Ian forgot one accessory that came with the rifle: the free eyebrow scar from getting “kissed” by that scope when you touch off a 8mm 220gr hunting round.
And an eyepatch. For, you know - seeing in the dark. Wear the eyepatch all day, pretend you're a pirate by day, your eye stays adjusted to the dark, and then you take it off at night and presto, you're ready for some night fire drills and covert ops. So the manual says, anyway... Not included with the standard kit, must be purchased separately!
With a machine gun barrel installed, it's practically impossible to wear out the barrel of a hunting rifle, in a normal human life span. So it also has practical value.
@@sorenlilienthal1368 yep and they are usually extremely well made, LS26 ones turn out to be good shooters too. I have one pistol with a barrel turned from M/31 SMG blank
Looks like it was made by "Bubba" on an of day. The woodwork is amatuerish, and you'd be lucky to get a chin weld let alone a cheek one with the scope mounted at that height..
I have a stock on a sporterized 03A3 that I want to checker. I fear it might end up looking like this. I traded for the rifle not realizing that it was a nightmare gun. I wanted to put it back original but it was too far gone. So I reworked everything on it and im right proud of it. But the stock is slick as hell. But this gun is really what i fear i would end up with.
@@martinswiney2192the stippling stamps aren’t terrible, with a little practice they can be made to do decent work. But, the best option is hand checkering, IMO. It’s not the easiest thing to master, but also not the hardest. Practice on some softwood, pine for example, if you can make that look good, any hardwood will come out better. Walnut in a stout thickness, 8/4 for example, is pretty readily available in most parts of the US and is fantastic to practice on. That, and wood turning, are my zen spaces, once you get started just zone out and let it flow.
@@c1ph3rpunk im a machinist and do great with metal. Woodworking is tricky for me. Appreciate the advice. One thing I did learn on this stock. No polyurethane. Nope. Stain to a shade I like and linseed oil. I think I refinished the stock 5 times before I was satisfied. Glass bedded the action. Free floated the barrel. Raised the dents with steam iron and sanded em out. Was broken hearted that someone had drilled the receiver for scope mount and drilled thru the 0 in 03A3. Its a 1943 Remington. Even worse they had a B Square see thru scope mount and a 4x K Mart brand scope. Of three screws on the mount only one was tight. I made a sleeve to cover where the front sight should have been so the barrel has a banded look. You cant even tell it. Polished the action and had it blued. That turned out beautiful, like a Colt deep dark blue. Ended up putting a scope on it with the highest mounts I could find and the bolt handle barely clears the eyepiece of the scope. But I got it done. All that and the bore is +.002 so its not even accurate. 😂
I thought the work on the stock had a human, artisan look to it and rather liked it. Sometimes, if something is too 'good', it can start to become a bit sterile and synthetic and might as well be moulded plastic or CNC machined.
I bought a mauser around 1980 from a local sports shop that had a mannlicher stock, double triggers and quick release stock mounts, think I paid around $200, was in beautiful condition. Action was smooth as glass. Never seen another like it.
It looks nice. The MG34 barrel is very cool. The furniture looks like the final sanding was done with 80 grit and then dipped into a vat of lacquer and left to drip dry.
@@pedestrianrights1257 Since Ian said that the MG34 was still in Romanian inventory until just before they started making the rifles, and machinegun barrels are consumables, they were likely made after WWII.
@@pedestrianrights1257 1:22 He very clearly states that the Romanian Patriotic Guard still had the MG34 in inventory into the '90s, and that Cugir was responsible for maintaining and overhauling them.
Ian has blessed my Friday with another certified Forgotten Weapons classic. This video is proof that you don't need to be a good woodworker to be a gunsmith LOL
The clearcoat on that stock was absolutely the wrong direction for them to go in; I think it would have looked a lot cleaner if they'd just went with a normal gun wax finish,
This is like the rifle incarnation of my 1991-made Kiev-60 medium format camera, and the most bubba looking presentation gun ever! That glossy varnish hurts the eye, and the scope looks like it would be even worse to at least one of your eyes at the first shot!
My only question is: What horrors lurk in the Romanian forrests that require 8mm Mauser to reliably take down. I mean, I like the history, the concept of making it from what was available, and even the look (they they were at least aiming for), but I consider this "a shoulder cannon".
I love the transition in Ian's pronounciation, from Koo-geer some years ago, to the present day kud͡ʒir 😅. Nice job! Also, chuffed to bits seeing him finaly visiting the NMM in Bucharest.
I have a Mauser 98 that looks very similar to this Cugir - double triggers; claw mounted scope; silver oak leaf enlayed in rear of stock; 8mm. Father-in-law was in Germany after wwII for around 14 years in Army counter intelligence.
