1895 chilean mauser

BrotherGlacius · Aug 11, 2015

Found a coupl of these for sale in NC. Thought?

taroman · Aug 12, 2015

First, be certain that it hasn't been converted to 7.62 NATO.
If you score a clean one, it's a great accurate rifle.
Good luck with your quest.

MountainBear · Aug 21, 2015

Kept in low pressure cartridges, its a good solid action. Some people don't like cock on close actions, I don't generally mind them.

If it's still in 7x57, that's perfect. If you have aspirations on re-barreling it for a sporter, stick to low pressure cartridges. 7x57, 6.5x55, .300 Savage, .35 Remington, etc...

All the Loewe built guns are pre-1898, while the DWM Berlin guns are a mix, so most have to go through an FFL. But they are solidly built by reputable firms, from good material, as long as no one has tried to stick a high pressure cartridge in them.

MountainBear · Aug 27, 2015

And damn-it, wouldn't you know, I all of a sudden have two of them. I bought one off gun broker, accidentally, as I never thought my low bid would be the winning bid. It looked rough enough, and already had a clipped stock, so I was going to pull the barrel and make a nice lightweight sporter. But wouldn't you know, when it arrived, it was in considerably better shape than I anticipated. Everything was original but the stock, and the bore was bright and shiny. So I arranged to buy a Loewe from a friend of mine with a sewer pipe barrel, but a good stock. So the DWM with the good barrel will get restored with the stock from the Loewe and the Loewe with the sewer pipe will get the barrel yarked and made into the lightweight sporter. This should keep both the purists and the sporterizers happy!

BrotherGlacius · Aug 31, 2015

I hope to pick one up one day. I have a two gun limit and I'm currently at it. I just got done shooting my M39 mosin and damn that is a fine rifle.

Next up is a .303 that I got a while back and just haven't had a chance to shoot yet. But hopefully in the next month or so I'll give it a go. If I don't like it, I might sell it to make room for a mauser.

The ones I found in NC, they were asking $350 a piece. I thought that was a bit high. What is a good price for the Chileans?

MountainBear · Sep 11, 2015

A two gun limit? Yikes, that hurts.

My wife likes me to stay to a one of any kind of gun limit, but I have found ways around that. For instance, one of my Chileans is a standard DWM, the other is a loewe with a Transvaal prefix and Chilean markings. Two completely different guns. I have two turks, but one is in 6.5x55 and the other is in .257 BobAI. Three swedes, but one is in .300 savage, one in 6.5x55, and the other has no barrel. Two germans, but one is destined to be restored to normal, the other is a sporter, besides, they have different manufacturer codes and date stamps. I have a few vz-24 as well, but one has a rampant lion crest while the other has a cz-brno banner crest. I can differentiate my 1903 and 03a3's as well, although they are what initially got her asking about why I had the so many of the same gun, so I try not to go there with her.

I paid $140 plus shipping for one of the Chileans with the chopped stock and about $200 for the other with the mostly intact stock (bad handguard) and less than perfect barrel. For a nice original example with a good barrel, I would probably expect to pay upwards of $300 to $400, more if it has something unique about it, like an OVS or Transvaal marking or SN# prefix.As my interest lays with sporters, I very rarely assign top-dollar values to original, intact guns, so its possible my estimates are a bit off.

As I said, my interest very rarely lays with original military guns, but rather the sporterized version there-of. In fact, out of my collection, I have one intact 03a3, an in-process restoration 1917 Eddystone, one intact Chilean 95, and one soon-to-be intact german 98k. The rest of my military bolt guns came to me as sporters of one sort or another and will likely stay as such. The only intact military gun I feel necessary, other than the ones I am currently restoring, is an intact 1903 springfield. Given that I have the means and ability to gunsmith, I will probably just build myself a shooter out of one of my naked actions, rather than try buy an intact gun. I leave the all correct guns to the collectors. I prefer to shoot the piss out of mine (at least when I can get to the range).

Having an 01 FFL has its advantages, most notably, the lack of transfer fees from online purchases or now from local transfers. Also has its disadvantages, as I miss buying, selling, and trading, especially on here. I had a lot of fun doing that.