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From: weitek!robert@Sun.COM (Robert Plamondon)
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Re: novice wants advice
Message-ID: <35917@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 22 Jun 91 14:07:58 GMT
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In article <35870@mimsy.umd.edu> shaffer@achilles.ctd.anl.gov (Michael A.
Shaffer ) writes:
#Questions...
#
#1. Are the 7mm & 8mm Mausers reasonable for this type of hunting?
#2. Would these used rifles be safe and reasonably accurate?
#     (I would only by rifles in NRA very good or better condition
#       and have them checked by a gunsmith)

My father was a gunsmith, and loved military bolt-action rifles.  He
favored the 6.5 Carcano carbine (an Italian/Mannlicher design)
because it is short and handy.  He once bagged a deer with it, and
the linotype bullet he used broke up and did an appalling amount of
meat damage.  It definitely wasn't underpowered for the application.

Dad had a weakness for obscure calibers (which meshed well with his
aversion to paying more than $50 for a gun), and bought all sorts of
odds and ends.  I still have the Model 1886 8mm Portugese Kropotschek
that he bought.  Compared to these, the 8mm Mauser is completely
ordinary.  It's a good rifle by all accounts, and ammo is still easy
to come by.  I think "Cartridges of the World" puts it in the .30-06
class (suitable for all North American game), where most of the 6.5mm
rifles (and even the Lee-Enfield) are in the .30-30 class (that is,
you'd hesitate to use it on things like elk and moose, and would be
mad to use it on grizzly and buffalo).  I'm not familiar with the 7mm
Mauser.

#4. Any general advice?

Buy full-military versions.  There are a lot of incompetently
"sporterized" models, and the unmodified ones tend to be less
expensive.  The military ones are more interesting, anyway.

Make sure you understand how plentiful the ammo is for the rifle
before you buy it.  You can still get ammo for virtually any
center-fire rifle ever made, but it might be expensive and
time-consuming to find it.

Buy more than one.  They're cheap, and the first one you buy may not
suit you all that well.

I don't like Lee-Enfields: too massive.  They also cock on closing,
which I don't like.  Your mileage may vary.

The sword bayonets that you can get for the early bolt-actions aren't
practical, but they're cool-looking.  They only cost about $20, so
what the hey.

Military ammo for most of these rifles kicks like hell.  It also
comes with fully jacketed bullets, which aren't suitable for hunting.
You can often get military ammo for even very old guns (I have some
Kroptoschek ammo dating back to 1922).  Some of this is very good;
some is very bad.  Inspect every round before you fire it; my
Kropotschek ammo had a lot of rounds with cracked case necks.

	-- Robert
-- 
    Robert Plamondon
    robert@weitek.COM