What Is It?

 

One of those Swedish Llunghamens or whatever they were?

The semiautomatic 6.5x55’s?

I know in some conflicts, it wasn’t unusual to pick up an enemy’s gun and use it against him, especially among the less organized civilian and resistance groups. I am no expert in milsurps… but I’m no slouch either. Up here in my neck of the woods, way back in the day, most of the men couldn’t afford sporting rifles and bought milsurps instead. Pristine Mausers and Enfields were a dime a dozen, and if you were a gun nut or a collector, for a few bucks more you might get the odd Garand or Swiss K31. Very few had guns with optics. I remember the bins of other surplus junk in the stores. You could get a well worn holster for your cap gun for pennies. It was a hobby for grown men to pick over the military surplus junk too. Bob’s old man was a ham radio operator and went to scrounge vacuum tubes, and the others would make lamps and ash trays from the empty artillery shells. It was Valhalla in there for us kids. Gas masks made excellent space helmets.

But gads, I digress. Getting back to our kraut above: am I having a senior’s moment? Any idea what that rifle is?