PSA - Dewat Spanish 1916 Mausers

[cipherk98]

I am putting this out there as a warning. Recently a ton of Samco Spanish 7mm Mausers hit the market. I recently picked one up at a gun show for $100 after digging through a pile of ugly guns. It had shellac on the stock but metal was pretty decent. When I got it home I tore it down for a clean up and found a pretty horrible surprise.

Three holes drilled in the bottom of the barrel. Yep, deactivated parade/drill gun. There are absolutely ZERO marks externally on the gun to suggest this is the case. Had I been careless and put live ammo in this gun without checking it, it would have been a disaster. The holes were pretty cleanly milled and not obvious when looking down the barrel, with the minor burrs present being easily confused for gunk/cosmo in the bore. A few runs with a .270 jag to clean the bore went fine.

The only external signs to watch for is a shellac finish on the stock and black paint on the rear sight. Mine was the original 7mm caliber, mis matched bolt, no crest. Firing pin hole on the bolt like normal, and the firing pin protrudes when deocked. These guns will very likely fire if loaded with a live catridge.

Not even going to try and salvage this, as it had a fairly clean bore. It had to be deactivated for some other reason so I won't dare try my luck by fitting a new barrel.

So as always, thoroughly check out and clean your milsurps before shooting but be on the look out for these. At this point I am considering getting a hold of the seller to see if I can swap it out for a live but ugly one, or maybe get a refund. I do not have the time right now but will try to get pictures out tomorrow.

Edit: There was one more of these on the table when I was there. The gun show was in PA, known as the Oaks Show. I may have gotten a one in a million gun but the presence of one other made up like mine suggests others may have slipped in with other retailers or lots.

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[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Thanks.
I have been looking for one of these in 7mm and will be very careful indeed.

[Flying10uk]

Has the firing pin been shortened as well so that it can't actually fire a live round?

[Aragorn243]

Whew, prompted me to take mine apart which I realize I never did because it was so clean. I rarely shoot them anyway so not a huge deal. No issues. I don't know if you bought from the same guy I did or this was another batch but I paid $149 for mine I think. Could be the batch you bought from was lower quality. Shame, I'd be heading back to Oaks today for a refund or replacement. Good luck.

[cipherk98]

The firing pin is full length. I did drop a round into the chamber (with the bolt disassembled and stashed elsewhere) and noted it would not quite go all the way in. Unfortunately since I had no dummys/snap caps I could not actually install the bolt and see if it would go into battery though I suspect you'd have a hard time doing so.

I was not able to make it back there today as I had a shoot. However, it is a dealer and I have their contact information, so I plan to call them tomorrow. The only interesting thing is the "T" letter prefix on the serial. However, this is a normal prefix as far as I know and it does not appear a prior prefix was scrubbed. Still I included a picture in case anything stands out to anyone about the markings on the gun.

[bob q]

I would be interested in buying it if you get stuck with it .

[Calif-Steve]

A Cadet Rifle? I would hate to fire that bad-boy. Might make for a bad day. I would guess there are probably more then one floating about.

[cipherk98]

Contacted the seller and good news, they are going to exchange it for a live one. They were very concerned and not aware any others that had come back. Hopefully this has a happy ending after all.

Edit: Also, it dawned on my Dewat is a term more appropriate for a bring back deactived machine gun... perhaps drill, parade, deactivated, or cadet would have been more accurate.

[bob q]

I would also be interested buying it from the seller , if he was just going to dump it .

[Flying10uk]

I wouldn't support the use of the term deac or deactivated for this particular weapon because you could potentially chamber a round and also fire it, albeit with possibly injury to the user. In Europe this sort of thing gives all collectors of deactivated guns a bad name. This particular gun is clearly not safe to shoot and, in my opinion, clearly not a properly deactivated gun, as would be expected in the U.K.. Personally, I wouldn't call it a D.P. rifle either, for military training/drill, purely on safety grounds.