This rifle is typical of the Sporterized Mauser class of rifles. I am willing to bet that somebody brought this back from the ETO after WWII.
Also you can tell it’s a late period rifle by the stamped steel magazine plate on the bottom.
As you can guess in the last days of Hitler’s Insane Reign, Things had gotten pretty desperate!
Anyways enjoy the show!
Grumpy
I am very sure that these guns has killed its fair share of deer & other game though. That and brought a lot of happiness & joy to their owners over the years.
May they always have a good home!
Weatherby’s Mark V Deluxe.
Weatherby
The longest distance I’ve ever driven in one day—656 miles—I drove in order to get my hands on a .257 Weatherby Magnum.
It was at Creekside Gun Shop near Rochester, NY, and the nice man said on the telephone that this one had some piece of wood, and that I really had better grab it fast before someone else did.
That was all I needed to hear. It was 1966, and I was as poor as owl dung, but I scraped together every cent I had and off I went to Creekside.
The stock was as advertised. In the 1960s, Weatherby Mark V stocks could be dead plain, or have a little figure, or be fancy enough to induce glaucoma; it was all luck of the draw.
Being a woodchuck hunter at the time, I proceeded to put together some handloads with 87-grain Hornady Spire Point bullets and a munificent charge of the old H4831, and was astonished when the .257 put five shots into an inch. Back then, you didn’t see minute-of-angle groups from big-game rifles.
I found, however, that as a woodchuck rifle for farmland, it was way too much—too much power, and especially, too much noise. One farmer, who was used to me popping away in his pasture with a .222, came out in a great sweat when I fired the .257 to ask if my rifle had exploded.
So I sold it. As John Barsness has pointed out, the gun-writing business is a cruel mistress that allows us to keep very few rifles, unless we have lots and lots of money. You have to keep turning them over in order to obtain the necessary experience.
After that, I had at least two more Mark Vs in .257 Weatherby, and they left, too, and now I’ve acquired my fourth or fifth, because when the Great Range Officer in the Sky says that I’ve completed my last leg, I’d like to have one on hand. This one is even prettier than the 1966 rifle.
Roy Weatherby introduced the .257 into his family of cartridges in 1948. The other .25s on the market then were the .250/3000 Savage, which was the first round to crack the 3,000 fps barrier
the .257 Roberts, which was dreadfully underloaded then as it is now, and the .25/06, which was strictly a handloading proposition. Ballistically, the Weatherby round was light years ahead of the other three. It was like dropping a Corvette Z06 in amongst a pack of Hupmobiles.
The .257 was Roy Weatherby’s favorite. Today, it’s either the second or third most popular cartridge in the lineup. It’s an exceedingly flat shooter, but without the recoil of the larger-caliber magnums. If you can handle a .30/06, you can handle this round (the muzzle blast, however, tends to be ferocious).
After I accepted that it was much too powerful for varmints (except for coyotes, on which it excels) I limited myself to 120-grain Nosler Partitions and found lasting nirvana.
Weatherby says its factory ammo propels this bullet at 3,300 fps, and I recall that the point blank range is something like 350 yards.
Weatherby, incidentally, has always been dead honest about their velocities, probably because they have never had anything to hide. If you want to do the range-compensating-scope dance, you can far exceed that.
How does the .257 stack up against its new small-diameter cousin, the 6.5/300? On the one hand, the latter round will considerably outrange the former one; the bullets are heavier, of far higher ballistic coefficient, and go considerably faster. On the other hand, the 6.5/300 is no delight to shoot.
Its whopping powder charge produces a cataclysmic report and a fair amount of recoil. Also, the ammo costs a lot more.
And, does one buy the traditional wood-stocked Mark V or the synthetic-stocked Accu-Mark? If you’re looking at it from a practical standpoint, the Accu-Mark is the way to go. When Weatherby says “Accu” they are not kidding.
These heavy, synthetic-stocked, fluted- stainless-steel-barreled tack drivers are the last word in lethality.
But I got a traditional Mark V Deluxe with a very pretty stock and French, or skipline, checkering. It’s much too shiny to be a practical hunting rifle. So what? I have enough practical hunting rifles.
Practical isn’t everything.
It was at Creekside Gun Shop near Rochester, NY, and the nice man said on the telephone that this one had some piece of wood, and that I really had better grab it fast before someone else did.
That was all I needed to hear. It was 1966, and I was as poor as owl dung, but I scraped together every cent I had and off I went to Creekside.
