I bought one - planning to see what could be done with the pretty little tube and a Lake City NATO case mounting a FAT 30 bullet.

They are functionally new looking guns, wood and all. Samco brought them into the country as M1916 Mausers, noting them not as CETME 7.62x51 nor even as NATO 7.62x51 but as. The bolt face completely lacks the mercuric primer pocket ring around the firing pin hole too. There is no mercuric primer barrel pitting, there is no rust at all inside these tubes. The bore is a virgin with all the fine hook rifling marks still in evidence on all surfaces. The wood is serialized and has never been sanded and refinished (the stock is bulky and all the fixtures are sub-flush to the wood (ie the wood is new). The guns are immaculate miliary dark blued on all items, including the bolt itself (all Guardias were buffed steel bolts). This gun was scratch built (using old or new parts?) by Olivido Arsenal after full NATO adoption by Spain. The gas port was not cut in with a milling machine after the fact like the Guardia Civil rebuilds, it shows all the signs of being polished with the action, blended edges and all.īTW, a bit of research shows the OT - marking is the Spanish military designation for the full power 7.62x51 NATO round. The guns have a generous gas port in the side of the action but follow faithfully the original M1893 Mauser pattern otherwise, complete with the flat bottomed early bolt face. Fit and finish says these actions were never sanded. There is no way these numbers could have been post processed into an old 1893 action unless they had been drawn back to dead soft and then sanded, polished, stamped and then reheat-treated. It has a DEEPLY stamped OT-5 digit serial number on each and every external part. It has not been sanded or resurfaced to remove the old crest either.

It is NOT a Guardia Civil M1893 rebuilt into a M1916 carbine. For those who have liked the general looks of the much-used Spanish 1916 short Mauser carbines but never saw one in decent shape, those tasty light short Mauser carbines that were armory-converted from the old 1893 7x57 Spanish mauser long guns and intentionally given a cartridge that was NOT the standard 7.62x51 NATO round, it was a much milder 30 caliber round intended for Spanish semi-auto CETME rifles and CETME light machine guns, a round that was called the 7.62x51 CETME when it came out (prior to the adoptation of the NATO standard round by Spain) then do I have a mystery gun for you.

Spanish mauser 308 1916 serial numbers