Most abused surplus arms encountered

[Mad Reloader]

Based on my many many years of perusing gunshops and pawnshops and gunshows, IMHO it's the 1893 Mauser that has suffered the most abuse and butchery.

I swear, almost EVERY hole in the wall gunshop or pawnbroker I've been to over the past...geological epoch!...has had a minimum of ONE skanked-up 1893 Mauser.

The fact that for a good stretch (1968-late 1980's) twas 1893 Mausers that were pert near the ONLY rifles one could mail-order sans FFL you could actually get ammunition for was the major contributing factor to this ongoing butchery. The old armories running out of these antiques in the 1990's was the only thing that slowed down this carnage.

(pre WW2, think it was the Krags that took the title, during the 1945-1968 epoch anything that came down the pike was fair game...I think now the title will go over to SKS's and to Mosin-Nagants, shipping containers full of these arms are coming out of the former ComBloc, awaiting the basement bomber gunsmith....)