PSA - Dewat Spanish 1916 Mausers

[cipherk98]

Replacement came in Wednesday, cleaned it up Thursday, shot it Friday. Nice gun - good stock, Oveido crest, lange vizier rear sight, hinged floor plate, good bore. Crown is not good due to the rifle looking like someone left it muzzle down for extended periods but I think that can be quickly fixed by a counterbore or moving the sight back slightly and just cutting that little bit off the barrel since it's not like these are some one off heirloom. It will need it to restore accuracy as I'm getting the occasional keyhole at 50m but I'm happy overall as I can fix that, unlike holes in the barrel

[Aragorn243]

Other than the keyholing aspect, I like it. Glad the guy came through for you. I'm afraid a lot of them wouldn't have. Counter boring is amazingly easy, hand drill a good bit and a very careful 5 seconds. I'd tape off the bit real well because it's easy to go too deep. Now if it were a fancy rifle that I was expecting to get super accuracy out of, I'd probably get a gunsmith to do it but for one of these, save the $50.

[Calif-Steve]

These are coming out of Century via Samco? Somebody needs to notify Century ASAP. Not a joke if even a single rifle slips by.

[Aragorn243]

As far as I can tell, these have been sitting in the Samco warehouses since they went bankrupt and were auctioned off. Fellow I bought mine from got thousands of them. Not sure if he got them all or if several guys did. None looked like they were taken apart and inspected. Mine was very difficult to get apart.

[cipherk98]

Yeah, if this was a nice hunting gun I'd face the bad part of the barrel off on a lathe then make a new crown, or a good military gun counter bore on a lathe. This gun doesn't justify the expense of having a gunsmith do it and I don't have easy lathe access (well, easy access to a lathe where I can also bring a gun to). I'll just use my drill press. All I ask for out of my milsurps like this any more is to hold a 6" black at 100 yards which isn't too hard.

As for the origin these were from the Samco stash. I get the feeling the people I dealt with wound up with most of them (aside from perhaps the batch Classic got, with both parties likely getting them from Century who no longer has any) and my guess is they are now bore scoping them prior to selling them, like they did on my replacement.

Honestly it does raise some questions we'll never have answers to. Now one thing I noticed is a cartridge would not quite go all the way into the chamber on it's own - for safety reasons I obviously was not going to install the bolt and see if I could force it or tap it in. But I'm really curious what would happen if you could force it close and fire it in a controlled environment. Kind of like when Forgotten Weapons tested a Ross to the point of failure. My guess, if you could get it to chamber, would be that the case would rupture out the bottom of the chamber, probably blowing the bottom front of the receiver open. But if the bore is obstructed enough by the subtle burrs, then what?

I'd also be curious about why this was done and where it fits in the timeline of these guns being reworked to 7.62NATO/CETME. Alas I know of no good resources on this beyond the Spanish Mauser page.

[rum_runner]

Wow! Never heard/seen anything like this.
I got in on the first batch of SAMCO sell offs. 1923 date. 7mm. Numbers match all but bolt. Had greasy Navy Arms tags on it.

Tore it down (it was a cosmoline Queen) cleaned it up. Did a "Alabama Redneck proof test"...(strapped it to a tree...one round...with a 20 foot long piece of twin tied around the trigger)

Pulled from 20 feet away. Fired. No explosion. Calipered the case. All was well. Sent 20 more rounds down wind. FUN!
https://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=57921

Dealer called 10 days ago with another batch. Had me one tucked back. Another nice example. 1927 date. Haven't cleaned it up yet.

Glad you found out and weren't hurt!

[cipherk98]

Took it out today after doing a counterbore last night. Bored it out to 19/64th in steps and to a depth of about .25". Cleaned it up, then took it out and shot it. Shot a three shot group of about 2.5" @ 50 yards, not bad for old Samco ammo. Will need to drift the front sight a little bit as like before it's shooting around 2.5" right. Overall satisfied if it shoots 4-4.5" at 100 for what the gun is and what I paid. Not able to get guns in the grease for $100 real often anymore.