Anybody who believes that there has ever been a more accurate military rifle than the M96 Swedish Mauser should refill his or her crack pipe now and vacate the forum! (Just head on back to the Gun Ownership and Politics fiasco where ya belong! )...



The above target, while a little better than typical, is not totally uncommon for the iron sighted M96 Swedish Mauser, when fired prone from sandbags. This group was fired at a distance of 300 yards, believe it or not...

And yesterday, I decided the "stretch her legs" a bit, and fired 10 shots at a rock the size of a basketball at a distance of 400 yards. My M96 has the earlier sights which cause the spitzer bullets (142 grain Sierra Matchkings @ 2650 fps) to hit dead on at 400 yards when the sight is set at 300 meters. Not one shot out of the 10 shot group missed the rock, and upon close inspection of the rock the bullets all struck in an area the approximate size of a baseball.

Moving on to 600 yards, and dialing the Metallverken sight wheel (not original equipment on the M96) up to 325 meters was all that was needed with the near .600 BC 142 Matchking to strike dead into another basketball sized patch of dirt on a distant hillside. I fired seven shots at this mark, and I adjusted the sight wheel from 350 to 300 meters for the first four shots, before settling on the 325 meter setting. (Again, these settings are not for this bullet weight and speed, and therefore don't correlate to actual zeros).

The bare patch of ground was on the hillside, as I said, and the surface lay at about 30 degrees to the bullet path. Upon inspecting the area, I found a narrow trench, about two inches wide, at a little under 11 o'clock on the round spot of dirt. I surmised that one of the shots had made this trench, and I then looked around for the other impacts.
Finding no other evidence of bullet strikes, I was momentarily puzzled. I had seen the bullets splash dirt right in the area of the bare spot, so I knew that they had hit near it somewhere. I easily found the two high shots (sight wheel at 375m) and the two low shots (sight wheel at 300m), and these pairs were well under MOA, looking to be about three to four inches apart from each other.

The wind had been blowing from 5 to 8 mph during the sighting in, and I recalled that it had subsided to very near calm by the time the three final shots were taken with the sight wheel at 325m.

I took out my pocket knife, and began probing along the two inch wide trench near the top of the target area. And within a minute, I had found all three 142 grain bullets in that trench, their jackets either partially or totally seperated...

For what it's worth...

Dan

You won't get any argument from me. I shot the best group of my life with my "truck gun", an old M96 cut down to 22", bedded into a crappy ramline stock with a leupold scout scope. .289" @ 100 yards. BD

Anybody know where I could find a M96 Swedish Mauser for sale. That is some impressive shooting.
Dan your photography skills are improving too!
Seriously, was the rifle an old military surplus
or a sporterized model? BLR7

BLR7
I have one for sale, it has Soderin sights,full wood with spare wood and matching numbers. Only trouble is I live in Australia

Bakes

This is it... This one was unissued when I found it, so the bore was pristine. However, most of the issued rifles will shoot MOA--the Swedish armorers just took really good care of these rifles, and they were in use for almost 100 years. Mine hasn't been sporterized, it's all original.

This one hangs over the mantle. It's a 1912 Carl Gustav.



The best place to find a decent one these days is at a gun show. Believe it or not, these rifles could be bought by the truck load about 10 years ago for under 100 dollars each. The going rate now is around 250 to 300 dollars for a nice one, and about 150 to 200 dollars for one in "shootable but not pretty condition."

Take care,

Dan

The 03 Springfields are noted for excellent accuracy and the Star Gage models even more.

They have a better history also.

Of all the medium game cartridges out there, the 6.5x55 Swede ranks as my favorite for both performance and accuracy. Feed it Re-22 and just about any 140 grain bullet, and you'll come up with a combo that will amaze you every time your fire the rifle.

And the accuracy of them, even the choppy M94 carbines, always seems to be first rate. I have as-is military rifles and customs as well, including a 26" full bull Encore barrel, but the military rifles give up precious little in terms of long range accuracy.

And when you really think about it, we haven't significantly improved on the cartridge or the rifles that date back more than 100 years.

Gun shows around here are getting to be such a
fiasco with their inflated prices and all the
politics surrounding Texas gun shows that I don't
even go to them like I used to. I may start back
again though and trade some. I looked at SAMCO
Arms site and they have several M96 and M98 mausers in all kinds of conditions. (Pretty pricey). Is the military surplus ammo reloadable
or better to buy commercial ammo! I remember when
those rifles were two for a $100 US. Amazing caliber! BLR7

green788
I was shooting in a Palma Match one day [800,900 and 1000 yards], next to a fella that had a Swedish M96 with the target sight. Several of us had "fancy custom trued,super name bbls, McMillian stocks,high dollar front and rear sights, etc. That fella just about "wore us out".
I was impressed. There ain't no flies on a M96.