The stock was as advertised. In the 1960s, Weatherby Mark V stocks could be dead plain, or have a little figure, or be fancy enough to induce glaucoma; it was all luck of the draw.
Being a woodchuck hunter at the time, I proceeded to put together some handloads with 87-grain Hornady Spire Point bullets and a munificent charge of the old H4831, and was astonished when the .257 put five shots into an inch. Back then, you didn’t see minute-of-angle groups from big-game rifles.
I found, however, that as a woodchuck rifle for farmland, it was way too much—too much power, and especially, too much noise. One farmer, who was used to me popping away in his pasture with a .222, came out in a great sweat when I fired the .257 to ask if my rifle had exploded.
So I sold it. As John Barsness has pointed out, the gun-writing business is a cruel mistress that allows us to keep very few rifles, unless we have lots and lots of money. You have to keep turning them over in order to obtain the necessary experience.
After that, I had at least two more Mark Vs in .257 Weatherby, and they left, too, and now I’ve acquired my fourth or fifth, because when the Great Range Officer in the Sky says that I’ve completed my last leg, I’d like to have one on hand. This one is even prettier than the 1966 rifle.
Roy Weatherby introduced the .257 into his family of cartridges in 1948. The other .25s on the market then were the .250/3000 Savage, which was the first round to crack the 3,000 fps barrier
the .257 Roberts, which was dreadfully underloaded then as it is now, and the .25/06, which was strictly a handloading proposition. Ballistically, the Weatherby round was light years ahead of the other three. It was like dropping a Corvette Z06 in amongst a pack of Hupmobiles.
The .257 was Roy Weatherby’s favorite. Today, it’s either the second or third most popular cartridge in the lineup. It’s an exceedingly flat shooter, but without the recoil of the larger-caliber magnums. If you can handle a .30/06, you can handle this round (the muzzle blast, however, tends to be ferocious).
After I accepted that it was much too powerful for varmints (except for coyotes, on which it excels) I limited myself to 120-grain Nosler Partitions and found lasting nirvana.
Weatherby says its factory ammo propels this bullet at 3,300 fps, and I recall that the point blank range is something like 350 yards.
Weatherby, incidentally, has always been dead honest about their velocities, probably because they have never had anything to hide. If you want to do the range-compensating-scope dance, you can far exceed that.
How does the .257 stack up against its new small-diameter cousin, the 6.5/300? On the one hand, the latter round will considerably outrange the former one; the bullets are heavier, of far higher ballistic coefficient, and go considerably faster. On the other hand, the 6.5/300 is no delight to shoot.
Its whopping powder charge produces a cataclysmic report and a fair amount of recoil. Also, the ammo costs a lot more.
And, does one buy the traditional wood-stocked Mark V or the synthetic-stocked Accu-Mark? If you’re looking at it from a practical standpoint, the Accu-Mark is the way to go. When Weatherby says “Accu” they are not kidding.
These heavy, synthetic-stocked, fluted- stainless-steel-barreled tack drivers are the last word in lethality.
But I got a traditional Mark V Deluxe with a very pretty stock and French, or skipline, checkering. It’s much too shiny to be a practical hunting rifle. So what? I have enough practical hunting rifles.
Practical isn’t everything.
Categories
S&W
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — It was the opening day of deer hunting season, and Ronald Hansen says he loaded his rifle the same way he had countless times before, aimed at a target and fired a shot.
This time, the gun barrel exploded, knocking the farmer from Hampton, Iowa, backward, severely damaging his right hand and ear and burning his face.
Unknown to Hansen, the manufacturer of the rifle that injured him in 2014 had received other complaints of explosions and injuries over the prior decade. Customers repeatedly reported that the barrel of the stainless steel 10 ML-II muzzleloader exploded, burst, split or cracked, according to thousands of court documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
Lawyers for the company, Westfield, Massachusetts-based Savage Arms, were expected to appear Wednesday in federal court in Iowa to defend against a lawsuit filed by Hansen. He is seeking damages for his injuries, alleging the company failed to warn customers about the defect.
It’s one of several lawsuits that have claimed the company recklessly kept the muzzleloaders on the market even as they kept occasionally mangling hands, damaging hearing and burning faces. At least three have been settled on a confidential basis since last year.
Martin Crimp, a Michigan State University metals expert who examined a 10ML-II that exploded and caused a hunter to lose multiple fingers in 2009, told the AP the barrel of that gun was “metallurgically defective.”
