Running Bear's January 2026 Coffee Shop

[Patrick]

View attachment 253247 SOS!

That's a salt\carb bomb if I ever had one (when salt and carbs didn't matter!). Haven't had SOS since I was 19.

 

[kbkchooch]

Good afternoon gang!

Been up and down like a yo-yo since yesterday. Got up at 5:30 yesterday, worked til 3, drove home, napped til 7, got up until 12:15 or so, then boom, out go the lights! Woke back up around 4 a.m. to the wife and son#4 yapping about white-out conditions outside. No precip other than flurries were called for, yet looking out the front window I had trouble seeing my truck in the driveway for all the sideways snowfall. It lasted maybe an hour and stopped when the stiff wind died down around 5 a.m. Then back to bed til 11 am. Now I am yawning writing this.

 

[chadbag]

Chad - Wanted to get back to you on that Lee-Enfield that goes live Sunday.

It's a No.4 Mk1, 1945 DOM. They were made by Savage and Small Arms LTD in Longbranch, Canada. This one is marked "Longbranch." I went over it with a fine tooth comb because I thought it couldn't be unissued, but it is. There's still cosmoline and gunk in the screw holes and recesses in the bolt. It has the Century Arms import mark on the muzzle.

I'm not going to list the early Swedish Mauser because the wood had been refinished....poorly.

There will also be a Benelli M1 Super 90 12g, 20" barrel, but not the tactical. I need to check it tomorrow to confirm my assumption that it is an HK Benelli.

Make sure it’s not one of the ones that were arsenal rebuilt and refinished after the war and packed away in cosmoline etc for the next war.

Eventually they were sold off after the fall of the Soviet Union and the realization they wouldn’t be needed for the next war and a ton of them flooded the U.S. They look unissued and unused but are in fact arsenal rebuilds of used weapons. I have two No 4 that came into the country in the 90s (which was when I bought mine). They’re wonderful shooters and look nice. A wonderful piece of history. But they’re not rare historical pieces. I’d be wary of selling one as a rare unissued weapon without a clear back story and paper trail that could prove it’s not arsenal rebuilt and refinished.

Thanks for following up. The Enfields are a wonderful family of easy shooting rifles. It was said that “the Germans brought a hunting rifles, the Americans brought a target rifle, and the Brits brought a battle rifle to the war”. I believe they were talking WW I but it would have equally applied to WW II. The weapons being respectively the Mauser 98K family, the Springfield 1903 family, and the Enfield family.

I have a No 1 Mk III matching numbers from 1917 made in Australia. It’s not unissued but is in nice condition. I also have a couple of the No 4 arsenal rebuilds and a true no 5 Jungle Carbine. (A lot of so-called No 5 jungle carbines are really post war commercially converted war surplus No 4 to be in No 5 configuration). I got the Aussie No 1 and the No 5 Jungle Carbine from a collector who was getting rid of his Enfields to concentrate on one certain line of rifles. He was U.S. military and being transferred to Japan and could t take his collection so had to downsize to be able to afford storage etc.

The two No 4 rebuilds I paid about $80-$120 each for in the late 1990s.

 

[chadbag]

IIRC it's an 1896, with bayonet. Does not have the threaded muzzle for the blank firing device. I think it's going on the rack at $700, but I can check tomorrow.

Swedish Mausers are another one I took a special interest in. I have a few well used m1896 including one I’ve been in the process of sporterizing for the last 30 years (which means I have a piece of walnut to carve into a stock and a box of parts to be used in the process. I’ve not really started. My brother however finished his. We were buying these well used rifles back in the late 90s for probably $100-$120/$140.

I also have at least one M1938 Swedish Mauser with turned down bolt. Except for drilling and tapping for a scope and a small amount of milling on the bolt handle to allow the scope room I’ve kept it original otherwise. It was not collector grade but was in nice condition.

I also have a Swedish Ljungman semi auto rifle in 6.5x55 but it has a broken firing pin.

If I’d known these surplus rifles would be worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars (and Chinese SKS would be mid hundreds) I’d have invested some and bought a bunch and stored them. Chinese SKS were $80 in 1994 and most of these enfield and Swedish mausers and other rifles were less than $100 to about $160-$200 in the late 90s.

 

[RhB Michael]

Did someone mention hunti...I mean Mausers?

 

[chadbag]

I have a couple Czech Vz24 based Mauser K98 carbine versions that are banged ups be not great shape. I bought them to rebarrel them and sporterize. They’re shot out so it’s no loss of heritage.

I wish I had some real German war vintage or pre WW2 vintage Mausers.

I also have an old Turkish Mauser and an old old Turkish bolt action from somewhere like 1880s. However pictures I see for the 1887 Mauser don’t look quite right to what I have though I’ve not seen mine in ages. It’s packed away from a move. It’s not one that’s likely to be safe to shoot. I got it “free”’when I bought the later Turkish Mauser from the same guy who I got the Enfields from.

 

[TLOC]

That's a salt\carb bomb if I ever had one (when salt and carbs didn't matter!). Haven't had SOS since I was 19.

Dad used to make it a couple times a year. I liked it as a kid

 

[Marlin39]

Swedish Mausers are another one I took a special interest in. I have a few well used m1896 including one I’ve been in the process of sporterizing for the last 30 years (which means I have a piece of walnut to carve into a stock and a box of parts to be used in the process. I’ve not really started. My brother however finished his. We were buying these well used rifles back in the late 90s for probably $100-$120/$140.

