Indians For Guns

Now here`s an interesting rifle:
http://www.guntrader.co.uk/GunsForSale/ ... 2170503006
- You don`t come across this specification too often do you Mehul ?

Grumpy, Can not find the gun using the link.Is it in the .303 calibre and in Enfield section?Thanks.

Best-
Vikram

Same here, I can't seem to find it either?

Vikram, clicking on the link should bring up three screens: The Guntrader survey on top, the details of the rifle under that and the Guntrader home page below that.
You won`t find it in the .303 section because it is chambered in 8x50R.......Easy to find as it`s the only one.
If you really can`t make the link work ( and it works fine for me ) go to:
http://www.guntrader.co.uk/
Click on the `Guns for Sale` tab,
Click on `Rifles` in the menu at left,
Tick the box next to `Bolt Action` and then click on `Next`,
Scroll down to `8mmX50R` in the calibres menu and click on `Next`.
No picture unfortunately........and I know from previous experience that the dealer concerned won`t supply pictures - a stupid attitude as `A pictures tells a thousand words` as the sayinf goes.

Grumpy,

Perhaps, the seller is not interested in selling the gun. I personally find the odd calibre Lee Speeds very interesting though, for some reason, in the US at least, most buyers prefer the 303s.

I have heard of sellers posting gun ads on Gunbroker and Auctionarms without pictures or with deliberately botched de.scriptions or unrealistically high prices because they were asked by the ladies in their lives to sell some of their guns. These ads, of course, are meant to ensure that the guns never get sold. I doubt things are very different in the UK...

This rifle is definitely for sale Mehul. The dealer concerned doesn`t use photographs for any of the guns he offers.
Yeah, for a collector this rifle would fill a space in any Lee Speed / Lee Enfield collection. There is also a .303 commercial Lee Metford on Guntrader.......you don`t see many civilian Metfords either.

Thanks Grumps.Found the rifle.Btw,there is a beautiful Mauser in .243.The wood is great (Fabarm's treatment like) and looks like a quality article.

Best-
Vikram

Vikram, do you mean the no-name, no-price rifle that was put on guntrader late Sunday evening ? Nice looking rifle but the lack of a `name` gunmaker ( any name at all ! ) will detract from the value when it comes to resale.

Yes,the very same one.Wonder why someone would make such a neat rifle and forget about putting his/her name.

Best-
Vikram

I`ve no idea.......unless the builder is such a `no-name` that he figures that no-name is actually better than his own name. Or it might have been built by an amateur I suppose.

Grumpy/Vikram,

I somehow find the Guntrader website the second most irritating gun listing site to operate - the new Gunsamerica coming first on this list. Totally stupid website design to say the least and as cumbersome as sitting on the bonnet of a high speed car while it is running and trying to steer a bicycle backwards!

The 243 is a nice rifle with lovely wood except for the Monte Carlo style stock and the ventilated pad - why does a 243 ned one? There is a very nice, almost mint Mauser 66 in 7x64 also on the list. Beautiful rifles if somewhat heavy and unorthodox looking. I know of a nice one with a cracked stock available cheap - the only problem is that I would have to spend a small fortune geting it restocked, hence my caution in talking to the seller...

Cheers!

I agree that guntrader.co.uk is a very irritating website....particularly amateurish in some respects. The thing that I find most annoying is that you cannot identify new entries from the old and cannot mark a gun to indicate that you have viewed it........not to mention that you can only view one gun at a time.
Alexander Andover is doing OK though - I`m pretty sure that he wrote the software and the dealer software that compliments it and which most of his regular trade clients use.
You`re in America and don`t like Monte Carlo stocks. I`m in Europe and do. The American style high comb is plain as possible and hasn`t enough style to be considered ugly. The Monte Carlo has all the advantages of the American, has style and superior handling - so there.
Dunno why a .243 needs a recoil pad....but as Mark said, you even find them on air rifles ( and .22lrs. )
The Mauser 66s are "Beautiful rifles if somewhat heavy and unorthodox looking" ? Let`s be honest Mehul, it is probably the ugliest rifle around. Has a clunking great bolt housing/receiver that looks like it was borrowed from a semi-auto and the most bizarre receiver/barrel joint. It didn`t sell because it was so ugly. Walter Gehmanns design was innovatory but so weird that the buying public voted with their wallets and spent their money elsewhere. 15 years later Mauser finally realised their mistake and introduced the thoroughly uninspired Models 77 and 86........which also didn`t sell. Three models that effectively caused the company to go belly up. The next act of desperation was trying to market Austrian built Voeres and strange straight pull rifles. Another belly up. The `03 is pretty conservative in a European manner....... and the M98 is re-inventing the wheel.......and both are VERY expensive. Mauser might not sell many rifles nowadays but charge plenty per unit. They`ve taken the low volume/high margin approach which is probably more financially sensible than pushing the weird, ugly and/or boring.

" ...They`ve taken the low volume/high margin approach which is probably more financially sensible than pushing the weird, ugly and/or boring..."

Well said Sir Grumpy.

Grumpy,

I somehow find the 66 attractive in appearance - beauty in the beholder's eye, sort of. Gehmann designed a very accurate rifle in the 66 - his world championship medals probably influencing the design - though I have heard that the 66 is not made anymore because of the very high cost of manufacture.

The new "Mauser" 98s are made for them by Gottfried Prechtl and are nice guns though with exact Mauser replica actions being made in South Africa and the USA at budget prices by Granite Mountain, Satterlee Arms and Waffenfabrik Hein at much lower prices, I doubt the "Mauser" name would go very far. For very high grade Mauser actions, Europeans have always had the option of buying from Hartmann und Weiss, Karl-Heinz Ritterbusch or Theo Jung anyway. And Prechtl sells the same rifles that he makes for Mauser under his own name as well as actions to Reimer Johannsen for customising. Quite a confusing marketing mish-mash there.

Very seriously, if I could find a way to get the 66 that I told you about stocked in a classic style stock, I would buy it. Am not sure that is possible, hence my hesitation. And, as far as classic stocks are concerned, I meant the classic British stock with the rounded forend, no cheekpiece and the more pronounced drop compared to the American classic. I am sure you knew that my preferences were for the British classic, my being an Anglophile!

Cheers!

As far as I know Mehul the Mauser 66 hasn`t been made for years. As for `beauty in the beholders eye` ? Well possibly I suppose.......If the beholder was drunk as a Skunk ! I don`t doubt the the quality of manufacture of the M66 or its accuracy but its beauty ? Can`t see that at all I`m afraid.
I`d heard somewhere that Prechtl was manufacturing those M98s for the new Mauser Werke company.........probably from you thinking about it. CZ 527s and 550s don`t stray too far from the parent M98.....The Brnos were even closer and the Zastavas ( as imported by Remington ) definitely are M98s. The Winchester M70 is basically an M98 if it comes to that.....and the pre-64s even had controlled feed.
If you really wanted an M66 you could buy the gun with the damaged stock and then have a new stock CNC machined for it......that would be much less expensive than having a bespoke stock built. The barrelled action would have to be really cheap to make it worthwhile though.