[LDBennett]

Installing a scope on a M-N is hard because you have to drill and tap the receiver. I had trouble because the receiver is so hard and the M-N so crude. When I lined up the scope mount (M-N unique for hex receiver) with the receiver, the scope ended up pointing way off center. I got it good enough with trickery in the rings but told myself I would not do one again... I'll leave it to a real gunsmith who does them all the time. But one M-N is enough for me.

Mauser are excellent guns but there is a rush on Mausers right now and the prices are pretty high for one with a good bore, a shooter. There use to be tons of surplus ammo (8 mm Mauser) but I hear it is drying up fast.

Enfields area bit too funky (except for the Jungle Carbine clone I got) and a bit crude looking. Their chambers are not setup for reloading as they are much longer than the industry standards so the neck of the case gets blown out with every firing. You have to resort to neck and partial sizing only or the cases are only good for one firing. The Brits wanted no problem for the troops when it came to loading the gun under any conditions and expected the empty cases to be left in the field, not reloaded. Surplus Enfields are getting hard to find from dealers.

The shooter jewel is the Swiss K-31 and their Match ammo. Of all my bolt surplus guns, this gun is by far the most accurate with their ammo. It is a straight pull bolt gun and looks a little unusual but it is made robustly and finished well. All the surplus market ones have been shot a little and stored a lot as every male in Switzerland does military service and is in the reserves. He kept the issued gun in his home for decades. Each one has a little piece of paper under the butt plate that tells who was issued the gun. There are scope mounts available for them but they are so accurate with open sights I never bothered to put a scope on mine.

Then their are all the semi-autos but I'll not cover them. (Think CMP Garand!).

LDBennett