cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ahhhhh. A new mauser. Much better. I'm still considering moving over to Livejournal since after a week of emailing, begging for help, the nice people who run Diaryland are still ignoring me. Losing my archives here would be a shame, however. Anyway, trying to move on and write some sot of real entry now. I hadn't written about it here, but I just finished a big refinacing/debt consolidation thing. Basically I took both car loans and some other things and rolled them into a second mortgage that has a better interest rate and much lower payments. Effectively, I've just cut over $500 a month out of our budget and solved a lot of money problems. We closed on the loan last Friday. With that shit straightened out, I immediately decided to buy the vintage Spanish Mauser that I saw behind the counter at the lesser of the 2 gun shops in town on Saturday. It was only $100 and I'd have been nuts not to buy it. The timing was perfect, as I had literally just finished reading 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' the night before. And then I walk into the gun store and see this Spanish Mauser made in 1916 with 'Guardia Civil' markings on it, plus other indications that this rifle was in fact used in the Spanish Civil War. Tre cool. Exactly the literal piece of history that I wanted to run into at that moment. The best part is that this is one of the ones that the Spanish government converted into .308 in the 1960's for training and police use. .308 is a plentiful and versatile cartridge and one that I needed a rifle in anyway. Unfortunately, this neat little carbine had been abused by a previous owner and the crest was ground off of the receiver in order to drill threaded holes for a scope. Also the magazine spring and follower are missing. None of these problems are a big deal for me. Until I find a new follower, I can just use it as a single shot rifle. I got it home and took it out back to shoot it some and see what she can do. I was pleasantly surprised. The first shot (from a freshly cleaned, oiled barrel) was a dead bullseye at 50 yards and the next four were a little higher than the first, strung out horizontally with about 1/4 inch between each one. So about a 2 inch group shooting without a scope at a target I could hardly see. That's pretty damned good for a $100 gun that is 92 years old. She has promise. I *could* go nuts with this thing by re-blueing it, getting the bolt handle reforged to accomodate a scope, reshaping the stock, etc, etc. But I think I shouldn't bother spending the money or the time. I'll get the parts to make the magazine work and then leave it at that. Maybe whenever I get around to re-bluing my 'serious' Mauser sporter project I will do the Spanish Mauser at the same time, since 2 is no more trouble than one. A new magazine follower and a really good, thorough cleaning. That should suffice for the time being. 5:17 p.m. - 2008-07-14 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||
|
||||||