Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on forgottenweapons.com
I'm Ian. I am here today with the generous help of the Beretta company
I'm taking a look at some of the guns that are in their reference collection.
And one that they have, that i'm not sure if they did this conversion
or if someone else did.
and they simply ended up with it in their collection
but, this is an Austrian Steyr M.95 straight pull rifle that has been converted
into a semi-automatic rifle.
Now in theory this sort of conversion would be really simple on a straight pull rifle,
because, the bolt already is set up so all you need to do is pull it straight back
and push it forward in order to cycle it
Well, that's an easy conversion to add...
a gas piston to
and have the gas tapped off the barrel do that job for you
Much more difficult on a turnbolt rifle,
where you have to add some sort of caming mechanism to lever the bolt up
and then push it down
That's been done too, for example: the Charlton
Uh, obviously the most famous, most notable such conversion
But,
one would think that straight pull rifles would make an ideal base for a conversion like this
and here you go, here's a really good example.
Uh, they did also put on a pistol grip.
this is because,
the reason there's a pistol grip,
is you have to have this receiver long enough to hold the entire bolt.
cause what they've done is they've a block here
that holds the back of the bolt, and it's connected to
the gas piston, and a recoil spring
Now you have to have some sort of track for the bolt to slide in
On, on a standard straight pull rifle you don't really
because you got a person the bolt and if it's a little, sloppy and wiggly when it's fully open
doesn't really matter.
On this, because it's part of a fast acting mechanical system
you want this bolt to be fully controlled in its entire range of travel.
so....
you add an extension to the back of the receiver, with a buffer at the end of travel
and that the stock get longer
and if you were to try and do a standard, um
standard straight stock, you'd have a trigger back here,
Well, it's a lot simpler to do this conversion if you leave the trigger, unmolested
just leave the trigger, trigger mechanism alone...
so, to do that, you put a pistol grip, in the appropriate location to use the trigger
I'll tell you what, this thing actually handles really well.
this feels really good in the hand
That just works.
Now, unfortunately, the recoil spring in this and the action is really stiff and sticky
so I can't really do much to uh...
to demonstrate it for you, however
you can pretty clearly see how it works.
gas has been tapped...
right here at the front of the barrel
got an op-rod down here connecting to this block on the bolt
and that's all there is to it
Really, quite clever
this is almost the sort of thing a home gunsmith could do themselves
if they had, say...
a cheap Steyr M.95, which we have a lot of in the U.S. and,
some uh, interest in tinkering and some time to work i bet...
this would not be that difficult of a project to make
and it would be really cool to see someone else come up with, a functional example of one of these
let's take a little bit of a closer look at some of the details
i'll, give you guys a hand if you do want to take this on as a project.
alright so here's the working bit
you know, this is a completely unmodified Steyr m.95 action
nothing's been changed there,
however, you can see,
this block, right here has been added to hold onto the bolt
see how it comes back there
and then there's a track, a groove in-between this receiver extension
and the wood stock
and that gives this block, a place to travel.
we have...
the trigger mechanism....
right there....
there's also going to be a catch up there for the trigger, this would originally have been the disassembly catch
and in fact you can see where they've....
cut the end of the receiver
right here,
that circular screw-hole, used to be the rear tang screw on the receiver
so that has been...
added to...
now....
this, i suspect has a very heavy, stiff spring in it to act as a recoil buffer
for any impact from the end of travel of the bolt
you can see we have a return spring on the gas piston there
and this just taps gas right off
the front of the barrel
standard Austrian sights...
and in fact we've still got, a "OEWG", Steyr
and even an Austrian, right there military acceptance mark
takes standard 5 round m.95 clips
just based on all the other evidence, i would assume that this is till in 8x56 rimmed
well thank you for watching guys,
I hope you enjoyed the video, we...
this is something I've actually seen pictures of a design like this and this is something that I've had,
gunsmith buddies kind-of banter about as a potential project idea
we always thought, you know it's really don't think it would be that difficult and,
Here you go, here's an in the flesh, live working example
you know , I suspect this probably was done by Beretta
or someone in Italy
because this does have an Italian style, uh rear sling attachment
anyway, I would like to thank Beretta, for their generosity and letting me take a look at this
and some of their other reference collection guns
and if you like this sort of content,
please consider checking out my Patreon account
that's a large part of what allows me to travel to places like,
beautiful northern Italy to take a look at these sorts of guns
Thanks for watching.