Thread: Walnut and blued steel,

9.5x57 Mannlicher-Schoenauer model 1910 take-down rifle, in a custom stock. (In English its called the .375 Rimless Nitro Express.)

Essentially this is an 8x57 case blown out to hold a .375 bullet of 270 grains at around 2200 fps. It recoils about like a .30/06 with 180 grain bullets.
The cartridge is sort of known as an ""African cartridge" but it's not really: it is a version of the earlier .375 flanged Nitro express 2.5 inch, which was a straight wall cartridge with the same ballistics chambered in double rifles and was a favourite for hunting red stags and boar in the UK and Europe at the turn of the 19th century. The 9.5x57 MS was an attempt to adopt the same cartridge performance into a repeating magazine rifle: the Mannlicher and the Mauser which were the new darlings of the sporting world. (The 9.3x62 was born the same way - an update of the older 9.3x74 to fit into a Mauser action.)
Of course English and German people took it to the colonies and shot African lions and things and to India to shoot sambar and tigers, as one does, but the Austrians intended it for shooting red stags in the Austro-Hungarian empire.
So that is what it is again, I will use it for stags in the roar.

The stock is custom, and all credit to Nakihunter who is a member on here and made the whole thing from a blank - and bearing in mind that this is a take down rifle and totally different from a normal stock. (There are no action screws!) The figure in the walnut looks better in real life than in these poor photos. The rifle retailed from CB Vaughan in London and has the 100 year old case. It seems that it spent it's life in Ceylon on a tea plantation before coming to NZ.

The stock is ready to be checkered once I source some more tools, which are hard to get nowadays. The pattern will be a standard Mannlicher Schoenauer pattern from the period, and done in flat top checkering, because it seems right and because that's how I roll.

You can borrow my checkering tools if you wish. Just pay post and you can use them free.

Originally Posted by garyp

You can borrow my checkering tools if you wish. Just pay post and you can use them free.

Hi Gary, I really appreciate that. Have sent you a pm