The rest of the following videos will be various other firearms each containing 1 part of an MG34, so if you collect them all you have one complete MG34. It's like summoning Exodia.
Sure, it's an interesting rifle but that finish is atrocious - and they gave this to the prime minister?! Can you imagine what kind of crappy rifle they would sell to normal people 😅
The stock is something to behold, not mentioning the 1950s tech on a rifle made in the 90s. But the stock really triggers me something hard. They took a old 98k stock, sporterized it, made a attempt on checkering (not even 16 lines checkering) and stippled it with a standing drill and not to forget glaced it. Well, at least they tried to make a "Suhler Einhakmontage" for the 4x scope of dubious quality.
The manual is what attracts me the most on this weapon. The workmanship is highly questionable... Romania was in an economical debacle in the nineties, though. Thank you for sharing! 👍
Its surprising that they could put a workforce together given the economic & social conditions of the time. Give some credit for keeping the business going. FWnever disappoints A super interesting guided tour.
My guess is they did OK. It's hard to make a really bad Mauser rifle. That hunters bought them say they weren't awful, but the triggers probably wasn't a all that good. If the trigger action shown was that clunky, then a more standard trigger actions probably weren't any better.
@@blahorgaslisk7763 I suppose a competent locksmith or even a general gunsmith could rework the trigger ?? Is that a possibility ? This thing looks good to kill a bear. South China Morning Post reports today on a growing Bear attack problem in Japan. The hunters need police permission to fire a shot (USA !! What did you do to that country after WW2) ... but the shooting doesn't work anyway as the Japs are using scatterguns. Maybe they need to talk to the Romanians 😊.
@@blahorgaslisk7763 The set trigger was heavy, the shooting trigger was light (but awkward). On Mausers without a set trigger it cocks on reload, so I would imagine they would have a medium but crisp trigger pill like other Mauser. The Mauser format is almost hard to screw up. And with that klonker of a barrel 8mm Mauser might only kick like a mule (ass opposed to kicking like a zebra with 50 meters of run-up as sporterised Mausers with pencil barrels do).
This thing actually has potential to be the coolest hunting rifle ever. If only it could have a takedown barrel, slightly better stock and pivot mount instead of claw mount. And some better optics like S&B.
@@sorenlilienthal1368 claw mounts are classic, but they're kinda hard to install and there's a lot of room for gunsmith's error. That's why I proposed a pivot mount instead. Or a siderail mount like Apel or Griffin and Howe.
@@SamuraiAkechi I know, that claw mounts require a lot of hand fitting and are therefore relatively expensive and outdated. An EAW pivot mount would be a more economic approach, for sure.
I've see a Aot of people Mouthing off about the Quality of the stock as this one is done, so I will say if it was given to me I would Smile REALLY REAL BIG and say Thank You Very Very Much!!! 🤠👍
"Okay Mr Prime Minister, welcome to the new job, here's your complementary gun." "Wait what" Meanwhile Keir Starmer gets handed a cat and directions to go speak to the King.
The first gun I ever bought was a Romanian WASR-10, which Century Arms totally fucked up the conversion from single-stack to double-stack, making loading a magazine into the rifle a slow, careful process because if I just loaded it like a regular AK the magazine would jam in at a weird angle, rounds would slam into the lower receiver instead of the chamber, and then it would take a hammer and an act of God to remove the magazine so I could reinsert it more carefully so it would actually feed rounds into the chamber. Which I blame Century for, not Cugir. Besides a Raven .25 ACP pistol I got for free, it's the only gun I've ever sold.
I went to the museum in Belgrade. First thing I saw was the Marshall his personal hunting rifle: a Zastava in stutzen execution, exactly as I have one in my vault. And big surprise as a Belgian: one of the gifted hunting rifles was a FN .
@@woutergijs5246 I've got a pdf file, an album from the Tito collection exhibition. He had lots of stuff there: Cosmi semi-auto, soviet shotguns, some Ferlach guns, one Indian rifle and so on. But the most interesting would be Interarms Mark X with suppressor and ART scope (a gift from US, rather funny one, considering that Mark X is actually Zastava LK M70) and a sporterised Mosin built in Hungary on the request of Hungarian leader Janos Kadar - it's a mix of russian design and german style of craftsmanship, with double set trigger, GDR Zeiss (I suppose) scope and so on
The work done on the rifle mechanism looks great with the exception on that double trigger. But the woodwork on the stock is just awful! It reminds me of those cheap "fancy" walking canes I see in small discount stores. It would have been better if they kept it in a semi-military style.
@@philhawley1219 My guess, since it seems to be the most common wood for cheap gunstocks in Europe, is beech. Heavy, but inexpensive and very tough, and probably what they used for their military rifles.
