Searching for articles on modern gunsmithing homages to the Mauser C96.

Okay, I was reading old pulp novels and finishing off the Christmas oranges and I got the idea (Okay, I stole the idea from the book and extrapolated it) to look into seeing what modern gunsmiths (who have access to allows and machine tools never imagined 90 years ago) might do with replicating the weapons most appearing in the books I was reading?

Does someone have some websites or YouTube chanels dedicated specifically to doing cool things with classic ninteen hundred to nineteen thirties designs only with modern materials?

I have seen the double barrel Colt 1911 models...but what about the Mauser C96? With modern steel could one be made to fire small rifle cartridges of the period (30-30 maybe?) And how about the Thompson Submachine gun?

Does someone have some websites or YouTube chanels dedicated specifically to doing cool things with classic ninteen hundred to nineteen thirties designs only with modern materials?

A couple of years back a young pal of mine attending a CNC machine tool class thought a classic old design might be the ticket for his fledgling robomachinist's skills, and came to the conclusion that a M1928A1 Thompson in stainless would provide a pretty good showpiece for his skills. He was nosing around in the right places and was advised by others to seek me out for prints, dimensional exemplars and parts to copy. You can imagine his disappointment when I explained to him about the Firearms Owners *protection* Act and the Hughes Amendment, and that it was illegal to do what John Talliferro Thompson did in 1919.

So he sought out another project, and reasonably came up with the M1916 U,S. Rifle, which most folks have never heard of- by that designation. When the Czar of Russia came up short a few rifles he turned to outside arms manufacturers, the State factories being busy churning out copies of the Maxim Gun [Gorloff) and light artillery, and developing a light automatic rifle. The ancient French manufactory at Chattelerault, the US Firm of Westinghouse's Eddystone, PA factory [1,800,000 units]ordered, at least 750,000 built0 and the firm of Remington dutifully cranked out another 750,000 units. The Russians, soon to be the Soviets. had built some 4 million. and this was long before the Chinese went at it. It truly was one of the nost significant rifles of its time.

My granddad paid $1.50 for his just after WWI, courtesy of the U.S. Government's Department of Civilian Marksmanship.

The erstwhile machinist thought it worthy. I lent him granddad's [Eddystone] and my own pre-war Russian Tula, plus some parts like spare barrels from other projects for dimensions. And now I can say I've seen, and had a part in building, a stainless steel M91 Mosin-Nagant/ U.S. M1916 rifle.

“One of those “hold my Schnapps” sort of things.”

Back in my misspent youth I fired a Thompson-Center Contender chambered in several rifle calibers. Not mine, unfortunately, but it wasn’t all that bad and the 30-30 loading was pretty nice!

Guy who owned it didn’t quite need a wheelbarrow to move his collection of barrels for it, but close...

If you thought you heard me sniveling about it, you’d be right! ;)

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