EDITED TO NOTE: New pics added in post 28 below.
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This week I fulfilled a dream that first crossed my mind when I was 9 or 10 years old. I brought home a Model 1903 Mannlicher-Schoenauer carbine.
I can't remember the very first time I heard of this model. I remember being excited when I got a two-inch blue plastic replica of one out of a box of Wheaties (or whatever) in the mid-1950s, so I had to have known about it before then. I would recognize it in the movies I saw at Saturday matinees before 1960. I think George Montgomery had one in Watusi, and Stewart Granger may have had one in Harry Black. The gun was clearly more memorable than the films.
I have been on a fantasy safari in the East Africa of a hundred years ago for the last couple of days. I stumbled across Theodore Roosevelt at one point; he admired my gun, and I said nice things about his 1895 Winchester. I am finding it really tough to get back to the here and now when somebody talks to me or the phone rings.
Chambers the 6.5 mm x 54 round; characteristic Mannlicher butter-knife bolt handle and full-length stock; 17.75" barrel (omitting the chamber; almost 20" from muzzle to bolt face); fixed primary leaf iron sight with flip-up 300 meter leaf behind it; removable five-shot rotary magazine; double (set) trigger with screw adjustment to fine-tune release tension; horn grip cap and butt plate; the steel, wood and scope are in extremely nice condition, with only a few dings in the wood and minimal area thinning of the blue observed; quick-detachable scope mount with Kahles Mignon 2.5X scope (first manufactured 1908 and continued, I believe, through the 1930s); the gun has a serial number near 21000; and the scope mount is numbered to the gun.
The bore seems to be in good shape. There is a lot of congealed oil in there, as there is in the action. I will be working slowly in the next few days to clean this rifle up and get it properly lubricated.
I still don't know how old the rifle is. I suspect from the serial number that it might be late 1930s vintage, but I need to do more research on that. It could conceivably be postwar production, in which case the scope might be a transfer from another gun. There are sometimes date codes on the underside of the barrel and receiver in Mannlichers, but I don't have the right screwdrivers to disassemble this gun safely. I'll report back when I find out for sure.
This wasn't cheap, and I don't regret that the price I paid probably greatly exceeds a reasonable market value for the gun. There were four or five aggressive bidders for this one, but I think the others were just shopping for a nice rifle. I was spending into a childhood dream that I wanted to bring into reality.
I haven't been as happy in years as I am just sitting in a chair holding this thing. Elation!
(That's an auction house photo up there. If people want to see more pictures, I can take some detail shots and post them.)