An expert hired by Hansen’s lawyers came to a similar conclusion, saying the steel used to make the rifle was prone to catastrophic failure after repeat firings.
Anthony Pisciotti, an outside lawyer for Savage Arms, said he wasn’t authorized to comment. A spokesman for its parent company, Vista Outdoor, didn’t return messages.
Savage Arms, which discontinued the gun in 2010 after thousands were on the market, has insisted it’s safe when used properly, has no defects and was designed in accordance with industry standards.
Savage Arms has argued that operator error is to blame for the explosions, saying users must have created too much pressure inside the barrel either by loading two bullets or using the wrong amount or type of gunpowder. It has issued a safety notice on its website warning owners to “carefully follow the safe loading procedures” in the product manual to avoid injuries.
Hansen’s case highlights how gun makers, unlike manufacturers of other consumer products, have the sole discretion to decide themselves whether to recall potentially dangerous weapons. In 1976, Congress blocked the newly-created Consumer Product Safety Commission, which has broad authority to regulate everything from toasters to toys and BB guns, from restricting the manufacture or sale of firearms.
“It’s an example of an industry that can essentially do whatever they want and there’s no consequences other than being held accountable in a civil liability context,” said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center in Washington D.C.
Other companies have faced allegations that they allowed unsafe guns to stay on the market. Remington agreed to replace triggers in its popular Model 700 rifles — only after several lawsuits claiming that they were prone to accidentally discharging. Ruger was accused of marketing revolvers for decades that could fire when dropped.
Savage Arms recently agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Trent Procter, who was on a hunting trip with friends in October 2009 when the 10 ML-II he’d owned for years “just blew apart” when he shot at a target.
Procter, 48, missed nine months of work from his job as a power company lineman as he endured surgeries on his left hand and rehabilitation. He had to move to a different job and still experiences numbness due to nerve damage in his hand, where he’s missing parts of his thumb and middle finger.
Photos of Procter’s hand were shared on hunting websites after the explosion, and he said it was insulting that some suggested he and not a defective product was to blame.
“I’m surprised it was never recalled or a warning was put out that this was actually happening,” he said. “It’s quite scary when you think about it.”
Last year, the company also settled a case brought by Michigan hunter Rodney Palatka and his wife, who was pregnant with twins and suffered a miscarriage after witnessing her husband’s injuries.
James Putman of North Carolina alleges in a pending lawsuit that his Savage 10ML-II burst as he hunted last year in the George Washington National Forest, blasting his thumb off and forcing his early retirement as a firefighter.
Savage Arms started making the 10ML-II in 2001. It was designed to withstand the use of smokeless powder, which appealed to some shooters because it didn’t require the same messy cleanup as black powder.
The company’s knowledge of the barrel problems is becoming clear after years of lawsuits.
In Palatka’s case, a federal magistrate in 2015 sanctioned the company for a “purposeful record of obfuscation” that included falsely claiming that it was aware of only two prior explosions while withholding information that showed otherwise.
The company acknowledged in Hansen’s case that it received 45 legal claims related to burst or split barrels dating to 2004. Hansen’s lawyers say documents show Savage Arms created a special “muzzleloader return team” and faced hundreds of warranty and service claims.
Some hunters were offered free replacement rifles after they were told their errors caused the damage.
Hansen, 50 and a lifelong hunter, testified in an August deposition that he followed the recommended procedures when he loaded his 10ML-II, which he bought in 2010 and had shot 200 times. He said he weighed and loaded 43 grains of the recommended powder and one bullet. He set a target at 50 yards, laid on a dirt pile, aimed and fired.
Hansen, who was rushed to the emergency room after the explosion, testified he still struggles to hear even with a hearing aid and cannot perform some farm chores due to his hand injury.
Savage Arms has suggested that Hansen used an improper mix of powders that caused too much pressure. Trial is set for next year.
Categories
Something I want for Xmas!
By Brian Maass
ARAPAHOE COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) – A CBS4 Investigation has learned Arapahoe County Deputies and Colorado State Troopers poured more than 50 shots into a stationary car in March believing the driver was armed.
It now turns out she was only armed with either a dustbuster or tire jack but emerged unscathed. However at least one deputy inadvertently shot up a marked state patrol unit during the unusual standoff.
“It was all her behavior and we have to respond to that behavior,” said Arapahoe County Sheriff Dave Walcher of the March 3rd standoff with Jasmine Johnson.
