Military Surplus Mausers

E

Easyrider

Inactive
Hello everyone,
I'm rather new here, so please bear with me. I have noticed some of the sporting goods store have been selling surplus Mausers of various origins. Are these any good for general plinking? What surplus rifles would you recommend or maybe what rifles to avoid? Am I better off going through a mail order company or someone local? Thank you.:)
 
If i were you i would pick up a Yugo M-48 (i got a "new" one from Aim for $190.00 in hand) for your Mauser, and would also grab a Mosin Nagant M-44 carbine in 7.62x54r.Both of these are great rifles that can't be beat for the price! Pick up a Shotgun News and find a local FFL dealer that will bring in what you want for a $15-20 fee. Keep an eye on http://www.aimsurplus.com as well as http://www.classicarms.org :)

[Edited by Tropical Z on 11-29-2000 at 09:28 PM]
 
Easyrider: in short, my best advice right now would be for you to go to http://www.mosin-nagant.net. Go to the Mauser discussion forum there. It's very active and is filled with guys who are on top of what is good and not so good in the surplus firearms market.

In short, I would encourage you to avoid the Turkish Mausers right now. Some great ones can be had, but if you're fairly new and aren't sure what to look for, play it safe and stay away. AIM Surplus (www.aimsurplus.com) has a great reputation and great service. I've ordered a number of rifles from them; all were delivered in a timely fashion and the rifles were in great shape. While I am not personally a big M48 Yugoslavian Mauser fan, they are very nice and are currently available at cheap prices. Also, AIM has Yugoslavian refurbished Kar.98K rifles. I have one of these and am extremely happy. Anyway, the old surplus rifles represent one of the last true bargans in the firearms market and are a blast to shoot! You just have to know what you're looking at/for.
 
Lots of Swedish Mauser fans. M38 Carbine. M96 rifle. Chambered in 6.5x55mm. Easy recoil. Factory loads from Winchester, Remington, Federal, PMC, Norma, Lapua, and Speer. Some surplus ammo available, too. Search the forum for recent informative posts with links to www info sites. Good luck.
 
Thank you everyone. Martowski, I bookmarked the link to the Mauser Forum. I suspect am going to learn a lot there. I decided against buying any rifle from the local sporting goods store. I need to research this more. I love my Remington BDL, but I am looking for something different and didn't want an SKS. Thanks again.
 
Nothing wrong with those Mausers from the sporting goods stores, necessarily. There's good, and there's bad.

The Turk Mausers that you can get for $49 will be pretty beat up, but what do you expect for $50? They'll be serviceable, in all likelihood.

These Mausers clean up pretty good, if you're willing to spend a few hours scrubbing and cleaning. I paid sixty bucks for a Czech Mauser and after a bit of work, I've got it looking pretty nice.

The Yugo Mausers, if you can get an unfired one, can be a pretty darn good bargain. I got a Yugo with a pristine bore for $159 (including all the accessories).

Warning. Once you buy one and clean it up nicely, you'll be hooked and start planning for more Mausers.
 
Yes, some of the department store Mausers can be good buys. Besides bore condition and other more "obvious" factors to look at, you'll want to look at headspace. "No-Go" gauges can be purchased for around $20 from Brownells and are invaluable in making sure your rifle is safe to fire. If a rifle's bolt closes on the No-Go or Field gauges, it can be unsafe to shoot (the proper way to gauge headspace is by removing the extractor from a Mauser-type rifle, making sure the chamber is clear and clean, inserting the gauge into the chamber, and closing the bolt WITHOUT forcing it).
 
I have a Spanish Mauser - la Coruna, 1946.

Excellent shooting piece and still looks great. Bought it with 200 rds in 1978, cost me $75 total. I don't think it will ever die.
 
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