Century Guns/Cartridges

[kyratshooter]

This is probably an age based thing, far outside the realm of the modern sporting rifle or even the modern bolt action rifles of the last half of the previous century.

I have a couple of favorite cartridges and rifles that are hold overs from two centuries back.

RandyT has put his 30-40 Krag up for discussion and we even had a talk about the 1894 Winchester recently. It brought to mind the assortment of rifles I have bought on the cheap over the years and really fell in love with, even though they do not have the "performance capabilities" of a "modern" cartridge.

It was while some of us were in our teens and twenties when many of these rifles were shipped to the U.S. by the thousands and sold as cheap surplus at prices we will never see again.

I bought my first Mauser for $18.95 out of a wooden barrel at a discount store. No paperwork existed in those days and if you were taller than the rifle you could buy one! Enfields were $25, Italian Carcanos were $10-$12, you could not give away a Mosin.

Cheap enough for a hard working young father to buy without taking food off the table, with the promise of actually putting more food on the table than it cost. The first hundred pounds of deer meat paid for the rifle, even when hamburger was $0.39 a pound.

My favorites are still the 7x57 on the small ring Mauser frame and the Lee Enfield in .303. Got one of those as my avatar.

Yea I shoot a lot of 7.62x54 out of the Mosins, but they are not my favorites. They were just there, and cheap at the time.

[alaskabushman]

I love old cartridges. I've been adding to my cartridge collection for over a decade now. I love studying them, understanding the work that went into them and most of all...shooting them!

But first, some perspective. I don't know what year Enfields were $25, and that sounds like a fantastic deal! However, $25 in 1940 has the same buying power as $430 today. Of course, you can buy guns for that right now. Many big names in guns have options for that or not much more.. Ammo is even cheaper today, a $3 box of ammo in 1940 would be the same as $51 today. We have lots of options for far less now.
I purchased my 1917 Enfield 4 years ago for $250, that's $14.50 in '40. My 1903 Springfield was $380, a bit cheaper than the $25 in 1940 mentioned previously.
People balk at 1k guns today (myself included) but that's just $58 in 1940.

Price aside, these classic firearms are awesome, and worth every penny. Shooting them is almost a history lesson by itself. They are almost boring in their reliability and, if they are in good shape, accurate enough to be very very dangerous with. Finding parts can be an issue sometimes, but that's a small price to pay for something with such history. You'll rarely find character like that in modern guns today.

Now if I can just locate an M1 Garand for less than 1k...

[finallyME]

I love the old stuff too, even though they are expensive now. My BIL has an Enfield that his dad gave him. Probably bought around the same time you got yours. The stock looks similar to your avatar, just without the color, wood only.

I would say the Enfield definitely intrigues me. The action is a little different that what I am used to. I might have to pick one up sometime. I hear rumors you can get them in 308. It might be a fun project rifle as well.

[finallyME]

Now if I can just locate an M1 Garand for less than 1k...

My other BIL has a Garand. Every time you hear that "ding", I think "there goes $8". Fun to shoot, but not cheap to shoot, unless you reload.

[hunter63]

Century Guns....I though that was an import company?......LOL

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[alaskabushman]

My other BIL has a Garand. Every time you hear that "ding", I think "there goes $8". Fun to shoot, but not cheap to shoot, unless you reload.

That's for sure, a real good way to go through a lot of 30-06 in a hurry. I'm not sure even reloading would take the sting outta that.

[kyratshooter]

Now if I can just locate an M1 Garand for less than 1k...

http://thecmp.org/wp-content/uploads/catalog.pdf

[randyt]

be still my racing heart LOL, this is a subject I can really get into. I remember my granddad telling me about being able to to buy trapdoor springfields for $1.50 and krag rifles for $5.00. It seems like it goes in a bit of a cycle, it can be mausers, arisakas, mosins, carcanos, sprngfields, enfields, etc. LOL

[natertot]

I like a lot of the oldies myself, despite being younger having recently turned 32. I have a bit of an assortment, but my favorite rifle of this nature is my Austrian Steyr in 8x56r. Ammo is a little difficult to find and the clips cost a bit if you can find them at all anymore. They gun was only $60 that I picked up 4 years ago. I actually bought three of them that price, sold the other two for $150 a piece, so really I have the rifle and an extra $120 in my pocket. Bought a half dozen clips and $20 a piece and a couple boxes of Nazi marked ammo which ate up my profit, but hey, a free gun really.

On occasion I do find Prvi Partizan ammo for it on sale for less than $20 a box and with free shipping deals, I usually pick up few hundred rounds.

I love the straight pull action on the rifle. She is a dream to shoot.

[kyratshooter]

That Steyr is a military issue rifle built with the quality of a custom made sporting rife. It has machine work and bluing you can not find on a modern made rifle.

You get some of that in the older military rifles from Germany and Austria. They did not cut quality or take short cuts unless they were on the losing stages of a war.

There were a lot of rifles that required "clips" for proper function. The Steyers were one, Carcanos from Italy were another, and there was the M1 Garand.

I remember back in the 1960s when you bought a box of Norma ammo for the Carcano you got a free clip taped to the box so you could actually shoot the rifle.

I also remember buying surplus ammo prepacked in the clips out of barrels at the surplus stores. 5 rounds or Carcano ammo in the clip was $0.25-$0.35 and I though that was highway robbery.

[hunter63]

.............

I love the straight pull action on the rifle. She is a dream to shoot.

Had one given to me in 1968...as all I had was a shot gun for deer hunting.

That thing scared the crap out of me....No locking the bolt down...just pull straight back and forward.
The one I had was worn out pretty well...sometimes the rifle wouldn't fire with the trigger pulled all the way back....would fire as you released it.
If you shot it with out tuening your head to not get the bolt in your eye....was a good shooter...just not for me.

