M1891 Argentine Mauser

7.65x54 Argentine 

I was cruising my regular circuit of gun dealers on my day off, looking for a bargain, a sleeper, for cheap. My persistant routine paid off that day at Dan's Guns in West Jefferson, Ohio. Sitting there forelorn in a rack along side some M1 Carbines and Chinese SKS rifles was a battered M91 sporter. I examined it. A Loewe M91, the bluing was excellent,  but the empty weaver scope mounts were chipped and scratched, the sculpted bolt handle was cracked to the verge of breaking, there was no safety, the barrel had been hacked off to 23 1/2 inches, the front and rear iron sights were gone, and the otherwise nice stock had a big crack in the grip area that was held together poorly with a brass nail. A peek down the bore showed a nice shiney tube, and I bargained the dealer down from the wishful $120 to a speculative $75. After getting it home I found it also had a broken magazine spring. I was beginning to feel bad about the whole gun, but I worked up some handloads and took it to the range the next day. I fixed a cheap chinese 4x scope onto the gun and did a quick bore sighting. The initial groups showed promise,  holding all the shots into a  4" group at 100 yards, with the action shifting a bit in the stock, loose from the crack, and a gritty trigger. (This turned out to be sand in the trigger group.)   then on the next group, the crack in the bolt handle gave way. But after all that, I felt good enough to let my gunsmith take at rehabilitating this piece.

So the gunsmith fixed the bolt handle, improving the angle of it in the process, installed a Buehler low scope safety, a new magazine spring, artfully repaired the crack in the stock and then put in a new brass nail in the nail hole and finished off the ends to an almost factory appearance. He also installed a front ramp sight and an adjustable rear ramp sight. Other touches unasked for, but appreciated were a replacement of the chipped aluminum scope bases w/ steel ones, a knurling of the bolt stop (the normal tab that extended over the rear receiver bridge having been cut off) for easy bolt removal, a knurled tab in the front magazine retaining screw . I added sling swivels, a nice leather sling, Millet scope rings and a Simmons 3x9 scope. Now it looks and shoots like a champ. With factory ammo it will shoot 2.5 groups. Handloads hold promise of much better accuracy.

Here the gunsmith installed a knurled tab on the front magazine retaining screw. Now it is much easier to remove the magazine if need be.

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Here you can see the brass stud where the grip repair was made. The break itself is well hidden now. The Buehler low scope safely is visible, as is the rear Millett scope site.

And for backup when the scope fails, an nice front/rear site set.