Mauser day at the range

[Brad in Idaho]

I'm continuing my project which consists of firing each of the rifles I own and documenting each. Yesterday was Mauser day. I took Turkish Mausers and a Mauser Vergueiro. I was pleasantly surprised by one of the Turks. Shooting surplus Turkish 1941 vintage ammo from 100 yds. resulted in the target below. The one shot out of the black was my doing, I knew it was low when I fired. For a 70 year old rifle (1944) with marginal sights shooting 73 year old ammo this looks pretty good to me. I also shot a 1937 vintage Turk which did fine, but not as good as the 1944. The other Turk refused to fire. I have replaced the firing pin spring in that one with a 22# Wolff spring and I'm betting that problem will be solved. Considering these rifles went so cheap (60 bucks for this one in 2000 including shipping) they may have been one of the best surplus rifle bargains in my experience anyway.

[p246]

Be interested how the old girl shot some modern quality ammo. My K98 does fair with Turk. Likes Yugo stuff better but shoots lights out with handloads. Nice target reguardless. And thanks for sharing.

[kcw]

Both of my Turks are accurate enough with any vintage of Turk ammo, off the bench, to consistently pick off fifty cent piece size pieces of orange clay bird @ 200 yds., one after the other. Never would I think of Turkey as a maker of weapons and ammo of that quality. One of the rifles cost me $70 at a gun show. That one had a brand new barrel on it (blued bore) and the other was one fourth of a distributor's "cracked stock" special deal (four rifles, with bayonets/scabbards for $99- shipped.) As it turned out, none of those had a cracked stock but they were well used. Nonetheless, they were all good shooters. It was during that era when you could buy 1,000 rounds of Turk ammo, on strippers/ in bandoleers; for $65-shipped. Still have a good pile of it.

[Brad in Idaho]

Both of my Turks are accurate enough with any vintage of Turk ammo, off the bench, to consistently pick off fifty cent piece size pieces of orange clay bird @ 200 yds., one after the other. Never would I think of Turkey as a maker of weapons and ammo of that quality. One of the rifles cost me $70 at a gun show. That one had a brand new barrel on it (blued bore) and the other was one fourth of a distributor's "cracked stock" special deal (four rifles, with bayonets/scabbards for $99- shipped.) As it turned out, none of those had a cracked stock but they were well used. Nonetheless, they were all good shooters. It was during that era when you could buy 1,000 rounds of Turk ammo, on strippers/ in bandoleers; for $65-shipped. Still have a good pile of it.

Ah, the good old days. I got in on the 4 for $99 dollar deal as well. The rifles I took to the range were not part of that purchase though. All 4 I got are good shooters and none had cracked stocks. The only downside to that deal was the 12 pounds of cosmoline that was included with them. Took days to clean those things up just to see what you had. I'm going to be selling some of my rifles when I'm done test firing and some of these will be going. Needless to say I won't be selling them for $25 each. I have detail stripped all of my Mausers, disassembled the bolts, degreased all the components, replaced firing pin springs if needed and headspaced each of them. It's a lot of work on some of these old rifles, but it's part of the fun of collecting milsurps IMO.

I stocked up on the Turk ammo when it was cheap and plentiful too. Glad I did now. The stuff IS corrosive, but I clean the rifles accordingly at the range right after firing and it's never caused any problems with any of them.