About that time,... I had found a win'94 in .32 special...so traded that rifle for a knitted afgan, a shawl....and a rear quarter of beef.
Guy that got it, killed 2 deer and came home with a 1/2 of pig as well....then sold it for $75 bucks....LOL

[kyratshooter]

I was very much concerned that we were all going to be using straight pull rifles if Hillary had won the presidency.

The only option for continued use of the AR and AK platforms would have been plugging and welding the gas ports, removing the pistons and gas tubes and cocking by hand for each shot!

We dodged that one for a while, unless you live in the wrong states.

[alaskabushman]

An old buddy of mine picked up an old Swiss Schmidt–Rubin straight pull rifle. Pretty cool old gun, with plenty of power, but I too had visions of the bolt rocketing out of the gun into my face. Of course that never happened and there have been many successful straight pull rifles in history. I handled a Browning T-bolt once and I'll say this, those things are FAST! I have secretly drooled over the left handed versions ever since, even though I don't really have a need for a 17hmr...

[Faiaoga]

It is interesting to see all of these old firearms and cartridges discussed. It seems that every country used to have its own rifle with its unique cartridge. After WWII, it seems that countries have become standardized on only a few cartridges. I am not sure of all the reasons for this, but it seems that the unique cartridges from each country have become obsolete and only a few different cartridges are used worldwide by many different countries. Even Switzerland, that maintains neutrality, seems to have adopted the same cartridge used by NATO and other Western countries.

[hunter63]

It is interesting to see all of these old firearms and cartridges discussed. It seems that every country used to have its own rifle with a its unique cartridge. After WWII, it seems that countries have become standardized on only a few cartridges. I am not sure of all the reasons for this, but it seems that the unique cartridges from each country have become obsolete and only a few different cartridges are used worldwide by many different countries. Even Switzerland, tat maintains neutrality, seems to have adopted the same cartridge used by NATO and other Western countries.

You just hit on it....NATO vs Eastern Bloc.

[alaskabushman]

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These are from my collection, I have other martial cartridges, but I tried to stick with WWII. I don't have as many in my collection as I'd like, I'm lacking all Japanese rifle rounds, although I do have an 8mm Nambu in my collection.

Left to Right. just rifles, no SMG cartridges.

6.5x55 Swede
.303 British
7.5x54 French
7.62x54R Russian
7.5x55 Swiss
.30-06
7.92x57 (8mm) Mauser
7.62 NATO for scale since it wasn't developed till the 50's

This a small sampling, easily twice this many were found on the various battlefields of the war, including some that had initially been used in WWI but had been removed from service. Desperate times.

[kyratshooter]

NATO standardized on the 5.56, 7.62x51 and 9x19.

Warsaw Pac and China standardized on 7.62x39,then 5.45x39, 7.72x54 and 9x18mm

WW2 was the reason the standardization took place. There had been dozens of nations with dozens of models of weapon in hundreds of calibers creating a supply nightmare. The first big job NATO took on was standardizing ammo calibers.

After the war even the number of weapons platforms were reduced. Half the world adopted the Fn/Fal, the other half adopted the AK platform.

The CETME/G3 was scattered in there a little as well as some stuff made by Madson in Denmark.

The AR was not really popular world wide until the late 1970s when we offered them to everyone for free to compete with the Warsaw pac freely distributed AK.

GB and France did not change to the 5.56 until the 1980s when most of the western countries adopted some form of 5.56 rifle.

[alaskabushman]

I would submit that most large conflicts prior to WWII were very similar in the convoluted munitions problems. Many a Union soldier was frustrated by the fact every rifle (that fired a metallic cartridge) had a proprietary system. For the south is was even worse. During some of the British conquests the various Martini-Henry cartridges caused many a mix-up. WWI had a whole mess of older blackpowder designed cartridges, mixed in with (then) cutting edge designs. Even during the American revolution often the wrong caliber balls would have to be melted down and re-cast.

During the short blackpowder cartridge and the early smokeless era, commercial cartridges were a hot mess. Different names for the same cartridge, different cartridges with the same name...ugh. Thankfully after SAMMI was formed in the mid 20's these problems went away (mostly).

We take standardization for granted these days,

[kyratshooter]

Britain lost one large battle in Africa because they changed ammo boxes and did not issue the proper openers for the new boxes

There is also a situation where the firearms of each nation represented nationalism run amuck.

Small nations fought constant wars with their neighbors and adopted ammo specifically so the "enemy" could not use their own captured ammo against them.

Before WW2 there were probably not 3 countries in Europe using the same round. As the Nazis conquered country after country they retooled the nations arsenals to 7.92x57 creating the first uniformity ever known. They still used every pistol caliber from .25acp to 7.62 Mauser.

Even the U.S. forces had way too many chamberings during WW2. We did not just have 30-06 and .45acp. We had more M1 carbines than any other single weapon system and assorted .38 Special and and 38 S&W revolvers along with lots of 12 gauge shotguns in the hands of troops. That is 6 different cartridges as well as blanks for rifle grenades in use for almost every unit.

And they were all semi-auto or full auto, so they were eating ammo at alarming rates while carrying small basic loads compared to today's soldiers. Fire control, target designation and controlling ammo expenditure were constant strains on fire team leaders, as well as trying to maintain some TOE standard so everyone in the unit did not wind up with a Thompson or an M1 carbine and you had a distribution of capabilities in each unit.

[natertot]

Spot on that NATO focused on the ammo standardization before firearm standardization.

That is why M-1 Garands and 1903's can be found in 7.62 NATO due to conversions in the 50's just to have rifles that conformed. Other countries did it as well. Britain did it to their Enfield's and countless countries did it to mausers. I'm sure there are others, but those are the ones that come to mind at the moment.