Mauser "2-digit"?

[alvin]

Originally Posted by luger.parabellum

This is an old story, and again I'd like to say that really vintage guns should NEVER be refinished, modified, and fired, because it might ruin any value they had as a collectible firearm; then it's just part of a personal choice.
IMHO.

I had a Mauser. It's not really for shooting, but one day, I could not control my curiosity and decided to fire a clip of 10 rounds from it.

The first two rounds fired OK. On the 3rd round, the hammer dropped, but no bang. I cocked the hammer again, pulled the trigger, still no bang. What's wrong, firing pin broken So I pulled the bolt open, and I felt I had to exert bigger force than usual. When the bolt was opened, an empty cartridge case flied to the ground. No wonder it did not bang.

Starting from there, it became a "bolt action" pistol. Every round fired, but every time the gun failed to eject, and the extractor of the gun was functional -- while I pull the bolt open manually, the empty case did fly out. What could be wrong with this....

On my way to home, I thought a few possibilities. The ammo is definitely good. I only shoot factory ammo and never had a problem with the brand in the past. The gun is matching... forced matching?? Geez... I inspected, not supposed to be, but it would not hurt to check again. The more I thought about this, the faster I drove -- wanted to return home quickly to check...

Arrived home, I disassembled the gun, checked the numbers again, perfect, definitely not artist work. Then, what's wrong with this...

When I looked at the ejected empty cartridge case, ...., well, something did look not right here -- it has excessive scratching on it wall. Trying to insert the case back into the chamber, it could only go half way in!! That's the problem, the gun's bore was worn, its chamber was a little bit oversized, and the cartridge case expanded excessively during firing caused bolt open failure!!

After knowing the problem, I feel much better. It has a chamber issue, but for a C&R pistol over 100 years old with worn bore, not a surprise at all. But this type of "problem" is hard to find in visual inspection.