Need help with finishes on C96
 

I just started working on one of my Broomhandles, the plan is to reline it and make it a looker/shooter. Some parts are obviously fire blued, but I don't know if all variations were done the same way. This one doesn't have the new safety, which I believe makes it a pre-WWI model. The parts I'm planning to fire blue are:

Rear sight assembly
Safety lever
Bolt stop
Extractor

The parts I'm unsure about are the hammer and the trigger, and there could possibly be some other small parts that should be fire blued as well (like the floor plate release button). Also seems like all C96 firing pins are strawed, but it would be good to confirm that.

Olle,

FWIK I can't recall having seen a C96 firing pin strawed, I think all C96 had their firing pin blued.
I could be wrong.


Regards


Sergio

This is quite possible (I guess it would be a fire blue?), so I might better correct myself: The ones I have seen that still had any finish on them were strawed. The problem is that I just haven't seen many Broomhandles with a good, all original finish, so I don't have a good reference. Most of them just have an even, grey and brown patina all over, and it's almost impossible to tell what kind of finish they had to begin with.

I know there's several knowledgeable collectors here, so I'm hoping that this will be easy to figure out. If not, I'll just wing it. It will be a refinished shooter anyway, so the main objective is to make it look good.

Yeah, I'm sure all the secrets will be revealed once Alvin finds this thread. :thumbup:

I'm actually planning to take the coward's way out and let somebody else do the liner. I was thinking about doing it myself, but I won't be doing many .30 cal barrels (this might be the only one) so buying materials and the tools to do it would be cost prohibitive. The rest of the restoration will be enough work anyway. The grip frame is the worst part, it's pretty darn rough. I'm having it welded up right now and there will be many hours of filing, sanding and cussing just to do that part of the restoration. :eek:

I had Randall Redman to reline my C96 two years ago......he did a good job.
Jim

All fire blued as well as the trigger. A couple of my restorations to illustrate. Be care removing the rear sight blade you can shear off the two side nubs if you dont know how to remove it.

http://members.rennlist.org/lugerman/RLBolo1.JPG
http://members.rennlist.org/lugerman/JOBroomA2.jpg
http://members.rennlist.org/lugerman/JOBroomA3.jpg

Thanks, that helps a lot! :thumbup: It actually appears like the hammer is in the white, would that be correct for my pistol?

Olle,

Yes all hammers that I've seen are in the white (well at least all my C96 have got hammers in the white) I enclose some pictures of them.

Best


Sergio

You can use this one as reference.

http://www.gunauction.com/buy/13529540

I just sent it out yesterday. Not in my hand anymore. Mauser finish could be confusing. But this one can be used as a reference.

Hammer is supposed to be grey. Trigger finish depends on s/n. Rough rule of thumb -- if it has 4 rifling lines, strawed trigger. 6 rifling lines, fire blued trigger.

Great pictures, thanks! I don't know if it's just a trick of the light, but is the whole bolt in the white, even the rear part?

Yes. The bolt is silver white, including the rear end.

Yes absolutely.

Sergio

yep

Outstanding! Thanks to everybody who have posted, time for me to go back to the dungeon and roll up my sleeves! :thumbup:

Update: Got it done this evening, just in time for the gun show tomorrow. I'll be selling guns together with a friend of mine, so I hope it will make people stop and look at our stuff.

This gun was pretty rough to begin with, and needed quite a bit of welding, filing, shaping etc. The grip frame was severely rusted, so the only thing I could do was to weld up the edges and call it a day. There's still pitting under the grips, but it should hopefully be in a more stable form now after being boiled and soaked in oil. The grips are repros from somewhere overseas, they needed a lot of massaging to fit and they are still not perfect, but at least they look decent.

I would like to thank Paladinpainter for his role in the project, he was gracious enough to send me his special bluing formula, and he also did some of the nitre bluing. The barrel was relined by Redman's, and all that's left now is to install a new recoil spring and it will be ready to test fire. I should have ordered that spring before I even started working on it, but....

Anyway, here she is:

Nice work, Olle. I suspect there is a lot of elbow grease on this one.
John

Looks good.

