My first firearm was a Commission 88 rifle cut down to short rifle length (probably for the Turkish Forestry Service). I bought it through the mail in '77 during the sudden influx of these rifles. I think I paid something like $32 for it.
A bunch of us in college purchased these. They're good guns, but not really safe to shoot, since contrary to the advertising of the time, they WEREN'T "rebarreled" to 7.92x57mmS. They just had freebore added so that the .323 bullet didn't INSTANTLY have to hit the .318 bore. Paradoxically, this made them EXTREMELY accurate, frequently (as noted by "Guns & Ammo" at the time) more accurate than 98 Mausers.