Old Carl Gustaf M96

[nijalninja]

So I am not too flash with Mausers, and nor do I ever have much I feel I can just show off, until now I reckon.

I bought this rifle for my father as a target rifle: The barrel was excellent and the price seemed good. Brought it home and decided to shoot it only to get a few rounds jamming very badly in the chamber. I got in there with a rod, some solvents, and rags on a drill and cleaned the chamber as best I could but still it seemed to jam, so it went into the safe never to see the light until a few days ago. Decided to pull it out and try to chamber some rounds again... and it worked fine. So we got it out and ran some shoots through it with no jamming whatsoever.

I learned a lot about Enfields since buying this gun so I thought I might try my hand at investigating it, and it now strikes me as a very cool rifle.

First off the stock has seen some very hard yards in its life, lots of gouges, bruises, and rounding of almost all edges, the butt-plate is proud of the stock quite a bit, and the wood is a very dark and splattery brown/red and almost black in places. I like this kind of thing.

Then the date of manufacture: 1899. I knew this was old and I knew the CG factory started in 1898, and the serial was quite low but I had nothing to solidify anything about the serial, so I found this: 1896 Swedish Mauser survey which tells me this was likely produced rather early in 1899 and is in fact the 5945th M96 produced. One of the lowest relative serialled rifles I own.

Then got to stripping it and cleaning everything: Lots of grease between the action/barrel and fore-end, but everything looked great, and on top of that? Everything but the mid-band and missing cleaning rod matched. Even the sights, fore-end, and handguard.

Anyway, the pictures should speak for themselves.

Information

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[Ernest T]

Nice looking Swede. Very rare to see one of these jam. The actions are usually buttery smooth. The "1" stamped on the stock disk indicates a good bore condition somewhere in the distant past. Probably still has a good bore as most of them do. These rifles are usually good shooters and fun to shoot due to the low recoil.

[Woodbutcher]

Of all the Mausers I prefer the Swedes. Slick action,light recoil,nice sights, overall good condition and accurate. I’d guess your glad you gave this old lady a second chance.

[Ovidio]

Really nice. Also the production date is a great plus in my opinion.
Great rifles under any point of view.
I have a 1902 96/38 and really like it a lot.

[nijalninja]

Ernest, I have a shot a few of them and they are all a dream. The bore is worn and the rifling is no longer sharp but still quite strong. For me it will be well and truly good enough.

Woodbutcher, they are very user friendly except perhaps for the shape of the wrist for tall people like me, hard to get your hand wrapped around there sometimes, and yes very lucky. Just glad I took a second look now rather than later.

Ovidio, cheers. I'll need to chase an M38 one day, but honestly I prefer the long rifles for looks.

[Patrick Chadwick]

Very rare to see one of these jam. The actions are usually buttery smooth.

Well, any gun will jam if it is allowed to get too crudded up. As appears to have been the case here. Clean...shoot...clean...shoot.... sorts out most of them. Just making up for maintenance that may have been skipped for the last few decades!

BTW, if you cleaned out all the grease that was beneath the barrel, I hope that you oiled the barrel channel generously with linseed oil afterwards - to keep a balance between the inside and outside of the channel/stock. Century-old bone-dry stocks are (like old bones!) prone to cracking.

[Ovidio]

Ovidio, cheers. I'll need to chase an M38 one day, but honestly I prefer the long rifles for looks.

I too like the long ones, but I got the shortie at a good price at the time, so I decided to go for it.
Next one will be the long one, but in some time. Now I’m full.

[nijalninja]

Honestly the action and barrel were quite clean and it cycled nicely. I'd say it just had a hard service life and was left pretty much alone since. No tampering of any sorts but lots of wear.

Also despite all that the stock seems decently oiled, but I am never one to shy away from linseeding. This rifle has already been oiled once and I will oil it many more times yet. Luckily the wood to metal fit is still amazing after all this time so hopefully I don't have the issues of cracks at the tang and so on. I can't see any at least.

Also what would be the correct sling for this rifle? If there are no surplus ones available I'll just make up a leather sling.

[Dannyboy53]

Also what would be the correct sling for this rifle? If there are no surplus ones available I'll just make up a leather sling.

Try one of these. Mine came from Ebay in satisfactory condition.

https://www.libertytreecollectors.co...&idcategory=42

Swedish Mauser M96, M36 rifle sling lot (5 slings) | eBay