Fighting Irish Forums

From 1968

Back in the day before guns turned TOTALLY FECKING EVIL and not alllowed to go to school!! LMAO!!

I'll try to get some better pics posted later when the battery on the Mavica gets charged back up.

Swede Carbine, 6.5X55MM, mismatched numbers. Paid $15 bucks for it as I recall. Stripped all the nasty army type stuff off of it. Cut the threaded dealie off the barrel and crowned it myself. ( by EYEBALL FFS! It worked though) Timney Set trigger. Redfield rings and bases. Had a Weaver K-4 on it originally. Put a 2x7 Leopold on it in the late 70's. Did the engine turning on the bolt "freehand" in a drill press. Put a custom handle on the bolt with the then radical "heliarc" ( known as TIG welding nowadays)

Bishop stock, plain jane "el cheapo" at the time. Filled and sanded down about 30 times with Birchwood Casey's Tru-Oil. Has held up DAMN good over the years.

Sold this gun twice and bought it back twice. LMAO. Killed more whitetails and antelope than I can count with it. Shot a lot of coyotes and various other sundry critters over the years.

Best shot I EVER made with this stubby barreled punk was up in Wyoming. Killed a big buck antelope that was over 400 yards! Held as high over him as I could and still see his back in the bottom of the scope, torched off, looked down the side of the rifle and watched that goat go down abbut 2 seconds later with a LUCKY shot through the heart!! Won a bottle of whiskey on that shot too.

I did most of the wood and metal work at school. I was working part time in a small gun shop 3 nights a week and Saturdays. I did the polish job and the reblue there. Passed both courses with an "A"

Times have sure changed.







Sorry about the crap pics, I'll try to get some better if anybody is interested.

Sweeeeeeeeeeet, Sir Willie! Back in the day when I had money to spend I took great pleasure in buying skanky looking military rifles and fixing them up. Only, not only does yours look good, but obviously shoots good too! Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the latter out of some of the ones I worked on, but they looked nice anyhow.

Z

wow, nice work willie!

Willie,
Good looking work. I keep all my old military bolt action rifles in pretty much original configuration. I have been known to clean up the stocks a little and cold blue metal. I have some mounted on my walls with the bayonets and ammo pouches.
Next time Canada invades the US i'll be prepared!

Igor da 'well armed pacifist'

Igor, that was back in "the day" when milsurps were a dime a dozen. LOL

Nowadays, they're worth more when left alone. I can't remember how many beautiful 98's, 03's, and 03A's we sporterized at that gun shop. Hell you could get a complete gun for less than the cost of a barreled action! You could buy a perfect rifle for 25 bucks and sell it sporterized for three to five hundred depending on how fancy you got with the wood and stuff. It was pretty easy to make two hundred bucks a gun back then. Not a bad return on investment in 1968 dollars.

Nowadays those old sporters can be had for a song and the remaining uncut rifles are worth a lot more.



I haven't cut up a rifle since 71 when I made a rifle for dad out of a short action Mexican 98 Mauser. Still got that one too. It's a .257 Roberts and Bub got his first turkey with it last year. My rifle was on loan to a buddy in Houston. All my guns are back home now. I figger Bub will bring home some venison with it next season.

Amazing 400yd plus shot with that snub nosed rifle for sure. A flat shootin 270 would have made it easier to do. Used to hunt some in New Mexico, bagged one mule deer with my Remmington 700 model 30-06 with 4X weaver scope. In New Mexico, shots can be very long on average due to the open terrain (in the southeastern part of the state). 270's are real popular there as I recall. Another guy in our hunting party bagged a mulie at about 400 yards with a hail Mary shot like yours.

The first morning I was sitting in a tree on the crest of a slope. Heard a few shots flying overhead and all about the place, so I moved across a valley an up another mountain. Found a deer trail, sat down within 50 yards of it, and in 15 minutes a young buck came running up and stopped broadside to me. Luck was on my side that day.

Good luck in your future hunts, Nice peice of work, it seems to do it's job well enough.

Mike

Willie,
Have you seen any of those new Mauser K98 (Serian? M48). I picked up two recently. Both in new/unissued condition with new bayonets and accessories. 300 bucks each. Real nice rifles, very accurate, rough kick. I reload, but i,m picking up 8mm 'GI issue' ammo cheaper than i can load it .
Yeah, i can remember years ago. Enfields 35 USD, Carcarno's 10 USD, nice Springfields for 65, new Walther P38 99 USD, gas 16.9 cents a gallon. We won't see that again.

Igor

Seems that 98's are coming out of the woodworks lately. I've seen several decent priced lots of those old bangers here and there on the net.

Mike, I used to do a LOT of long ranch stuff in the old days before my eyes went south and arthritis in my right shoulder. Used to bust rocks at a click with '06's and 7X57's'.

I've killed a lot of stuff with that lil Swede at 300 yds thereabouts.

Oh well, if ya get back in the big country, give us a shout.

I hate Houston too.

W