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Spanish Model 93 Mauser 7x57 7mm Rifle Rebuild Project - Before I Began

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Introduction and Overview; Right Side of Rifle
My 93 Mauser had been through a lot in its life before it became mine.

Right side of the Spanish Mauser '93 rifle before I began serious work on it. This rifle had been through a lot before it came to me, as evidenced by the many dents in the rifle's stock.

Photo © Russ Chastain
This is the first in a series of articles about rebuilding an old rusty, ratty, somewhat rotten Spanish Mauser Model 1893 rifle. I'll talk about how it all began, and what kind of shape the rifle was in, before moving on to discuss all the work that went into 'smithing this hunk of junk into a fine rifle that would eventually kill a fine ten-point buck with its first woods-fired shot.

To my everlasting delight, I was given this rifle - for free. Sadly, it turned out to be worth just about as much as I'd paid for it - but it offered a golden opportunity to explore rifle building and gunsmithing farther than I'd done in the past, and I jumped in with much consideration and enthusiasm.

When I was given the rifle by an old family friend, I was told that the rifle's barrel was shot out and needed to be replaced. Being an optimist, I decided to doubt that assessment, and began entertaining visions of cutting down the long 29-inch barrel to do a simple and easy sporterization of the old clunker. So I began cleaning the bore.

Cleaning the Bore

I used a series of products from Sharp Shoot R Inc. to clean the bore, and they did an exceptional job of removing ages of rust and black crud. The problem was that the bore kept growing!

As I removed more and more crud, I kept having to move to larger brushes to get good contact with the bore. I lied to myself and claimed that the copper solvent was simply eating away my brushes' bristles... and staunchly ignored the fact that I kept having to move to larger patch jags, too. Discarding the facts, I kept cleaning until there was no more crud hidden in the deep rifling, and my patches came out nice and clean every time.

Then I took the rifle out to shoot it.

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