M1895 Steyr Straight Pull.

[saladin]

There doesn't seem to be a section for these old girls, so i will put this in general. Apologies if it needs to be elsewhere.

I just picked up a M95 Steyr. 1903 Bulgarian contract. I have no idea why, i just like the look of them. oh dear, the military collecting bug is starting to kick in again

It's in pretty neat condition, matching serial numbers (though the bolt is probably refurb matched), dark bore but full of grease everywhere.


here are some pics.

Information

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[saladin]

so i finally got around to stripping the timber off the metal work. It was greased up to hell





















But i'm glad it was. when i finally got her cleaned up, most of the metalwork has been well protected. and a whole lot of stampings were revealed beneath the barrel:












and also in the timber:









in the one above "45" and "20" are stamped into the timber above the rear bedding pillar.

anyone know what any of these markings signify?






above: mag well removed





above; trigger assembly





above; magazine release lever

[bearhunter]

Those rifles are very well made. They require an en bloc to feed from the magazine though. Many of the rifles imported into Canada had been converted to carbines during an FTR. With the proper ammunition, they shoot very well. Hornady now makes the proper .329 diameter bullets and Graf, as well as Star Line, have the brass. Finding the milsurp stuff in shootable quantities is tough. Finding a decent supply of the en blocs, is even tougher.
As I started to mention above, the machine work on them is excellent.

The rifles that came into the country, many years back, were famous for dark bores. Not so the carbines, which were mostly excellent, inside and out.

The actions are smooth and reliable under all conditions. Great argument for the versatility of a straight pull action. They are easy to shoulder and carry as well. They are easy to field strip and reassemble. Over all, a very decent rifle. About 20 years ago, we modified a few en blocs to hold 45-70 cartridges and re barreled one to 45-70. The rifle was a parts gun. It was a very good bush rifle, with a 22 inch barrel. It could withstand decent pressures and was reliable. Because of the en bloc loading, it was an open site arrangement. Some of them were converted to 7.92x57 as well. They have mauser style, stepped barrels and sighting arrangements as well as a mauser style upper hand guard.

[smellie]

Doubtless you are aware that these were built in Austria-Hungary and that the original callibre was 8x50R. The Hungarians, Austrians and Bulgarians modded them in the early 1930s for the 8x56R, which used a longer, slightly-fatter casing.

Ammunition today is manufactured as loaded rounds by Prvi Partizan in Serbia. TradeEx in Montreal HAS Boxer-primed brass in stock as well as the bullets and Hornady now lists the pointed 208-grain bullet for these as well.

I got one of these when I still was in high-school, paid $12 for it at Ed Page's Hardware Store in Hargrave, Manitoba (population approaching 75 at that time). It was represented as a "straight-pull Mauser" which it actually is in many ways. Bolt on mine is mismatched. As you have observed, machine work, fit, finish all are wonderful. Now that you have a third of a barrel of grease out of her innards, you will also realise how wonderfully LIGHT this rifle is for its length and bulk; a good pound less than other full-length rifles of the period.

Yes, there is ammo shows up from time to time at gun shows, but watch it carefully. It ALL is violently corrosive. I have found, so far, Austrian ammo mostly from 1938 (in clips), a couple of early clips including one Imperial and one Hungarian, bunch of post-Anschluss with little chickens and swastikas. Ammo I have come across mostly is Bulgarian, 1939 through 1944 and, as I said, violently corrosive. Bulgarian ammo is marked with your 'dancing bear' ('bear rampant' is the right term, I am told) on every casing.

CLIPS are really hard to find and they are no longer made anywhere. I count myself lucky to have a whole handful and only 2 rifles to use them. Although the books all SAY that the clips are different, I find that they interchange very nicely with 8x50R clips. When you are shooting, if you don't want to drop your clip into the mud, a strip of masking-tape across the clip-ejection slot in the bottom of the mag will retain it well.

Recoil with these is more than a bit stout, owing to the .330" bullet diameter, but there is nothing in the Human Body Operation Manual to say that you have to fire these with full-house loads all the time.

BTW, Lee Precision makes a mould for these now, as well as a .329" sizer die which seats gas checks at the same time. You use a .32/8mm gas-check, according to the Service Department guy at Lee; he loads this number himself. For non-shoulder-lethal shooting, you might try the old C.E. Harris 'universal' load for a 180 cast bullet. Harris used 13 grains of Red Dot in a whole bunch of .30-cal and 8mm rifles and got close to 1800 ft/sec with all of them with 180s and this load, getting good accuracy out as far as 200. I would think you might drop this load a bit to allow for the 208-grain bullet, but this is somewhere to start anyway.