@@philhawley1219 It's the lacquer and the carve job that makes it look bad. If this had been made by a competent woodworker, and it had been finished with mat wax, the same piece of wood would have looked stellar.
Most of the European countries allows firearms ownership. But most either bans or make it a very lengthy process to get pistols or revolvers. I can't think of a country off-hand where hunting rifles and shotguns are prohibited.
I like the metalwork. The wood, shiny finish, and gouging/stippling/3 lpi checkering . . . not so much. But if it is accurate then much would be forgiven.
All the random little german bits and bobs that pop up any time Ian discusses an eastern/central european firearm that's not actually Russian gives the distinct impression that they were quite reluctant to use soviet parts unless they absolutely had to.
It wasn't reluctance, but a point of pride to not be a simple copypasta of whatever soviet system was en vogue at the time. You can see this play out all across the Warsaw Pact satellite states, with Yugoslavia being an extreme example, fully embracing the Mauser legacy whenever possible.
@@spellsecurity And they also tended to have used German calibres and arms pre-WWII and it’s also worth noting just how massive quantities of WWII inventory these countries tended to have in stock. Why buy new things off Moscow (and thus incur at least some level of foreign debt), if you can refurbish your own that’s “good enough”? They also seem to have followed the Soviet/Russian pattern of rarely clearing out and selling/destroying their old inventory, but simply stockpiling it “just in case” (as seen currently in the massive Russian “reactivation” of old Soviet gear for their war in Ukraine).
Come to think of it, a lot of the former Warsaw Pact, now NATO countries still had quite a lot of old Soviet style gear in inventory when Russia invaded Ukraine, which is essentially what constituted the first round of massive, immediate, military aid for Ukraine.
The Romanian communist leadership criticized the USSR for the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 so they were cut off from most military developments that followed. That's why Romania had to come up with the PSL and why we are using local variants of the T 55 tanks instead of the later soviet models.
"Dip it in the bucket. Count to 10. Pull it up. Let it drip for 5 minutes over the bucket before hanging it on the rack. If the lacquer gets so thick it drips for more than 5 minutes give it a squirt of thinner... any questions?"
Out of curiosity for Romanians viewers,what does "Dragana" means in Romanian(if it has any meaning). In Serbian it's a female name,can be translated as "her dear"
The scope is all sorts of weird. Oddball choice to have the forward scope ring around the bell of the objective assembly, and it's only made worse by the poorly set German no.1 reticle.
It is interesting but I can't imagine many people buying this in 1992. By this time, you could buy something relatively inexpensive and much more modern without the scope being mounted 40 miles in the air, no steps in the barrel, a hinged magazine floor plate and a modern stock design and much better workmanship & finish.
@@timofiy98 Good point if we are talking about them selling the rifle in Romania. However, if they were trying to sell it in the US in 92 it would have been a very difficult rifle to sell
That Cugir built these in the early 90s I don't find that surprising, what is hilarious is that this was offered to the prime minister in 2006. Those two probably laughed it up in private, or at least one of them did.
Ian forgot one accessory that came with the rifle: the free eyebrow scar from getting “kissed” by that scope when you touch off a 8mm 220gr hunting round.
And an eyepatch. For, you know - seeing in the dark. Wear the eyepatch all day, pretend you're a pirate by day, your eye stays adjusted to the dark, and then you take it off at night and presto, you're ready for some night fire drills and covert ops. So the manual says, anyway...
Not included with the standard kit, must be purchased separately!
The technical manual with the explosion drawings is very nice.
Yeah and the handwritten notes look so neat and tidy... great collectible
Dang that’s cool.
“ my rifle has a MG 34 barrel” Just to be able to say that to your buddies is a real point of pride.
Lots of LS26 barreled hunting rifles in Finland. Someone apparently ordered "ebough" barrels for those
I don't know if I would use "pride" there, 100% a flex though
With a machine gun barrel installed, it's practically impossible to wear out the barrel of a hunting rifle, in a normal human life span. So it also has practical value.
@@sorenlilienthal1368 yep and they are usually extremely well made, LS26 ones turn out to be good shooters too. I have one pistol with a barrel turned from M/31 SMG blank
@@petrimakela5978are you homosexual
I think I like the box more than the rifle to be honest.
Looks like it was made by "Bubba" on an of day. The woodwork is amatuerish, and you'd be lucky to get a chin weld let alone a cheek one with the scope mounted at that height..
@@roum22there's no way that the childish crosshatch pattern was from the factory. The stippling sure but I want to see another example.
Everything made by Cugir looks like it was made by a blind, drunk farmer.
