About a week ago I picked up a WW1 Austro-Hungarian Empire Steyr Mannlicher M95 Long Rifle that was converted from 8x50mm to 8x56mm during WWII. I payed $100 for the rifle. Good or bad price? What is it worth in this condition?
It came with 5 stripper clips (4 in Original packages of 2 each) with all bullets being original 1938 German ammunition. 1 Package is German and the other is Austrian, even though all bullets are German produced.
Anyways, this gun has been deactivated/demilled and where you normally see the date stamp above the chamber, there is a big hole cut. Also the bolt face is welded so the firing pin cannot strike the bullet. The gun operates normally and I can load ammunition and fire it, so naturally nothing will happen.
There a bunch of stamps all over the gun but in the pictures below I have shown the stamps on the barrel and the stamps on the buttstock of the rifle. The stamp on the barrel is '2977 U' and there are 4 stamps on the buttstock.
You can see a faint Austrian Flag stamped on above the numbers.
The first stamp of numbers is '380'
Underneath those numbers, the rifle has been double stamped, one 4 digit code over another 4 digit code. I was able to make out the numbers underneath and above. The first stamp reads '3527' and then the heatstamp overtop reads '2201' I am trying to figure out the year the gun was produced/accepted into service. If anyone could help with this, I would greatly appreciate it!