Whatever. The important thing is this: be sure you have fun!

Very nice old toy!

[saladin]

Just as an update I decided, more or less on the spur of the moment, to undertake a minor clean-up and refinish of the stock whilst waiting for dies and cases. since i've never done one before, and because i want to keep all stampings, i set myself one rule - no sandpaper. basically, i just wanted to clean up all of the grime and oil and give it a new coat. after reading some of the sticky's on these boards, i then added another rule - no oven cleaner.

so i started cleaning the surface with, firstly, mineral turps. anything loosened was rubbed off with rages, then i did it again with meth spirits. a quick rinse down with soapy water, dry it off and it was looking heaps cleaner. I followed this by wrapping the stock in paper towel, then a white sheet and left it on an oil heater for the best part of two days, inspecting and wiping off the oil and cosmo regularly as it seeped out. following the same principle, i hit the inletting and a few dark spots with a low-set heatgun. It was remarkable to see just how much oil would drip out. back onto the oil heater for a few more turns.

i then cleaned it again with meth spirits a few times. then washed it with some citrus handcleaner, rinsed it down with water, dried it off with a towel and hung it from the clothesline in the sun to make sure it didn't stay damp. end result was a much improved piece of timber.












Now, i did have a brief play with a soldering iron and a wet rag to try my luck at lifting out some dents. There was some limited success on a narrow ding, but the bigger ones showed no inclination to pop out. not being willing to sand the stock, i figured i may as well leave all the bumps and grazes as well so no further time was wasted on it. the stock certainly still has it's "character" accumulated via 100 years of handling and, almost certainly, combat.



I opted as a finish for boiled linseed oil. i decided to scrub the first coat on, figuring that it may remove some more dirt and such. So i soaked some 0000 steel wool in BLO and applied it to the stock in a none to gentle fashion. I let it sit for half an hour or so, then wiped off the excess.












I then lightly sanded it down with SW after 24 hrs, and applied a second scrub oil coat. i should note that the timber had sucked up the first coat pretty quickly.



I have just been out in the shed - after giving it 3 days to dry this time - and have just applied it's first hand-rubbed coat. it looks bloody great with the wet sheen. I'm keen to see how it looks when dry. I'll probably do another hand-rubbed coat a few days or maybe even a week (if my dies don't show up i can probably wait that long!) from now. i'm toying with the idea of making the final coat a 50/50 mix of BLO and turps, apparently that gives a bit tougher finish? i also have some wax here that is a blend of beeswax and canauba wax.



so far, i'm pretty happy with the result. i suspect i should have left it a lot longer to remove more oil from the stock, but, to be frank, i want to get it back together so i can shoot it. i'm a bit impatient, perhaps. and maybe i should have sanded it up to bring out the grain and really neaten up the timber, certainly it will never look great with 100 years of stock abuse. but it does feel clean, and the oil-scrub technique seems to be producing a very smooth finish as well. One thing i will say, if i could turn the clock back a few days i might have chosen Tung oil instead because i think this is going to finish up pretty dark in color. but hopefully it suits the metal work when it all goes back together.

I'm also toying with the idea of staining the hand guard a bit to match the stock color closer.


oh, and it's been bloody fun. if this one comes up decent, i might be tempted to buy some old thing and have a go at a full rescue :thumb:

[Kirk]

Very Nice job! I greatly improved the looks.

[saladin]

The above works were undertaken a week or two back. since then, i've finished it off:


Final update on the cosmetic work.

I hand rubbed a couple of coats of BLO into the stock over the last couple of weeks. Then finished it with a coat of combined bees / canauba wax.

And reassembled:





But the contrasting hand guard was annoying me. so, nothing ventured....etc. I obtained a spirits-based timber stain. it was branded as walnut color. following the directions, i applied a coat, left it for 5 minutes and wiped off. it darkened the timber, but only a little. So, on to plan b. I painted a good coat onto the wood. in fact it was more or less black. Then i walked away for an hour or so to let it dry a bit, hoping like hell it was going to work. I then returned and hand-rubbed a coat of BLO straight onto the stain. A lot of stain came off onto my hand, but the bulk remained on the timber. It was then left to dry overnight. I checked it this morning and was more than happy. A quick assembly and the color, whilst not a perfect match, is pretty damn close.


So, in chronological order of the tidy up:

Before:






During:






And after:







Now, hopefully the beastie shoots ok! I'm a little concerned with some muzzle wear. time will tell i guess.


and yes, i need to fix up the old door on the workshop