C96 late post-war bolo

[larryhoosier]

I picked this up at a local gun show over the weekend. The bore was so dirty and worn looking upon first inspection that I almost passed on it. I did some soul searching and decided that all matching numbers trumped the potential for a shooter, so I made a huge leap of faith and bought it.





I couldn't get a good shot of the bore but it looks much better than this photo shows.


What appears at first glance to be light pitting is in fact the bluing fading and "freckling". It all matches even the grips and is in fine working order. The righthand grip has what I took to be a Chinese ideogram pressed or stamped into the wood, not carved. It could be just happenstance, but the other grip is unmarked by any dings or scratches. Anyone capable of interpreting this marking, feel free to chime in.


I cleaned the barrel expecting to find a shot-out pitted mess under all of the crud, but it gleams and has pretty good rifling! I couldn't have found anything close at 3 times what I paid for it. Sometimes a leap of firearm faith pays off!

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