Standard C96 with shorter chamber (like this one) usually has slightly brighter finish. Those with long chamber has dull military style finish -- because WWI was approaching, many long chambers were sold to that direction. So, strictly speaking, the finish is not 100% correct, but it's good enough.

Olle

Let me congratulate with you from the picture it looks like a nice work indeed!

Very nice job.

Olle, nice work! A silk purse created from the proverbial sow's ear!

From what I can see, it looks wonderful!! What a nice transformation.

In memory, I remembered an English phase talking about the relationship between purse and ear... but I could not remember the exact phrase... This must be the one!!

In Chinese, a phrase says "Embroidery on top of hemp made bag", probably carries the similar meaning.

But this base gun was not very bad one to begin with. It did not have serious rust nor pits, its edges were crisp, and its markings were clear. There are many C96s in much worse condition, probably more on "proverbial sow's ear" or "hemp made bag" side. Relatively speaking, this base gun in its original shape was not that bad at all.

It wasn't too bad overall, but the grip frame was very rough. It was actually to the point where I thought I had to do a transplant to get it back in any workable condition. I didn't take any detail pictures before I started working on it, but the whole perimeter of the grips (including about 1/8" up on the sides) had to be TIG welded and filed back to the correct shape. That was the worst part, the rest just needed a few spot welds.

Anyway, it was an interesting excersise, haven't restored many "oldies" lately so I really enjoyed it. I found some .30 Mauser ammo at the show, so now I just need the springs and it will finally be time to shoot it. :thumbup:

A similar, more recent expression is "to put lipstick on a pig". Origin unknown, but lipstick first appeared around 1860. I recall hearing it during the elections four years ago (?).

Then there's the one about a wallet fashioned from the skin of a male pig's member--which turns into a suitcase when rubbed.

English saying: "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear!"

David

Here we have a similar saying: "non puoi mettere una cravatta di seta ad un maiale" (you can't put a silk tie on a pig) meaning that a pig remains a pig and it's useless to waste a silk tie on it; the above English saying is more or less similar: you can't make something good out of something that is ​naturally ​bad.

Regards and have a nice Sunday.

Looks great. But remember the most important spring in a C96 is the main spring. The recoil spring just closes the bolt.

The springs and the bore are the most important.

Regarding the bore, there is an excellent example. This one:

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/Vie...Item=513564050

It's obviously not German, but buyer did not know that. He bought it, and found the bore is not ideal. Got angry:

"513564050
F Misrepresented the C96 I bought. Said it was a good shooter and had a good bore. Said on phone that it was a German Mauser. Was actually Chinese with terrible bore and ruined chamber. Don't trust him
Response: (left on 12/4/2015) Bought a $700 Mausher that only needs cleaning. Mauser address on pistol. Disgruntled! Select
tdh4570 A+(9)
Seller 11/30/2015 10:58 AM"

Seller suggested buyer to clean it... but the darn thing has already been cleaned into silver bright. The buyer definitely needs Redman or Closet service.

Doesn't the "stepped barrel" indicate a redone gun? I forget.

The stepped barrel just means it's a 1930 model.

Above GB one?

No. German also has this type of stepped barrel on late variations, both M1930 and Schnellfeuer have stepped barrel.

But this one is not German. Buyer is correct, it's a Chinese copy. Most obvious sign is the "narrowing curb" on the magazine well, also, the trigger's shape & position is not German, the marking does not look being German, the grip size is smaller than German, etc. The barrel was better copied, but still does not look like a German, the area behind bolt stop is too narrow.

A Chinese copy is not necessarily being a bad one, but he wanted a German, so he felt he was cheated.

I assume that Mauser parts won't necessarily fit either? That would render the gun useless as a shooter if something happens to break, or at least make for some long hours fitting new parts.

Really, with all those Chinese clones floating around, it would be helpful to have some kind of "buyer's guide" showing the typical differences. I have been very close to buying clones, but was saved from getting burned simply by finding anomalies like misspelled words or funky characters. For example, I have seen a few with fairly convincing stamps, but with a backwards "S" in "MAUSER". Those things are very easy to spot, but there may be more subtle differences that the novice won't notice until it's too late.

