Milsurp Sacrilege?

[Aragorn243]

Ok, basic story. I was given a Swedish 38 short rifle the other day. It is in bad shape. I have cleaned the rust off of it at present and am in need of options. The pitting is bad enough that it may be hazardous to fire yet the bore and the action are in pretty good shape. The stock has dry rot for the first six or so inches and has already broken off.

My hope was to restore this to function using as many of the original parts that I could. If I could do that, I'd probably fill the holes, park and paint it, repair the stock etc.

My concern is obviously safety first. Is the barrel pitted too bad to be safe, would it be accurate after more than a few shots as it heats up an starts bending due to the pitting and uneven heat exchange (not sure it would to this, just asking).

I thought, and here is the sacrilege part, that if it is not salvageable as is, I could cut the barrel down to just longer than legal length, cut the stock back to the second barrel band and make a tanker's carbine out of it. I'm not too concerned with the pitting in that portion of the barrel. It's there, it isn't good but I've seen some Nagants pitted like that and that is a hotter round that the 6.5. I have no idea how accurate something like that would be, how far the flames would fly or what type of front sight to put on it.

Anyway, I have a couple of dozen photos of this rifle on the Restoration Forum if you'd care to look and offer opinions.

I don't like the wall hanger idea, someone, someday could take it and shoot it if I made it "pretty" by covering it up.

And yes, I could get another barrel, another stock, another cleaning rod, a pair of barrel band springs and a bayonet lug and barrel band. But by then I could have bought another rifle that was intact and in no need of cosmetic repairs.

1941 Swedish Mauser needs a LOT of help

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Salt Flat]

Aragorn, Can you post some pictures of the receiver so we can see the depth of pitting? From what I've seen so far I don't think the action looks too bad. Sometimes under the wood line though the pitting can get real deep. I don't think that it would be sacrilege to modify this rifle due to its "advanced" condition. It is your rifle. In my humble opinion though I do think that it would be best to try and leave it in it's original configuration. If you modify it you have neither an original rifle nor a 'slick" shooter. As an original rifle it can at least be a representative example of a type. (I don't like to call them wall hangers) Not all collector rifles need to be shooters. You probably have many other "shooters" anyway. Salt Flat

[Aragorn243]

I'd prefer to leave it original but I also would prefer to have it functional. You are correct that I don't need to shoot this but to be honest, it isn't very collectible no matter what I do to it at this point. I also like having it for "type" but again trying to balance that out with usefulness. While I don't have the need to collect nice clean fancy rifles (can't afford them anyway) the one condition I do have is that I can shoot it whether I actually do or not.

Anyway, here are some more photos of the receiver. I haven't done much to it, just some wire brushing and the liquid wrench. The interior again looks fine. The bolt at that end had no rust at all.









Most of the pitting seems centered around the handguard band, that is also in pretty bad shape. Pitting on the receiver looks no worse than a few Mosin Nagants that I have that went through the refurbishment process.

[Salt Flat]

Yes, I can definetly see your logic. As for the pitting, I have shot some worse looking rifles. Maybe some others will chime in. As to your orignal question regarding sacrilege, due to the condition of the piece, I would not worry about it. Salt Flat

[emmagee1917]

There is no safety issues from these pits .
Chris

[Aragorn243]

Chris,

The safety concern I have is with the barrel. Check the other thread to view those. I compared it to my Berthier carbine and the barrel wall thickness on that is extremely thin compared to that of the Swede, even with the pitting. Problem is, I can't find pressure ratings for the Lebel cartridge to compare it too.

[Patrick Chadwick]

According to the Dynamit-Nobel book, the Lebel has a Pmax of 3500 bar, measured by the copper-crushing method. Less than the Swede - no great surprise there, seeing that it was the first ever smokeless cartridge rifle.