broomhandle
The main problem with cheap Chinese copies is not that they will
explode, but that they will beat themselves into uselessness due
to bad steel, improper heat treatment; when the bolt stop or the
rear of the barrel extension behind the bolt stop breaks, the bolt
may fly out the rear of the barrel extension in the direction of
the shooter's face.
First step with any old Mauser broomhandle is replacing the
old hammer and recoil springs with new springs from a reliable
source like Wolff Gunsprings.
Second step is both the gun listings describe the barrels has
having fair or poor bore/rifling. That precludes any accuracy
with commercially available 7,63 Mauser ammo (or for the
adventurous (read: foolhardy) 7.62x25 Tokarev).
My Mauser had the ghost of rifling left in it, but I found that
.312 bullets (sierra 90gr JHP for reloading .32 H&R Mag) fit and
gave excellant accuracy in my reloads, using 7.62x25 S&B cases.
Mausers do have a design quirk indicating that if they were made today,
the company lawyers would be dropping bricks: if the safety in OFF-safe
hits your hand in recoil, the safety can slip off the OFF-safe position
to what I call the "NOT"safe position: you pull the trigger, the gun does
not fire, but when you then move the safety back to full OFF-safe it will
drop the hammer kay-boom (bloody thumb).
The hammer can be reset to engage the sear by
a)pulling the hammer back with the thumb or
b)pushing the safety all the way ON-safe;
with the hammer reset to the sear, then you can move the safety to
full OFF-safe and resume shooting.
If, knowing about the dangers of substandard replacement parts on
some old Mausers, the need to replace the springs, the problems of
getting accuracy with worn barrels, and the precautions you must
take with 19th century safety systems, knowing all this you still
want a Mauser broomhandle, join the club: you got the C96 bug bad
big time.
