hey guys thanks for tuning in to another
video on Forgotten weapons comm I'm Ian
McCallum and I'm here today at the Rock
Island auction company where we are
taking a look at I think a really cool
little carbine this is a Peruvian Navy
carbine conversion of an 1891 Peruvian
Mauser long rifle so there's really kind
of quite a lot going on here now what
makes this even more interesting to me
is that this rifle is marked with a
Peruvian crest and also Argentine
markings and typed a lot of the parts
have Argentine acceptance and proof
stamps on them and the reason for that
is Arjun Peru
purchased these mousers from Argentina
in 1901 they didn't actually buy them
direct from the manufacturer in fact
there's even a little bit of maybe
question about that the problem was our
Gen Tina placed a big order and then
ended up being unable to pay for the
rifles so they ended up reselling them
to Peru hence they have the Argentine
markings then also the Peruvian markings
it's possible however that some of this
was kind of a ruse for the Argentine's
to be able to help rearm
Peru against their mutual enemy Chile
without attracting a lot of attention
without looking like they were in fact
helping to rearm Peru so whether it was
truly a financial problem or basically a
sneaky bit of gun running you know we're
not really sure
at any rate these carbines were
converted much later like the 1930s and
what's really cool to me is first off I
like carbines and then this pattern has
a kind of a distinctive 1891 pattern
front handguard to it and also the lunga
Vizier site this early what we normally
associate with Germany rollercoaster
style of rear sight so let me go ahead
and show you the details of this thing
up close so on the receiver crest of the
rifle we have all of the original
Argentine markings Mauser Modelo
Argentine model of 1891 and that little
that pair of shaking hands is an
Argentine acceptance proof on the top of
the receiver we have the Peruvian crest
and Repubblica Pat wanna and then things
get a little
funky when we look at the barrel where
we have a Belgian proof mark which is a
little bit odd considering the rifle was
made by DWM in Berlin the bolt handle
has been bent down as part of the
carbine conversion you'll notice they
didn't inlet the stock for it though I
guess they decided there's enough space
here to to grasp the bolt handle
effectively and then of course the
roller coaster rear sight is just super
cool and that thing is starts at a
400-meter zero apparently so
oh and we have an additional serial
number zero one two nine which is not
located on the bolt or anywhere else on
the gun the handguard has these two
distinctive slots in it that you'll see
on a full-length Argentine or Peruvian
Mauser and then we have a kind of
standard bayonet lug short cleaning rod
unhooded front sight standard sorts of
sling swivels on the stock we have of
course the very early 1891 pattern of
magazine and action this was basically
the first version of the Mauser
repeating bolt-action rifle that was
actually sold on a wide scale the
Belgians adopted these in 1889 and the
Argentine's in 1891
now this magazine extends below because
this was before Mauser had actually
developed the double stack flush fitting
magazine so this is a five round single
stack magazine and you can see that
inside the action the follower is
narrower and a lot simpler our one last
marking on here is 1964 stamped into the
stock and this is kind of a mystery so
let's consider what's actually going on
with this gun what we know pretty well
is that these were actually converted
for use by the Peruvian Navy down and
Peru that's the only place you'll see
them is in Navy property if not in
museums or private collections so and
this conversion was done in the 1930s it
appears some time after 1934 now the
longer busier site was added when the
765 Argentine
seven six five Mouser cartridge was
redesigned to use a pointed Spitzer
bullet originally these rifles as long
rifles had flat tangent rear sights for
the round nosed ball ammo and when they
went to Spitzer they used the lung of
zero sights very much like that Germans
were then using on the Mauser 98 so this
rifle was updated sometime around 1909
to have this sight and then in the 30s
it was cut down into this carving
configuration and again this was done
for the Peruvian Navy I can't tell you
exactly why the Peruvian Navy wanted
this pattern of carbine but it maybe as
something something as simple as they
had a lot of the 1891 rifles lying
around and they wanted carbines because
they were shorter and handier and it was
just cheaper and simpler to have some
guys modify existing rifles rather than
buy new ones or try to acquire more
modern pattern carbines that may have
been in inventory as for the barrel
marking Peru bought replacement barrels
from a number of different companies the
most common one to see is Sig those are
marked sjg but FN did also sell barrels
to Peru and in fact Peru bought complete
rifles from FN as well around the 1930s
so finding a replacement barrel with a
Belgian proof suggest that it was FN
that manufactured that they would have
then sold the barrel as a finished
product meaning that it had to be proof
mark in Belgium before it could leave
the country hence the Belgian proof now
that 1964 is is like I said kind of a
mystery
these guns I've seen a number of of
these guns around and they typically
have serial numbers up to about 400 and
the eight in the stock very say they're
all in the 60s but like 1963 up to 1968
so it doesn't seem likely that the
Peruvian Navy was doing this conversion
that late they certainly didn't need
these rifles by that point but the
numbers aren't all the same so it
doesn't seem like they're all done at
once could they have been some sort of
importer marking maybe ultimately I just
I don't know I can't tell you what that
that eight stamp indicates I should also
point out that this appears to be a
totally standard lung Divisie rear sight
and bass so starts at 400 and goes out
to 2,000 meters and the front sight
appears to be pretty much a totally
standard sight as far as I can tell
there wasn't any effort put into
actually zero or calibrate these sights
they just put on the components and left
it as is so I would be really interested
to give it a try or to talk to someone
who has and find out just where these
things are zeroed whether they they
actually shoot on target or if they
don't and that just wasn't the matter a
particularly important matter to the
Peruvian Navy by the 1930s well there
you have a I think really interesting
obscure little carbine variant of a
somewhat obscure South American mauser
know if you think carbines are as cool
as I think they are you can get more
information on this from Rock Island
catalog you can either go directly to
their website or there is a link in the
description text below to forgotten
weapons comm where you can find a link
to rock Islands catalog from there so
that will have their pictures
description price estimate all that sort
of stuff thanks for watching
you