Boer Mauser

[Potashminer]

My first post on Milsurp. Hi, all y'all.
With luck I will get some pictures to load here. This is a Boer Mauser. 7x57. Made by Ludw. Loewe & Co. 1896. Was one of the 40 odd thousand mausers shipped through Pretoria prior to beginning of Second Boer War in 1899. I have been in contact with Dave George in Australia ( I actually ended up buying all three volumes of his "Carvings from the Veldt") and his compadre in South Africa named Guillaume David Ficq, who have confirmed that this rifle actually did make the trip from Germany to Pretoria in 1896. How it got to Nova Scotia, from where I recently bought it, is known only to God.
I was a little choked about the cut off fore-end, until Dave George advised it was not a terribly unknown modification done by the Boers - See the last picture of the Boer Commando - notice the rifle second row from front, second guy from right.
Mr. Ficq also commented that the mismatched carbine bolt was reasonably expected, since either the Boers would abscond with a bent bolt from a carbine, if available, or, as per the British / Canadian / Australian practice, the bolts got thrown in a barrel as they were removed from the captured rifles; said rifles eventually making their way back to home countries as "trophies"; mismatched more often than not. One of Dave Georges comments in Volume 1 (?) was that official Canadian records show 700 of these "trophies" being formally accepted back to Canada. That was probably the last conflict where soldiers were allowed to keep both their own arms, as well as their trophy's, on return to Canada.

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