Project guns range test

OK, so I finally got back out to the range recently, and I brought out two projects that I've allegedly repaired.

First up was this Turkish Mauser, which had been languishing in a corner of the gun room for lack of an ejector for a couple of years.

With the new ejector block assembly installed, it throws brass into the next shooter's area quite nicely. And when it comes to shooting...Wow!

Shooting at an 8" Dirty-Bird target, the first two shots were low at 100 yards, but when the rear sight was elevated to "2", it hit point-of-aim nicely and put 17 of the next 18 rounds solidly into that circle. (and the one miss was me not doing my part.) Not bad for a pre-WW1 rifle that was refurbed last prior to the Second World War. The action is smooth like only a well-worked action can be, and the trigger breaks nice and clean. Considering that I paid less than a hundred bucks for this one (not including the ejector tom-foolery), I'm thinking that this old veteran is a damned good shooter and a keeper. Still, I hate it when I find out that a rifle that I've ignored/neglected for months or years turns out to be a tack-driver while I'm wasting my time and ammo trying to get other "lost cause" rifles to shoot even remotely straight.

Then I did a brief test-fire with my Reising M50, on semi-auto only because on this day I was at the range where people stroke out if they hear full-auto fire.

50 rounds fired, using both the original GI 12-round magazine and it's new 30rd. Christie mag that I had to "tweak" the feed lips on, the rifle fired flawlessly. Yeah, I'm pretty confident that it's teething problems are worked out...almost.

After the third mag was fired, the bolt locked forward and no amount of finger pressure on the action bar could get it to release. I've seen this gun get petulant before when the hammer is forward, but this time I could not get it to release at all until I got tired of swearing at it and rapped the buttplate on the concrete bench lightly but firmly a couple of times, at which point it functioned normally again.

Never boring, this Reising. Always a new puzzle to ponder. But if/when I can get it shooting a hundred percent, it'll be worth it.