I also have at least one M1938 Swedish Mauser with turned down bolt. Except for drilling and tapping for a scope and a small amount of milling on the bolt handle to allow the scope room I’ve kept it original otherwise. It was not collector grade but was in nice condition.

I also have a Swedish Ljungman semi auto rifle in 6.5x55 but it has a broken firing pin.

If I’d known these surplus rifles would be worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars (and Chinese SKS would be mid hundreds) I’d have invested some and bought a bunch and stored them. Chinese SKS were $80 in 1994 and most of these enfield and Swedish mausers and other rifles were less than $100 to about $160-$200 in the late 90s.

We just put a mint, all matching, Chinese SKS on the rack for $700. It looked like the previous owner just took the cosmoline off and kept it in his safe. Just immaculate.

Russian ones still bring big bucks.

 

[TLOC]

In the train room moving from project to project and working the paper mill tracks.

Fencing the transload facility

Got to add the posts

Bring out the 72” straight edge to keep the fence straight

Yes there will be a couple sets of gates

Plant the posts in the ground. A few of the posts are longer as these will not be glued into the ground for awhile, if ever! I drill a hole and plant the pole and the longer ones will catch the 2” foam the facility sits one

Nepotism reigns on the Wisconsin Interstate. Harper Logistics is named after the granddaughter, with her brother the Director of the transload facility

The sign is sized correctly but everything on the sign is wrong. Ai generated it has issues sometimes combining words and an image. I have thoughts of back lighting the sign but we will see

The start of the internal framing

The face of the sign is not ready for prime time viewing but I’m working it

 

[CambriaArea51]

Happy New Year, later to the party. Went in at 5 and worked till 11pm so all the party people could get home safe. Back up at 5 home by 8, took a nap went into the train room to finish what I started, then back to work for a couple so now I can relax and get caught up.
BTW this is what I finished weathering and adding the loads. Most of these are x2.

 

[chadbag]

We just put a mint, all matching, Chinese SKS on the rack for $700. It looked like the previous owner just took the cosmoline off and kept it in his safe. Just immaculate.

Russian ones still bring big bucks.

Even back then the Russian ones were $300-$500 while the Chinese were $80-$120. And the $120 were just the scalpers.

At first the Chinese were nicer Ex-mil stored ones. Nice milled receivers, etc. Then you started seeing stamped stuff and then it was Frankenstein commercial rebuilds with whatever parts they could find to feed the frenzy in the U.S. but when I got mine they were mostly still the nice ex-mil stuff.

I wanted a Russian one but couldn’t justify the price at the time.

Another thing I had in 94 was an Aussie L1A1 parts kit from an apparently unissued rifle. Wood was immaculate blond wood and metal parts were unmarred. It was somewhere around $600-$600 even then. I bought an Entreprise L1A1 receiver and was going to build it up. But I got laid off and needed cash and had also bought an Aussie L1A1 parts kit from an issued and well used rifle and I figured I could build a shooter just as well from that so I sold the beautiful one for like $650. I still have the older used kit and the receiver. Not yet built. Though I did try and insert the ejector block. And pin. Not successfully. Some day I’ll get back to it. And my Austrian stg58 parts kit and Brazilian or Argentinian receiver (metric FAL). Lots of projects for “some day”.

 

[RhB Michael]

I built an StG.58 with a Mannlicher barrel on an Imbel receiver back about '01. The metal parts in the kit still had the original finish and I didn't touch it except to match the receiver paint. Brownell's came through with that. This was a very accurate rifle. I hung on to it for about 15 years before selling it on GB for my PTR91. I don't really miss it too much except for the fact I built it myself. I couldn't do that with an HK type rifle.

I really love my roller locked rifle more.

 

[chadbag]

The FAL is the AK of the free world. Luckily my parts kits aren’t anything too historical so I don’t feel bad putting modern parts on them to make a more modern usable rifle.

I have an H&K 91. But it needs one or two parts. Another thing to figure out and get going. I used to have a sear in a converted H&K SP89 to make an H&K MP5k but I eventually sold it. I had a lower for the H&K that was sear compatible but never tried it out.

 

[RhB Michael]

"Right arm of the free world" is the quote I had drilled into me at the FAL forum. "No Compromise" is also frequently heard at the HK forum.

 

[RhB Michael]

Never any problems in over 1500 rounds so far. I've since removed the scope and cheek riser and back to irons.

 

[Marlin39]

The FAL is the AK of the free world. Luckily my parts kits aren’t anything too historical so I don’t feel bad putting modern parts on them to make a more modern usable rifle.

I have an H&K 91. But it needs one or two parts. Another thing to figure out and get going. I used to have a sear in a converted H&K SP89 to make an H&K MP5k but I eventually sold it. I had a lower for the H&K that was sear compatible but never tried it out.

I think the Valmet is more of the free world AK.

 

[Marlin39]

Not mine

 

[Kusojiji]

That's a salt\carb bomb if I ever had one (when salt and carbs didn't matter!). Haven't had SOS since I was 19.

That's only two of the recommended food groups that it offers. You missed the fat and cholesterol. What it does not have is the last food group, which is alcohol. That would be considered a condiment, and normally offered at the same time that this is normally consumed...

 

[RhB Michael]

Beer is the fifth main food group in Bayern.

 

[chadbag]

"Right arm of the free world" is the quote I had drilled into me at the FAL forum. "No Compromise" is also frequently heard at the HK forum.

“No Compromise” is or at least was a long time H&K corporate slogan in their advertising.

My first handgun is an H&K.