Gander mountain prices way too high

Went to Gander Mountain this Sunday to look around and Geez Louise the prices were astronomical! Lots of people were looking, I'm not sure how many were buying, but it was probably too many.  They had the Taurus TCP with a black slide priced at well over $300.  I don't know if it was black stainless or not, but come on.  I can buy the TCP with a black steel slide for $225 at the local shop and he has bunches of them in stock.  Another example was the Taurus raging judge.  $1088 at Gander, $968 at Big R.  Really?  That much more?  And the kicker was the high points for $250, HA! And it wasn't just the guns.  There were all kinds of jacked up prices on everything from gun cases to ammo to whatever you can name.

Bass Pro is usually high as well.  They run sales, but the everyday prices on most shooting supplies are pretty high,  Just think what these places would do if the little guy were to go out of business.  All the more reason to shop local when you can.  Why buy from a huge destination store that has all the overhead of a huge fish tank and a national radio campaign when you can walk into "BOB's" little old gun shop and get the same stuff for less and support a local businessman?  Oh we price match.  No thanks, I'd rather just go in and get a good deal to begin with.

Just a bit of a rant.

GUN CLEANING SOLVENTS FROM THE AUTO PARTS STORE

This is the spray type Top Engine Cleaner avalible at GM parts departments.  Not to be confused with the liquid that comes in a plastic bottle.  Good old Sea foam has been around for decades.  It's around $7 at any retailer.

            

The stores are full of solvents and cleaners that will clean the bore of your guns.  You pick one, try it, and it hopefully gets the gunk out.  I've found that most anything will clean the barrel of a well maintained gun that just had 50 rounds of decent ammo put through it.  Being a cheapskate, I've been mixing up "Ed's red" for years.  Basically a mixture of 1 part each ATF, kerosene, brake cleaner or acetone, and WD-40.  It's worked well for me.  But recently I acquired and old Chinese type 53, Mosin Nagant carbine and let's just say it was not well maintained.  The bore had a light frosting of rust and I could not see the rifling.  It literally looked like the rifling had been shot out of it.  I suspect that it had been given a quick cleaning and shot with a cosmoline coating in the bore.  That resulted in a hard black mess in the bore.  I tried Ed's red and a bore brush.  The patches came out black every time.  Still no rifling.  I hosed it with brake clean and scrubbed with a brush.  It got better, but still patches were black.  I soaked it in GM rust penetrant overnight.

This is probably the best rust penetrant made.  It stinks terrible, but it loosens rusted bolts very well.  Dissolves lead oxide according to the label.  Available at any GM parts counter.

It says it dissolves lead oxide.  It helped a lot, but still the black patches.  By this time I saw shallow rifling, but the bore still looked worn out.  So, I went out and shot the thing for the first time.  That helped quite a bit.  I could actually see all the rifling for the first time.  Still it was quite dirty.  So I went online and found some bench rest shooters raving about GM top engine cleaner and Sea Foam.  Since I work in a GM parts department, I have easy access to those products.  I mixed the 2 products equally and shook them up.  They didn't blow up, but they never combined either.  The 2 products separate in the bottle, but remain in suspension for quite a while if shaken.  I ran 3 patches of this mixture through the barrel and voila, the 3rd came out clean.  Now, I'm not sure how much of this miracle can be attributed to the 2 products and how much of my success is due to the hot fireballs that came out of the muzzle when I pulled the trigger 15 times.  Surely all that fire helped it.  But I was still impressed with the cleaners.  I never get a bore that clean in that few patches with Ed's red.  Even in well maintained guns.  I need more experience to declare one or both of these products the be-all, end-all of gun solvents.  But, I am hopeful that one or both of these items will become my go to solution for everyday cleaning as well as those hard to clean acquisitions. 

When you stop and think about what these products are designed to do, it makes some sense.  They clean carbon deposits from the valves of an engine.  And, whatcha know?  Carbon is a major byproduct of burning gun powder.  Seems logical to me that if it cleans carbon from inside an engine, it will clean carbon from the bolt of an AR 15.  As I say, I'm no scientist.  I didn't do a real experiment.  I just thought I should get this out there for all to see.  Please be aware that these chemicals will eat varnish off of your stocks.  Some will soften plastics and peel paint.  So use with reason.

98/22 MAUSER REDO

Update:  I sold the rifle due to it being just too much of a pain and the expensive of buying all the little parts to put it back into a wood stock.  Purchased a Mosin.



Back in the day, I purchased an old Brno 98/22 Mauser at Dunham's sports.  I paid less than $100 for it and was delighted.  Before long though, my Nephew and I began wanting to convert it into a black opps sniper gun.  We ended up buying an ATI stock that allows for a scope without drilling and tapping the receiver.  Besides that, it just looked evil.  Big and black with the cheek rest and huge 60mm objective scope to top it off.

