Bought an... interesting Mauser today

[Dionysusigma]

Well, I'm out $125 for a pristine Yugo M48, including almost all of the cosmoline removed. Numbers match except for the bolt. Bore looks decent for a gun that's had corrosive ammo through it its whole life. 96% bluing. No rust. At all. Wood is excellent, however...

... the previous (Yugoslavian or somesuch) owner "personalised" this thing. A lot. Think along the lines of a child with a handful of crayons and a nice blank wall--except that it's a rifle stock in perfect condition and they used a knife.

Now, normally, I'd be annoyed, but this is some interesting stuff. There's some cyrillic lettering carved into the right side of the stock, but my Russian is not up to scratch. There's a very rudimentry shield on the left side of the buttstock (takes up the whole thing), divided into four quadrants. Lastly, there is a very deep notch that looks like it was sawn into the comb of the buttstock, right in the middle.

So far, I think that the shield is either some sort of national marking made by a patriot or possibly a coat of arms; whatever it is, it looks like it never got finished. I'm guessing the notch is a kill, but who knows...

I'll post some sketches when I have time.

Does anybody here know a few cyrillic languages?

P.S. Where can one find the front sight hood for one o' these?

 

[Kurush]

Are there 4 c's on the quadrants of the shield? It sounds like you might have Serbian trench art. Need pics

 

[only1asterisk]

Sight unseen I'd guess Kurush is right.

David

 

[Cosmoline]

Is it one of the personalized Bosnian Mausers with the blue fleur de lis on it? Those are choice finds. Here's the legendary Hasselhoff M-48:

 

[pbhome71]

Check your PM.

-Pat

 

[Kurush]

Here's the legendary Hasselhoff M-48:

There were a bunch of Yugo AK kits with 90210 stickers on them too.

 

[USSR]

I can read cyrillic, just need a pic or a good description.

Don

 

[cracked butt]

Hasselhoff LOL.

I've seen a few with a colored fleur de lis on the stock and one with a crescent moon and star. I wish I would have bought those.

I had a M48A with the word or letters 'DVOBA' crudely carved in the stock, not sure what that meant.

 

[Dionysusigma]

My camera is currently in the hands of a friend to whom I traded for a rent check. I traded the camera, not the friend

However, I did make a sketch in MS Paint of the writing:

There aren't any Cs that I saw, nor fleur-de-lis, nor David Hasselhoffs.

 

[Cosmoline]

I make a point of putting Hasselhoff's photo under the buttplate of every rifle I sell, just to sew discord and confusion.

 

[Kurush]

The first word is God, dunno about the second.

"БОГ ЧУВ" right?

 

[Crosshair]

This is one of the great things about surplus. The mystery of a rifles history.

 

[Cosmoline]

Kurush, isn't the word for "God" the same as the word for "year"?

 

[GunGoBoom]

I make a point of putting Hasselhoff's photo under the buttplate of every rifle I sell, just to sew discord and confusion.

ROTFLMAO!

Cosmo, are you the actual owner of the Hasselhoff M48?

 

[Old Dude]

Cosmo, don't have Cyrillic fonts at work, but the Russian word for year is, in fact, spelled in the Russian equivalent of GOD, but pronounced more like "goat." The Russian word for God is spelled, as that is, BOG, but prounounced more like we would pronounce the nonesense word "boke."

 

[Darth Ruger]

I make a point of putting Hasselhoff's photo under the buttplate of every rifle I sell...

I go one better than that. Every one I sell has a picture of Sarah Brady
under the buttplate.

 

[oldfart]

These things happen. I have an acquaintance, a dealer at local gunshows, who had a Spanish '93 with an extensively carved stock. Whoever did the work was a bit of an artist and was able to make the carved stock actually look good. We considered the possibility that the previous owner had spent entirely too much time sitting at a post in some nearly-forgotten mountain pass and had to do something with his time. I considered buying the gun, but passed since I already had a perfectly good German-made Model '93 and I'm really not much of a collector.

 

[Commissar Gribb]

I go one better than that. Every one I sell has a picture of Sarah Brady
under the buttplate.

One better would be a picture of sarah brady with concentric rings superimposed over it as a way to give proof of the rifle's grouping to the next buyer.

 

[Cosmoline]

ROTFLMAO!

Cosmo, are you the actual owner of the Hasselhoff M48?

I wish.

 

[Dionysusigma]

Kurush: The first word is God, dunno about the second.

"БОГ ЧУВ" right?

Yep. I left the "serifs" on there--it was pretty roughly carved, but I didn't want to leave anything off that might be important. The difference between E and F, for example.

 

[USSR]

БОГ is God, as previously stated. Second group of letters, "ЧУВ", may be an abbreviation. It would be pronounced like "Chuv", but I cannot find this word in my Russian/English electronic translator.

Don

 

[Crosshair]

Could they mabee be initials or a slang term? Just throwing out ideas. Some troops fighting the brits in the Boer War went by the motto "GOD EN DIE MAUSER" (God and the Mauser) showing their respect for these superb weapons was only eclipsed by the respect for god. Could this be something similar?

 

[KriegHund]

Thats nifty- its interesting to see how far these weapons travel and just who could have fired them.

For all i know my mauser could have sat in an armory, or it could have been used by a great or dastardly man....

 

[antarti]

My Russian is rudimentary...

... but...

"ЧУВ" is probably some conjugation of "ЧУ" which means (emphatic) "Listen!" or "Hear me!"

So "GOD HEAR ME" (or possibly "God HEARD me", and thus the notch), is what you probably have there.

"vogg Choove" is the best phonetic way I can write it, so you can pronounce it somewhat closely.

Interesting piece for sure.

 

[MilsurpShooter]

ask here

http://p102.ezboard.com/fparallaxscurioandrelicfirearmsforumsfrm9