Posted on 01/11/2011 1:29:46 PM PST by TexasBarak
Big Five has these on sale for $79.95 (the one I looked at today was a carbine). I'm looking for an inexpensive knockabout rifle to keep in the truck (but still capable of taking out a wild pig), and this looks like it will fit the bill. Do any of you have one of these, or have experience with it? Does anyone know of a reasonable source of ammo?
Here's the wikipedia link concerning these rifles-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steyr-Mannlicher_M1895
The iron sights on my rifle are really bad; the trigger pull is long and creepy, but it is a military rifle. Shooting from sandbags at 50 yards I can barely keep five rounds inside of 5 inches. I'm using load data that came with the Lee dies; there's darn little data published anywhere. (I think Hornady also makes dies.)
As I said, my rifle has a headspace problem; the primers on every fired case have backed out. Probably needs a new barrel, but I'm not going to buy one. There are probably no really good barrels for sale anyway.
The Mosin-Nagant is probably a better bet for all the reasons stated by others on this post; I am mostly a paper target shooter and like to experiment with different rifles. In 1895 with the dawn of the smokeless powder age, the Styer was state of the art. I bought mine out of curiosity; probably look for a genuine German-made Mauser 98 soon.
That's what I was going to suggest. Same deal with Mosin-Nagant's. They need a lot of prep work, but they're really durable.
If I were going to buy a straight pull design I’d probably spend the extra money and get one of those Swiss K’s.
[I have seen air rifles take wild hogs. so if you place a round right you can take one. The size of that air rifle was .25. But you can use a larger one if you want.]
Impressive. I realize even a BB placed well can kill, but...
What do you recommend in a long gun for personal protection against, say, humans, that are much more fragile than wild pigs? That’s the only animal those carbines are designed to stop. None of the pigs I’ve ever shot stood still for long, so how much time do we have to aim to place a round right? I’m not such a bad shot myself, but I wouldn’t go trying to take wild pigs with an air rifle, or a pistol round from a carbine. Well, maybe a .44 magnum, which is a revolver round, or a .45 Win Mag, or .50 AE. I have a friend who felt his M1 Carbine was sufficient for wild pigs on Catalina, and emptied that gun before he stopped that pig from doing him serious harm.
Just sayin’ I wouldn’t recommend pistol round firing carbines to take wild pigs, but I see you would. OK.
Oh boy, that question is worthy of a thread all by itself. And there are lots of right answers. But first there are a lot more questions.
What environment do you reasonably expect to use it in? What are the most likely threats you expect to face? What is your level of proficiency with a firearm? How much time, money, and effort are you willing to put into learning to use the weapon safely and effectively?
How much money do you have to spend not only on the rifle but on range time and ammo?
In some scenarios an AR type rifle would be a solid choice. In others a lever action might be a better choice. That being said in lots of possible scenarios a bolt action center fire would be damn near ideal. In others, you can't beat a pump action 12 gauge shotgun...
If you're a relative novice, and live in a standard issue suburban area of the US, and don't want to spend a grand on a rifle, I might personally recommend a Mossberg pump action 12 gauge.
They run around $300 bucks, ammo is cheap and plentiful, and with the right load you can kill anything that walks, flys, or crawls on the North American continent.
But like I said above, there are lots and lots of questions to ask yourself before you plunk down your hard earned money on a 'long gun' for personal defense.
L
That was a rhetorical question.
Sorry, my mistake
No problem fellow gun nut.
Seems to me lewis and clark used an air rifle on their exploration. Air rifles can be just as potent as gunpowder rifles. You just need a much bigger bore to make up for the lower velocity.
I'm sure that you are thinking of the M-1 .30 carbine, which is indeed an underpowered round for pigs. I own a Marlin model 66 Levermatic in that caliber- it's lots of fun to shoot.
In this case, though, by "carbine", I simply mean that it is a shorter barreled gun than the standard, and by "light", I mean that is not very heavy. It still fires the 8x56 round, which I suspect would be perfectly adequate for wild hogs.
Thanks for all of the responses, everyone! As usual, Freepers rock, and I got lots of good, interesting info from you!
As it happened, today I found a Mosin-Nagant at a price I liked, so I brought that home instead. My wife was very excited about be getting it- even insisted that I get it before leaving the gun show, as it might not be there tomorrow!
In the future, though, when I am set up to reload, I may well take another look at the Steyr- I just liked that gun!
I concur. I have a carbine in .45 70 GOVT that is pig medicine. I just personally would not recommend PISTOL CARTRIGE CARBINES, like the Hi Points in 9mm, .40 S&W, and .45 Auto. Or air rifles. If others want to recommend such, I hope the fellow doesn’t take their advice and end up with one of those tuskers roughing him up.
I do have a (lucky) friend that used an M1 Carbine on a pig out on Catalina Island and very nearly become a bad hunting statistic.
Good choice. Inexpensive gun, way cheap surplus ammo, and several manufacturers build hunting rounds.
Hell yeah...got mine for 99.00 dollars and it came with a pig sticker bayonet. Looks like it was never really used.Strong and good looking, it is like owning a piece of history.
The reason your primers are backing out,is because the load data from Lee is too light.
I had the same problem with the primers backing out in all 5 of my M95’s,until I found better load data.No,I have no problems with the primers backing out.
I use 50 grains of IMR 4350 with the Privi 208 grain FMJBT from Grafs,or 45 grains of IMR 4320 with the same bullet,good for 2300fps.
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