That sucks. I hate ordering sight unseen but have thrown the dice twice with Royal Tiger Imports Ethiopian imports and been happy with both. Both had very little to no exterior finish left but at the same time neither was rusty or deeply pitted either. The Berdan has an excellent bore, the Mannlicher is dark but strong rifling, might clean up with firing. Both were functional but I replaced a couple of parts on the Mannlicher for cosmetic reasons mostly. The Berdan is missing sling swivels. It seems the Ethiopians went with rawhide through holes in the stock instead.

A LOT of people are very upset with them however. Not sure what they expected but they did not get it. I figured I was going to get very worn old rifles with bad bores. I just wanted them to be functional and fixable which they were.

Mike has a ton of Carcano's right now but you'd have to check with him to see if he can ship to California or not.