Well, fast forward a decade and I still have the Mauser, but I'm not so into the huge scope, 1000 yard head shot thing.  Actually, I've be come a fan of just plain old sights. Problem is, the original stock and hardware was thrown out long ago.  So, in order to facilitate the transition, I began to look for stocks.

I ground the bolt knob flat to clear the stock

I bought a "K98" stock off of Armslist only to find that my action is a "long" action and the stock I bought is for a "Short" action.  The only difference is that a "Short" action measures just slightly shorter between the 2 receiver screws.  Rather than go buy yet another stock, I decided to just alter stock I have.  I just used a dremel tool to rout the wood and will fill in the gaps with a good epoxy.

I will be re-sectioning the trigger guard to put it to the right length.  Yes, I could buy the right length guard, but what's the fun in that?

The gun originally had a straight bolt handle, but we had bent it to clear the scope.  Rather than heat it back up, I have chosen to clean it up and shave it to clear the stock.

 For sights, I plan to use a mojo rear peep sight in conjunction with the stock front blade and add a hood to that.  I'm not a big fan of the original Mauser sight picture.  I absolutely love the peep sights on GI rifles, so the mojo makes sense to me.

You may know this company better as CZ.

More to come as the project advances.

My workbench is a disaster!!

At least the hand guard fits like a glove

I believe the "23" proof mark dates this rifle to 1923

THE BOLT STARTED OUT STRAIGHT BUT WAS PREVIOUSLY BENT TO ACCOMMODATE THE SCOPE.

Custom 8mm Mauser Handloads

 

Back around 2000 I picked up a Czech made "Turkish" Mauser.  It was just under $100 and surplus ammo could be had for around $15-$20 per 75 round bandoleer.  Needless to say, we shot that stuff like it was .22 LR ammo.  It seemed like everyone had it.  I could mail order it by the box full too.  It was truly a land of milk and honey.

Fast forward to 2014 and the supply of that old ammo is virtually gone.  You can go to your local gun shop and purchase a 20 round box of soft point hunting rounds for $35-$40.  No thanks.  Privi Partizan is available for mail order and is good stuff, but availability is spotty and it's still close to a dollar a round.  Yes you can still find Romanian surplus ammo, but I have not had great luck with it.  Lots of fail to fire in those 1950s rounds. Plus many of the rounds don't like to chamber in my rifle.

My best solution is hand loading.  I can convert 30-06 brass and load my own at a significant discount compared to factory ammo.  Brass is cheap and available.  Large rifle primers are around $3-$4 for a 100. Powder choices are numerous. Bullets are the pricey part.  I got a 100 pack of Hornaday 125 grain hollow points for about $20.  That is about as cheap as I have found.  I'm driving them with Winchester 748 at the recommended starting grains.  That load runs at around 2800 fps and is easy on the shoulder.  It's still not "cheap", but it is cheaper than factory rounds.  

The 125 grain bullets are available off and on at Midway, so I have to snap them up when they are in stock.

So, no, there is no cheap way to shoot 8mm Mauser anymore, but you can soften the blow, if you can find some bullets.

H&R BREAK TOP .38 S&W

Another blast from the past today.  This is a Harrington and Richardson break top in .38 Smith and Wesson.  Obviously it is in poor condition, but it is an interesting example of another inexpensive defensive weapon from the turn of the 20th century.  It is much like the Iver Johnson .32 that I posted a while back, but is far from identical.  First off, it is larger and in .38 rather than .32.  If you find one of these break tops, it is likely in either .32 S&W or .38 S&W.  There are some .22 rimfires out there, but the 2 S&W cartridges seem to be the most popular for defensive size guns.  The .38 S&W is not at all the same as the .38 special we all know today.  The bullet diameter is larger and it is far less powerful.    

Another key difference is the way in which this revolver functions.  When the trigger is pulled the hand rotates the cylinder into battery.  Unlike most revolvers, the cylinder lock is part of the trigger. The cylinder basically freewheels until the trigger makes its way all the way back.  The firing pin is part of the hammer and protrudes so that it touches the primer at rest.  For this reason, I would never recommend carrying one of these around with the hammer on a live round. Drop test FAIL.  This example is missing the hand so it does not rotate the cylinder and is not in firing condition.

I rather like these old break tops.  They are a useful design and a real part of history.  I would love to see the design brought back with modern materials and cartridges. Many people say that the design is weak and it is surely weaker than a solid frame.  But, remember that the .45 Schofeild is the gun that started this whole break top thing and that packed a punch for sure.

Pretty rough shape

.38 special brass fits nicely.  No .38 S&W in my inventory.