Reader BC sent us pics of a rifle his uncle found. He tells us there are no identifying marks of any kind. Can you ID this gun?

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54 COMMENTS

    • There’s a trigger, it just blends into the crazy blanket pattern. You can see it in the last two pics.

      • I believe the mod three had a more pronounced bent bolt handle for optics clearance and the knob had serrations for beer bottle opening. This is likely the mod two, with certain modifications with factory parts to approximate the mod three with respect to the horned butt-plate.

        • Thank you for the clarification. This gun would be useful in a gun buy back program to get funds to buy a more updated MD 3 version.

  2. A garage experiment with some kind of Moisin action. Looks terrible.
    Judging by the Pellet in one pic, and the chopped stock, looks like someone had some time to bastardize something. The Tie wrap is a nice tacticool touch.

    Not that there is anything wrong with that.
    😉

  4. Well, you don’t take detailed enough photos, nor allow them to be expanded from what you show on the web page, which makes the effort fairly pointless.

  5. Whatever it once was, I hope somebody took the hacksaw and hatchet away from the “craftsman” who produced it.

    • That kind of basement innovation is sorely lacking in today’s kids. And it looks like a kid probably made it from a broken gun someone probably threw out.

      Yeah, it’s rough a hell. I just wonder if it headspaces correctly. I don’t wanna be the one with my face next to it when that time comes to test that…

  6. The pictures aren’t great and the rifle is in terrible condition but the bolt and front sight kinda look like Bubba got to work on an old Steyr Mannlicher Schoenauer and this abortion is what he created.

    Any clues on what caliber it is, even just a diameter on the bore? That would start to narrow it down, possibly pretty quickly.

    • The action looks like a Mannlicher-Schoenauer from the early 1900s. Beyond that its been too Bubba-fied and those arent great pictures either…

      The real answer is it is a great piece to turn in to your local buy in for $200 in gift cards.

  7. The bolt looks exactly like one on a Mosin Nagant. Perhaps a garage gunsmith got his hands on a cheap one and plied his “craft” with it, and this is the unholy offspring of that endeavor.

    • Correction: the action appears to be from a murata, possibly a type 22. The rest of the pieces are too blurry to properly identify.

  10. The style of stock and the tall cocking piece remind me of old German sporters, but I’m out my depth to place it accurately.

  11. Looks like a grip fired Mosin Nagant. Maybe Lazar from The Man With the Golden Gun made it?

  12. Damn that thing is ugly. Some guys rushed garage project with old gun parts?

    Is it just me or does the barrel look bent in the midle in the first picture?

    • Probably in 6.5x54mm M-S. The octagon and half octagon barrels and schutzen buttplates were common mods back then. The local gunshop had one in nice shape in their basement last year and were trying to price it.

      • Yeah, I keep going and going. That lump on the small of the stock is for the micrometer rear sight, which is missing, as is the trigger guard. There also seems to be an anomaly with the flag safety, or it’s hidden in these pictures. The bolt handle has been replaced – most ’03/14 customs seem to have had the “spoon-handle” type installed.

    • +1… VERY custimized. Even the lines on the receiver look closer to a M-S MCA than a 1903. Did you guys ever find the rear sight for that notch on the backstrap?

      • …. its the scoped rifle amon goeth (sp? Ralph Fiennes) uses in the shirtless balcony scene in “schindler’s list”.

    • Just cut a slot for a Pmag so you can get the “assault weapon” bonus. It’s not like they would know anyway.

  15. I’m actually fairly confident that someone slipped through a portal to an alternate universe where Fallout actually happened, and grabbed that gun from a dead raider out in the wasteland.

  16. Tough one! Not a Greek Mannlicher-Schoenauer because they had a stripper clip guide, no evidence of one. Not commercial unless the safety is missing among other things. Also it looks like the bolt head is detachable, which would be wrong for either. Regardless both would have profuse markings. I don’t think it’s a Gras or Murata either. Does it have any kind of magazine?

    Stock is European. It’s styled after a target rifle. I would guess it’s a 9mm rimfire garden gun. A single shot smoothbore to keep the crows away. Do you see any evidence of rifling?

    • Running through google images of the Greek, several custom actions show the stripper clip guides ground off. The safety is still a puzzle. Removed for schutzen competition, maybe?

      • Could be but I don’t see where the safety would have been. It’s also missing the bolt stop on the left side.

  17. Pre WW I sporting rifle made on a Gew. 88 Commission rifle action in Suehl, Germany. Possibly Haenel. There was a large gunsmith’s collective in Suehl which made a lot of these from 1898 to 1914 as the German government sold off Gew. 88’s for pfennigs.

    Rifle is missing the distinctive Gew. 88 magazine. Should be chambered for 7x57mm, 8x57mm, or 9x57mm.

    Rifle was probably surrendered to American soldiers at the end of WW II.

    • The Beaumont rifle has an extremely similar look, without a magazine as well… just a thought, holding one while looking at the screen I can see quite a few similarities.

  18. That is NO Winchester, looks quite Euro design as many have said. Just want to cradle that buttplate into my shoulder and light off a huge .600 or similar round. Ouch!!

  22. Japanese Murata with a slimmed bolt handle and a heavily sporterized stock. Barrel doesn’t look original, but it is certainly a Murata action.

    • Absolutely not a Murata, the bolt head link on Murata is much closer to the breech. Also, the cocking piece would have a round gripping area. It does look similar in profile, which is probably why people suggest Murata.

      Besides, why would anyone put a Schutzen stock and sight on a Murata when dozens of Euro actions are available locally?

      • The bolt head link in a Murata 18 appears exactly as that one does, just barely closing the breech when closed.
        http://www.militaryrifles.com/japan/Type18-03.jpg
        She has had some extensive weight loss surgery, grinding down the cocking piece, bolt handle, and rear of the receiver, but it all fits in a Murata 18 envelope. Why someone would do such a thing? Its probably all they had, or some amateur gunsmith’s practice fodder.

        • I’m on the same track, but I don’t see the large screw in the end of the bolt handle, that the Type 13 and 18 both have. I have had examples of a type 13 and 18 that had been converted to shotguns. The story was they were surplus guns, factory modified, to be sold to Japanese immigrating to Peru.

      • It could be modified, but the cocking peice is almost exaclty correct along with the bolt head. I am guessing a bubba with some machining tools modified a Murata.

      • If it is, they did some major surgery to the cocking piece and extended the action tang.

  23. French Chassepot, 1866, or maybe a Japanese Type 13 that have been subject to a great deal of punishment.

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