Mauser 98k, first fire from the hip? Huh?!

I own and have owned several older military arms and that is what I do when I fire one for the first time. I would rather it come apart away from my face if it did. Sometimes these rifles may not have been fired in 70+ years.
 
Wouldn't tearing the firearm down and checking it for function help allay most of these concerns? I'd think strapping it to the bench and firing the firearm in question remotely may be the best course of action if things seem sketchy.
 
I think firing from the hip was just his way of saying that he was hesitant to shoot the rifle and I won't read any further into than that. I suppose you have never shot a firearm and been a little concerned about the strength of the gun? Be honest....
 
Yes and no to that last question. All the firearms I've had the privilage of shooting were in very good working order, and I never gave it much thought to how reliable or safe they were to shoot. So I can empathize with those who may exercise caution if a firearm looks sketchy.

The ones that I have been cautious about are ones that are chambered in relatively large or power calibers. (.44 mag is the largest handgun caliber I've fired and I am not ashamed to admit it's too much for me still)

I'm not making fun of my friend here, I was curious as to what exactly he was trying to accomplish by firing the rifle this way as it didn't make top much sense to me at the time.

If it's thar worriesome, I would imagine it would be best to remote fire the gun if at all possible. Then again, I wasn't there so perhaps there were other things going on that prompted this course of action for him.
 
I collect WW2 milsurp rifles and have on many occasions (even after head space was checked) fire the rifle at arms length and head turned wearing gloves and safety glasses.
You never know with old misurp guns if there is am issue that could not be seen on inspection.
I got a Brit 303 once that I put a full 10 rd mag down the bore before I put my head behind it. It was in very rough looking shape. Turned out to be one of my best shooters.
 
Mauser 98s don't have clips.
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Yes they do!:p:p

But you're right, Scorch, they don't have clips in the way he meant it...

To me, this guy just seems to be a classic case of "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing".

And, he's not very ...articulate, either.

Apparently he is aware that firing one of these old guns (questionable headspace, or any/everything else) poses a risk. SO, he doesn't want it near his face. He has decided that "first fire from the hip" is safe enough for him. He's just not very good at explaining why...

When it comes to having an old gun turn into a grenade in our hands, most of us are just as concerned with our lower parts as with our upper ones. (maybe even moreso!:D).

So we "first fire" these guns from some kind of rest/fixture, to determine safe function. I'm partial to the old tire method. Quick and simple, (for a long gun) just put the butt inside an old tire (everything lined up for safe discharge), and pull the trigger from a few yards away using a string.

"First fire from the hip" isn't for me, but this fellow is (assumedly) a grown up, and can do what he chooses. It is, after all, literally, his butt on the line. :rolleyes:
 
The terms magazine and clip are not as clear cut as some would want to believe. When reviewing the 1911 pistol for adoption, the Army Ordinance Dept. documents repeatedly refer to the think that goes in the mag well of the pistol and feeds the bullets as a "clip." I would call it a magazine, but in all official documents dealing with the design and adaptation of the 1911, it is a "clip."
 
I would call it a magazine, but in all official documents dealing with the design and adaptation of the 1911, it is a "clip."
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I won't argue that, but in all the official documents I have seen and worked with (FM's TM's, etc.), which all date from the WWII era on, it is called a "magazine", and in the shop manuals, a "magazine assembly". It might have been a clip in the beginning but at some point, it turned into a magazine, which is what it is today.

Yes, there is a lot of overlap, and even some gunmakers have labeled magazines as "clips" (my suspicion is this is done for the benefit of the people who think they are clips, so they can find and buy them).

The debate rages on. For my purposes, I consider a magazine to have a spring, and the spring provides the power to put the ammo in position for the gun to feed it..

Clips, might be a spring, (like the enbloc M1 Garand, or 1/2 moon clips for a revolver) or have one, (like the leaf spring in the Mauser stripper clip, but it is used to retain the ammo in the clip. A clip retains, ammo, relying on either the gun mechanism or manual placement to position the ammo for feeding, IF it does. Stripper clips are used to manually feed rounds into a magazine.

I think this definition avoids most of the confusion, but I'm open to arguments for a different one.
 
I believe Remington has referred to detachable box magazines as "clip magazines" on their packaging. Non detachable box magazines were used in their M700's. I just thought I would clarify my language a bit.
 
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The problem with definitions (as I have learned from college), is that there has to be an ultimate authority for the meaning of words and that authority is the dictionary, like it or not. Unfortunately, the dictionaries are usually are entitled: "Dictionary of words in common usage." The key is, "words in common usage"...but unfortunately for those of us who want correct definitions of things like "clip", "magazine" and even "Thoroughbred" ([SIC, "purebred"]no dog is a "thoroughbred", it is a particular breed of horse), when a word is commonly misused by the public, the dictionaries legitimize it.
 
Wow, this sure went off on a tangent, hah! I personally use magazines and clips separately, and was taught that a clip is typically used to load a magazine, while a magazine holds ammunition.

En-bloc clip/stripper clip loads ammunition into an internal magazine etc.
 
Buzzcook-

You are so right. Any time I worked on a rifle and want to fire for the first time, it is on a benchrest setup, nobody else around and I pull with a string.
 
Many years ago, the m7d 70's to be exact I worked for and with a local gunsmith. He built some nice rifles using milsurp Mauser and also rebarreled Remingtons and Winchester, heck pick something the old boy worked on it. I put a few rifles together myself in his shop and the first round through any rifle that had that type of work was literally from the hip. Sometimes two or three shots. The rifle was held at the hip with the top of the action pointed away from the shooter with the rifle pointed at a roughly 45 degree angle to the ground. Got to be fun when we had to test three or four rifles at a time. The ones I hated to do were the 1903 Springfields where the serial number was at the border between low number and high number. We always tested them with a tap method. Some of those old 1903s actions would shatter like a piece of glass when "tapped" with a hammer. Never did have any gun blow though. The old gunsmith died in 1977 so there went my apprenticeship down the drain. :(
Paul B.
 
but in all official documents dealing with the design and adaptation of the 1911, it is a "clip."
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I believe Remington has referred to detachable box magazines as "clip magazines" on their packaging
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Obfuscation- 1. to be intentionally misleading or less than truthful, 2. to conceal details, 3. to render dark or dim, . . .

We were talking about a Mauser 98, not a 1911 or a Remington 22 rifle, or anything else, therefore, it is a magazine and not a clip. In fact, it is a box magazine, and is not detachable, but is in fact part of the rifle. Magazine.
 
I'll bet real money that the lay public will interchange "clip" and "magazine" for the next 100 years just as in the last 100 years. :D
 
James K said:
FWIW, it used to be fairly common practice to fire the first shot from a strange rifle holding it away from the face, either at arms length or at the hip. I am not sure it doesn't make sense; if something does go wrong, and a lot of high pressure gas comes out the wrong place, I don't want my face in its path.
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My dad told me that it was common when he was younger to hold a newly-acquired handgun with a tree between it and the shooter's body and fire it into a safe place with the idea being that if the seller wasn't honest about its condition and it exploded, the face of the shooter would be safe. A lot of poor, country folks might not have had any idea that there was another way of doing it.
 
I collect WW2 milsurp rifles and have on many occasions (even after head space was checked) fire the rifle at arms length and head turned wearing gloves and safety glasses.
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I have done the same thing.
 
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