Why isn’t that gun in an evidence bag?
evidence bag? The short answer to your question is that clean cardboard box is way better to preserve the gun’s condition than a wrinkley bag might be. Having said that tho, the rest is borderline stupid. The news guys have called it a Mauser 98, a Mauser 30-06, an old model sporter 30-06, and I expect they’re not thru calling it stuff.
Note some stuff: The safety is not Mauser. The bolt is not bent to accommodate a scope. The stock is not notched to accommodate a low bolt. The stock is synthetic commercial, not Mauser. The scope is not actually fastened to the rifle, the rings being too close together to fit the bases. If the rifle had ever been Military Mauser 98 it’s been seriously “sporterized”. That’s happened a lot over the last 3/4 century but this would be a bad job, at best.
The magazine is a top loader and that low scope, as shown, kind of makes it a single shot. It doesn’t show a floor plate mag release which could be used to load from the bottom?
Note also that without a forestock band it only takes two trigger guard screws to separate the rifle into two pieces, neither of which would be longer than about 30 inches, making it way more “hideable.”
So I’m throwing the BS flag on this particular rifle being used to a shoot something 200 yards away? If anything it might be a “waster” piece just dropped to fuzzy-up the trail.