Doesn't get much better than that. I picked up a barreled action for $350. Got a stock and new handguards that need finished and installed. Even bought a spare barrel for it, even though the one it came with was nice and sharp looking. I couldn't help myself. They were like sixty bucks from Sarco.
I just need to bed that action. To many projects in the works right now. As though that were a bad thing.
8mm mauser is a nasty round. A hair hotter than the 30-06. That makes for a pretty awesome battle rifle if you ask me. A bit on the heavy side, but damn, those FN49's are luxurious, ain't they?
I like the round; it's plentiful, cheap, and packs a wallop. I have the FN-49, four Germans (Gew.88/05, Gew.98, Kar.98AZ, and Kar.98k), and two Chinese (Type 88 Hanyang and a Chiang Kai Shek). Oh, and a Portuguese Mauser-Vergueiro M1904/39.
All matching from a relative in the 1970's. No story went with it as to when he got it but I remember as kid seeing missing toes on him and he was an anti tank gunner on a 57mm. He once told me how the 57mm rounds bounced off the German tanks in the Bulge Dec. '44.
If you think of the power and recoile of the 192g service round this is amazing for it's accuracy and high rate of fire. I hauled an M60 for a few years around and could fire it standing from the shoulder, not well but I doubt I could do it with the 8mm.
I am 6'4" 240#, while at the range one time I was sitting on a fibre glass pic-nic table bench, I tried firing from the shoulder, ten rounds from the FN49 pictured above, At around the 6th round I fell off of the end of the bench, That rifle was pushing me on the slick surface and I didn't realize it.