It doesn't have to be very complicated, just a side-by-side picture with arrows pointing out the typical differences. Anybody willing to do that?

Just back from range... had a new finding regarding ammo... but let's address that later.

The two most significant features on most Chinese C96 that I have met are these two:

1) On C96 magazine well design, the front of magazine is narrower. But the two rails on top of grip frame are parallel. To make the magazine well front narrower, Chinese copy is usually (but not always) different from that of German's.

2) Maybe it's not obvious on this particular picture, but Chinese C96 usually has either smaller grip (but bigger than German Bolo), or thinner grip panels. Asian's hand is smaller, holding a big grip is not comfortable.

Applying those two, you can tell most copies. Of course, there are other delta. But those are more variation specific. Use Large Ring as an example,

3) German Large Ring Hammer had short receiver rails. Chinese copy usually had long rails. Chinese actually copied German standard C96, but changed the hammer to a Large Ring Hammer.

4) The most copied safety lever functions like a German Standard C96. It's relatively rare to see Chinese copy has early safety, or M1930 style safety.

Of course, if apply s/n and feature correspondence, then, there are numerous minor detail difference. But by applying 1) and 2), you can tell at least 90% copies.

Finally, below German picture "borrowed" from gunbroker.com, it's a reblued gun with replaced grip panels. Probably a nice shooter. The Chinese picture "borrowed" from Morphy Auction, it's also a reblued gun (Morphy mis-identified it as Spanish). On small parts side, it not very rare to find German parts on Chinese copies.

Now, the new finding on ammo.

Back a few months ago, I bought a box of Fiocchi 7.63mm from a local dealer. It's much more expensive than PPU. I thought I would give it a try so I bought one box.

Fired them out today. I don't know you guys noticed or not -- many shooting videos on youtube.com indicated people had certain degree of difficulty to load C96 with clip -- when they pushed the ammo down into the magazine well, one or two round could roll out of the clip. That's very annoying.

I met this problem from time to time too. Never thought why... or, "may be these DWM steel clips become out of spec after being used many times??"

Today, I noticed the same clips could load Fiocchi without any issue. I fired all 50 rounds out, loaded the gun five times, and all worked well -- no cartridges fall out of rail. Then I went home and opened an original DWM 403 box (cost me $130 in today's market value) and retried, no issue either. Then, tried PPU, the problem appears.

So, the problem came from PPU cartridge. By visual, I cannot see the dimensional difference between these different brands of ammos. But the clip can tell.

"So, the problem came from PPU cartridge. By visual, I cannot see the dimensional difference between these different brands of ammos. But the clip can tell."

Alvin, have you actually tried taking measurements?
Norm

Unfortunately, no accurate measurement device in home yet.

===

[Edit] I just retried using empty Fiocchi cases and PPU cases (too dangerous to load live ammo at home, so use empty cases). This is repeatable. Fiocchi cases can always be loaded without issue. PPU cases almost always has one or two rounds falling out. Same "DWM" marked (BKIW made) clip, and same pistol.

Alvin keep your eye on Harbor Freight sales. They often offer digital calipers that are plenty close enough in accuracy for reloading work.

http://www.harborfreight.com/6-in-di...ngs-68304.html

http://www.harborfreight.com/media/c...mage_24113.jpg

And they only cost $20 or less.:thumbup:

It's not often that I laugh out loud...Thanks for starting my Tuesday off with a bit of humor... :D

Alvin - I don't have PPU 7.63 Mauser, but I do have PPU "7.62mm Tokarev" [their box printing]...Instead of Mauser stripper clips, try M16 stripper clips...(But don't try Tokarev in Mauser)...

I had the camera and the photo tent set up today, so I decided to take some better pictures. I'm not entirely happy with the grips, but haven't been able to find any better. I might stain them a bit later to make them look old, but they will do as they are for now.

I have always wanted a nice C96 shooter, so I'm pretty happy with how it turned out overall. Also got a Bolo that needs some attention, so I guess that will be the next project. Might even convert that one to 9mm. :)