(credit: CBS)
It began with two drivers reporting to police that Johnson was driving erratically on Interstate 70.
Johnson subsequently called police and in slurred tones, said that she was armed with an Ak-47 and intended to kill as many police as possible. “I want to kill cops,” said Johnson on the taped call. “I’m gonna kill all the cops I can. I have a gun, have a machete, have an AK-47.”
Arapahoe County deputies and the Colorado State Patrol caught up with Johnson’s Ford Focus on I-70 near Agate at about 11:30 pm. On March 3rd. They conducted a high-risk stop, keeping their distance and repeatedly urging Johnson to show her hands and get out of her car.
“Wasn’t sure why I was being pulled over, trying to figure out what was going on,” Johnson said.
According to CSP dashcam video of the incident obtained by CBS4, Johnson responded to the police requests by displaying lewd gestures and threatening the officers with threats like, “I’m going to kill you.” Johnson told CBS4 “I was quite fearful of something happening to me if I did get out of the car.”
(credit: CBS)
After about 15 minutes, believing Johnson had pointed a gun at them, officers unleashed a volley of shots into her car.
When nothing happened after the first round of shots, officers continued shouting commands at Johnson to get out of the car.
When they again thought they saw a gun, more shots were fired into her car.
“Those deputies and troopers showed a lot of restraint in not causing a further confrontation,” said Walcher.
In about 30 minutes, from approximately 75 feet away, deputies and troopers fired 55 rounds at Johnson’s car from AR-15 rifles, .40 caliber pistols, and a shotgun. Not a single round hit her.
“I am surprised,” said Walcher.
Inside the car, Johnson said she could hear the bullets striking all around her.
“I could hear them, the glass shattering. I was extremely scared and in disbelief. I was praying that I survive it.”
(credit: CBS)
She did. After about two hours, law enforcement brought in an armored vehicle to approach her car. They spotted her apparently asleep in the front seat. Johnson was handcuffed and arrested although police say she struggled and tried to spit on officers.
Johnson later told authorities she had attempted to commit suicide that night by overdosing on a pain reliever, a muscle relaxer, and alcohol. When interviewed by CBS4, Johnson denied the suicide attempt, denied making those statements and denied drinking and ingesting medications that night.
Although no weapons were found in her car, a Colorado State Patrol spokesperson apparently told multiple media outlets the next morning that officers only fired at Johnson after she shot at them. CSP Chief Scott Hernandez now acknowledges that was not true. “Unfortunately sometimes things are said that’s not specifically accurate”, said Hernandez. “I don’t think it was intentional to go out that way”.
He said somehow incorrect information about Johnson being armed was repeated and shared with law enforcement and the public. “As we know the facts now, that’s not the case.”
Photos of the crime scene obtained by CBS4 also show that in the bursts of gunfire, an Arapahoe County deputy accidentally shot up a state patrol cruiser. Reports suggest the patrol vehicle was struck 28 times.
The deputy was standing immediately behind the car but was apparently unaware that many of his shots intended for Johnson were actually hitting the patrol car. Arapahoe County Sheriff Dave Walcher said,”With all the distractions and lights I don’t think our deputy realized he was hitting the top of the car”. He said his department is doing additional training to address the misfires.
A legal review of what happened concluded officers were justified in their actions since they believed Johnson had a gun and intended to kill or hurt them.
Johnson was charged with numerous felonies stemming from that standoff, but court records show most charges were dismissed when Johnson pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor menacing. She was sentenced to three years probation.
Johnson, who offered shifting and varying accounts of her behavior that night, told CBS4 one thing that was indisputable.
“I am extremely fortunate to be alive.”
CBS4 Investigator Brian Maass has been with the station more than 30 years uncovering waste, fraud, and corruption. Follow him on Twitter @Briancbs4.
____________________________________
This is so True, Trust Me on this one!
Now if one was to want a good, solid, knock about pistol. For say hiking, the boat or keeping a little surprise for the folks who wish you harm.
Then you could do a whole lot worse than to buy one of the these old warriors. As they usually are not too expensive and not too hard to find. That & a 38 Special bullet is better than no bullet to send down range.
Categories
It's getting Closer to Christmas! NSFW
To all of my Wonderful readers of my Humble Blog. Thank you ever so much and I wish you a Great Weekend!
Grumpy
Here is a little reward for your Help and Loyalty. If at all possible, would maybe give the Old Frat a couple of pennies ?
Yes I am shameless!
Here is your reward for today from Grumpy!
