A Sad, Sad Story

A friend of mine recently sold me an old Swede Mauser. It has been through the "Shadetree Gun Shop". Drilled and tapped for a scope, bolt handle turned down and ground to clear a scope and the original stock thrown into the fire and a new/not new stock. (1970,s I think because of the ugly monte carlo comb and super ugly red rubber recoil pad).

Here is the sad part. It's an 1894 carbine made in Orberndorf Mauser dated 1895. Now between 1894-96 Carl Gustav made about 110,000 carbines and Orberndorf made only 12,000. This one is serial number 3666.

Oh how I weep.

Does anyone know where to find an 1894 stock and if not, do the modern, after market stocks designed for the M38's fit a carbine too? If I can't get it back to a (somewhat) original stock, i would at least like to put a new, not so ugly modern stock on it.

You can find sporterized 1894 carbine stocks on Ebay from time to time at reasonable prices. Most of these are cut stocks and unfortunately some have been subsequently been sporterized and streamlined. Often a recoil pad has been added and the stocks have been thoroughly sanded.

I bought a relatively unmolested stock for under $100 for a long term carbine restoration where the sling inletting and stock disc inletting had been filled in with plastic wood. It had not been sanded. Strangely enough 1894 carbine handguards are relatively in good supply. Numrich has had them in the past but not sure if they currently have them. BTW, the sling keeper for the 94 carbine is very scarce and brings high prices by itself.

There are a few sure enough complete 1894 stocks on sale on fleabay from time to time but expect $300-400 at a minimum.

You could try altering an already cut 96 or 38 Swedish Mauser stock which are all over Ebay for $50 or less. For obvious reasons, I would not recommend butchering a complete full length stock. It will not have the inletting for the sling and the barrel channel inletting will need to be altered as the sights are different for the carbine and the barrel is obviously different. It will not be exact (e.g. the hand grooves on the stocks are different etc. but could be close enough absent a true restoration.

Thanks for the advice. I will keep an eye on ebay.

New to the vintage firearm arena myself, I understand how folks can be unaware of the true value of "old" firearms and set about "improving" them. Since my M1A1 wild find I look at every vintage firearm with a new perspective. At gun shows I breeze past the current stuff in my search for history.

Thanks for sharing your story.

A lot of these rifles were converted back in the 1950's and early 60's. Back then a lot the collector's guns were just so much military "junk" rifle to be converted to sporting use. Little attention was paid to the rarity or scarcity of the military rifle. Today the reverse is true, folks look for that "bubba" gun to restore to its former military glory.

--fjruple

Stonefly2, There are several threads on this site regarding plugging scope mount holes. If done right you can hardly tell. Also a new handle could be welded to your bolt or you could replace the bolt body with an original. Salt Flat