M96

[mikestripe]

I have a chance to buy a 1917- M96 MAUSER, IT IS IN excellent shape, stock looks good, the bore is nice and shinny, the rifling looks strong, what's a fair price to pay.

Information

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[NRA]

not enough info, matching? pics would help

[mikestripe]

I do not have pictures, I have seen the gun, it is matching #, it has sling and it has a flash suppressor on it. No bayonet.

[Patrick Chadwick]

M96 I do not have pictures, I have seen the gun, it is matching #, it has sling and it has a flash suppressor on it. No bayonet.

Going out on a limb, without a photo, I think that the rifle you describe is a Carl Gustav SWEDISH Mauser. Not Swiss! And that is unlikely to be a flash-hider, it was probably orignally a screw-on blank firing adaptor. Does it actually have a hole down the middle? If so, it may be a muzzle brake or flash hider. But if it has a slightly rounded front end, then it is simply a blank firing adaptor that has been drilled out to look like a muzzle brake. The adaptors had a solid rounded front end!

According to my information, the Carl Gustavs never had a muzzle brake or a flash hider. The threaded front ends were only applied to common-or-garden infantry rifles for recruit training with blank cartridges firing wooden bullets that disintegrated in the adaptor. Not for any kind of marksman's rifle! But faking up a muzzle brake or flash hider is one way of optically upvaluing (!!!) a very ordinary rifle.

Whichever it is - it is not original. A photo would settle the matter.

[Aragorn243]

Patrick,

I is a flash hider and they are very common in the US. Whether they are Swedish issue or not I can't answer but I'd estimate a good 50% of all Swedish M96's sold here with the screw on barrel ends have them.

Someone, somewhere mass produced them and got them on the market. Without pulling mine out of the safe, I'd say it's about two inches long, slightly smaller diameter than the rifle barrel, a perfect fit on the end and it has four elongated square edged cuts going around the diameter. When I purchased mine, which came off of another rifle at a local gunshop, I was told it was a blank firing adaptor that had the shredders drilled out. This is definitely not one of those as the shredder is a completely different device with a round end as you describe.

As for value, obviously depends on condition. Nearly all of these are matching numbers, the Swedes didn't mix and match parts. I see them for sale between $225 and $350 most commonly with better examples at the $350 end. The flash hiders sell for $16. Slings are cheap at $10-$12 and bayonets are also cheap at about $40-$45.

For the money, they are a very good rifle. Prices are going up as people figure that out.

I paid about $105 for mine about 20 years ago. It was the second milsurp I purchased.

[AntiqueOutings]

I got mine with mostly matching numbers for $300. The rifle was in really good shape.

I also wrote a few articles you may be interested in. One is on the actual rifle and the other is on the bayonets that go on it. One thing you should look at is the brass disk that is located on the right side rifle butt. It will give you an indication of how good the rifle was last time it was inspected. The downfall is you don't know how many times it was used after the inspection and how often it was fired. Still if the Inspection is bad, then you might want to stay away from it.

Matching numbers always increase the price of the weapon. The more matching numbers the better.

ttp://antiqueoutings.com/swedish-bayonet-1896-bayonet

http://antiqueoutings.com/swedish-mauser-m96-rifle