-24 with the King Carol II crest intact. What a score.
And a Finnish captured SVT-40? Not a lot of them around either.
Another post in the Milsurps sections shows a pre-war Walther P-38, and I know of a Dutch Beaumont rifle that was purchased.
What else will turn up?
.
Late addition: I just finished cleaning the bore on the m/70/87/15 Vetterli that I bought. Had to add and extra section to the cleaning rod to get it all the way down that 32 inch barrel.
I must say that I am happy with it. The bore is crisp and shiny, with very good rifling. I tried a .264 bullet lightly in the muzzle, and it left rifling marks on the ojive of the bullet, so it has a tight bore and should be able to shoot the .264 bullets well. We will have a range session later this spring, as SMELLIE has a m/70/87/15 that he bought at the Brandon Gun Show in December and he is itching to fire it.
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Thanks, where any why would that have been? Don't really see any added metal, but I am no expert on the SVT40.
Here is my SVT40, SA marked. Mag is cut but it is SA marked as well. Thanks for looking
Very nice catch. Congrats!
It seems that metal was added to fill out the receiver notch?
Thanks, where any why would that have been? Don't really see any added metal, but I am no expert on the SVT40.
Look like there was a sniper notch at the rear of receiver, welded over maybe its just the camera effect but look very shiny. Pics from top and side view of the receiver rear section would tell. If its an ex sniper, i wonder who and why the notch would have been filled?
Jocelyn
Quite agree as to the cut mag, but mine is that way as well, so we are all crying in the same pot of soup.
Thing is, Globe brought these critters (the Finn-capture SVTs) into the country and offered them at $39.95, but there were VERY few takers. That was a fair bit of money at that time (think 10x the value in our present plastic "money", possibly higher: pack of smokes was $1.25, gas was 60 cents a gallon).... and Soviet/Russian quipment was very much unknown and generally derided insofar as quality was concerned.
Add to that the fact that there was NO commercial ammo available, Remington having de-listed the 7.62x4R in 1950 and a box of Norma selling for better than half the price of the rifle. Surplus ammo was very scarce, steel-cased and Berdan-primed, not to mention corrosive and of Korean War dates and not the most consistent stuff ever made to start with..... and it had had 20-plus years of poor storage to boot. NOT the most attractive package. I bought the very LAST unbuggered SVT they had while I was in Seldom-Come-By on Fogo Island, teaching school.
So Globe had all these unmarketable rifles and they had a whack of new-in-grease SMLE barrels, so they invented the Globe 555, a .303 semi-auto sporting rifle, very snazzy and some day I'm gonna have one.... if they haven't all blown up. When they did the conversion, they used as many Tok parts as possible. Flash hiders/muzzle brakes they assembled onto Number 4 Lee-Enfields, making the Globe superduper models the LOUDEST .303 rifles ever built. The pistons on the SVT are mounted to the barrel and the op-rod is actuated by a CUP around it, pushing aganst the op-rod. Sounds silly, I know, but it worked well enough that Fritz stole it for his Kar-43... and nobody ever complains about those.
The only real bugaboo with the SVT was that long, skinny op-rod. The thing really should have been made of TUBING, in which case it would have been much more resistant to flexing, even if it turned out an ounce heavier. But for the 555, these slender op-rods were shortened instead, which made them less liable to flexing, even in cold weather, something upon which Mother Russia has no monopoly: we, here in the heart of .303 country, also have rotten weather in the Winter.
The PROBLEM with the 555 arose because PORT PRESSURES were not completely understood, nor were there any GAS ADJUSTMENT TOOLS available. As far as most shooters were concerned, the rifles worked and, if they mangled your brass and tossed it into the next Province, who cares, anyway? NOBODY loads .303: it's just too easy to buy. I mean, apart from a handful of competition shooters and Milsurp nuts. And different companies made their .303 ammo to different specs, mostly with very fast powders (save money on manfacture and shipping) and there WAS some pretty awful ammo made by ONE certain company.... and those generous gas-ports just ate out a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger until, finally, the rifle full-auto'd itself to death in one final, defiant "BRAPPPP!" of out-of-battery firing, bolt-carriers compressing against the stretching receiver troughs, both of which then returned to dimension while propelling the bolt into battery (more or less) and the firing-pin drifted against the upcoming primer, setting it off before the bolt could lock and..... another 555 was on its way to the dump.
But a 555 is a really decent rifle IF you adjust the gas for your ammo, same as the SVT is a damfine rifle IF you adjust it for PORT PRESSURE when it starts winging the brass to North Carolina.... and you are shooting in Saskatchewan.
BUT.... a snazzy sporting rifle with a greathuge ugly obviously-military 10- or 15-round magazine hanging underneath the thing just looks so damn UGLY.... so the first thing they did, once the 555 program had been settled upon, was chop ALL of their SVT mags (which were even scarcer then than they are now) down to 5 rounds. If some military nut-case (such as myself) actually WANTED an unbuggered SVT, they hauled one off the rack, slapped on the first available mag (which would be a chopped-down-to-5-rounds EX-mil mag) and shipped it to him. That is how mine arrived at the Seldom-Come-By Post Office.
And that is the Tale of the Woefully-Chopped Tokarev Magazine.
Go to sleep now, children......
Hope this clears up some of the confooshun.
Most important of all: have fun!
.
Thing is, Globe brought these critters (the Finn-capture SVTs) into the country and offered them at $39.95, but there were VERY few takers. That was a fair bit of money at that time (think 10x the value in our present plastic "money", possibly higher: pack of smokes was $1.25, gas was 60 cents a gallon).... and Soviet/Russian quipment was very much unknown and generally derided insofar as quality was concerned.
Add to that the fact that there was NO commercial ammo available, Remington having de-listed the 7.62x4R in 1950 and a box of Norma selling for better than half the price of the rifle. Surplus ammo was very scarce, steel-cased and Berdan-primed, not to mention corrosive and of Korean War dates and not the most consistent stuff ever made to start with..... and it had had 20-plus years of poor storage to boot. NOT the most attractive package. I bought the very LAST unbuggered SVT they had while I was in Seldom-Come-By on Fogo Island, teaching school.
So Globe had all these unmarketable rifles and they had a whack of new-in-grease SMLE barrels, so they invented the Globe 555, a .303 semi-auto sporting rifle, very snazzy and some day I'm gonna have one.... if they haven't all blown up. When they did the conversion, they used as many Tok parts as possible. Flash hiders/muzzle brakes they assembled onto Number 4 Lee-Enfields, making the Globe superduper models the LOUDEST .303 rifles ever built. The pistons on the SVT are mounted to the barrel and the op-rod is actuated by a CUP around it, pushing aganst the op-rod. Sounds silly, I know, but it worked well enough that Fritz stole it for his Kar-43... and nobody ever complains about those.
The only real bugaboo with the SVT was that long, skinny op-rod. The thing really should have been made of TUBING, in which case it would have been much more resistant to flexing, even if it turned out an ounce heavier. But for the 555, these slender op-rods were shortened instead, which made them less liable to flexing, even in cold weather, something upon which Mother Russia has no monopoly: we, here in the heart of .303 country, also have rotten weather in the Winter.
The PROBLEM with the 555 arose because PORT PRESSURES were not completely understood, nor were there any GAS ADJUSTMENT TOOLS available. As far as most shooters were concerned, the rifles worked and, if they mangled your brass and tossed it into the next Province, who cares, anyway? NOBODY loads .303: it's just too easy to buy. I mean, apart from a handful of competition shooters and Milsurp nuts. And different companies made their .303 ammo to different specs, mostly with very fast powders (save money on manfacture and shipping) and there WAS some pretty awful ammo made by ONE certain company.... and those generous gas-ports just ate out a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger until, finally, the rifle full-auto'd itself to death in one final, defiant "BRAPPPP!" of out-of-battery firing, bolt-carriers compressing against the stretching receiver troughs, both of which then returned to dimension while propelling the bolt into battery (more or less) and the firing-pin drifted against the upcoming primer, setting it off before the bolt could lock and..... another 555 was on its way to the dump.
But a 555 is a really decent rifle IF you adjust the gas for your ammo, same as the SVT is a damfine rifle IF you adjust it for PORT PRESSURE when it starts winging the brass to North Carolina.... and you are shooting in Saskatchewan.
BUT.... a snazzy sporting rifle with a greathuge ugly obviously-military 10- or 15-round magazine hanging underneath the thing just looks so damn UGLY.... so the first thing they did, once the 555 program had been settled upon, was chop ALL of their SVT mags (which were even scarcer then than they are now) down to 5 rounds. If some military nut-case (such as myself) actually WANTED an unbuggered SVT, they hauled one off the rack, slapped on the first available mag (which would be a chopped-down-to-5-rounds EX-mil mag) and shipped it to him. That is how mine arrived at the Seldom-Come-By Post Office.
And that is the Tale of the Woefully-Chopped Tokarev Magazine.
Go to sleep now, children......
Hope this clears up some of the confooshun.
Most important of all: have fun!
.