@@roum22 hey, if it's good enough for AKs, it's good enough for Mausers, right?
@@donwyoming1936 lmao.
Hold my beer and hand me the chain saw, I is gonna make me a gunstock.
I have a stock on a sporterized 03A3 that I want to checker. I fear it might end up looking like this. I traded for the rifle not realizing that it was a nightmare gun. I wanted to put it back original but it was too far gone. So I reworked everything on it and im right proud of it. But the stock is slick as hell. But this gun is really what i fear i would end up with.
@@martinswiney2192the stippling stamps aren’t terrible, with a little practice they can be made to do decent work. But, the best option is hand checkering, IMO. It’s not the easiest thing to master, but also not the hardest. Practice on some softwood, pine for example, if you can make that look good, any hardwood will come out better. Walnut in a stout thickness, 8/4 for example, is pretty readily available in most parts of the US and is fantastic to practice on.
That, and wood turning, are my zen spaces, once you get started just zone out and let it flow.
@@c1ph3rpunk im a machinist and do great with metal. Woodworking is tricky for me. Appreciate the advice. One thing I did learn on this stock. No polyurethane. Nope. Stain to a shade I like and linseed oil. I think I refinished the stock 5 times before I was satisfied. Glass bedded the action. Free floated the barrel. Raised the dents with steam iron and sanded em out. Was broken hearted that someone had drilled the receiver for scope mount and drilled thru the 0 in 03A3. Its a 1943 Remington. Even worse they had a B Square see thru scope mount and a 4x K Mart brand scope. Of three screws on the mount only one was tight. I made a sleeve to cover where the front sight should have been so the barrel has a banded look. You cant even tell it. Polished the action and had it blued. That turned out beautiful, like a Colt deep dark blue. Ended up putting a scope on it with the highest mounts I could find and the bolt handle barely clears the eyepiece of the scope. But I got it done. All that and the bore is +.002 so its not even accurate. 😂
HA HA HA! Perfect reply!!!😊
That's probably the reply my stock instructor would have said when I was in gunsmithing school had he seen this rifle.
I thought the work on the stock had a human, artisan look to it and rather liked it. Sometimes, if something is too 'good', it can start to become a bit sterile and synthetic and might as well be moulded plastic or CNC machined.
I bought a mauser around 1980 from a local sports shop that had a mannlicher stock, double triggers and quick release stock mounts, think I paid around $200, was in beautiful condition. Action was smooth as glass. Never seen another like it.
The 2LPI checkering is exquisite 😁
It looks nice. The MG34 barrel is very cool. The furniture looks like the final sanding was done with 80 grit and then dipped into a vat of lacquer and left to drip dry.
Pretty much
@@pedestrianrights1257 well, since you put it that way..... yeah, even cooler!
@@pedestrianrights1257 Since Ian said that the MG34 was still in Romanian inventory until just before they started making the rifles, and machinegun barrels are consumables, they were likely made after WWII.
@@pedestrianrights1257 1:22 He very clearly states that the Romanian Patriotic Guard still had the MG34 in inventory into the '90s, and that Cugir was responsible for maintaining and overhauling them.
@@pedestrianrights1257sry didn't read all that
Even though this firearm in not the best workmanship I appreciate the hunting background.
Ian has blessed my Friday with another certified Forgotten Weapons classic. This video is proof that you don't need to be a good woodworker to be a gunsmith LOL
The clearcoat on that stock was absolutely the wrong direction for them to go in; I think it would have looked a lot cleaner if they'd just went with a normal gun wax finish,
Looks like it was sprayed on by a drunk 6th grader
@@donwyoming1936 It's just so... thick. It's like they went as heavy as they possibly could with like 10 coats of clear coat.
They probably just used whatever they finished the stocks of their military rifles with, even on this 'deluxe' version.
The world's first Soviet cosmolene based gun varnish
@@jic1I don't think they were using such a glossy finish on their military arms.
This is like the rifle incarnation of my 1991-made Kiev-60 medium format camera, and the most bubba looking presentation gun ever! That glossy varnish hurts the eye, and the scope looks like it would be even worse to at least one of your eyes at the first shot!
This rifle seems to be quite the nice mix of gun parts to make a brand new one for hunters, thanks for showing it to us Ian.
My only question is: What horrors lurk in the Romanian forrests that require 8mm Mauser to reliably take down. I mean, I like the history, the concept of making it from what was available, and even the look (they they were at least aiming for), but I consider this "a shoulder cannon".
There's no accounting for taste, I like this gun for its weirdness.
I love the transition in Ian's pronounciation, from Koo-geer some years ago, to the present day kud͡ʒir 😅. Nice job!
Also, chuffed to bits seeing him finaly visiting the NMM in Bucharest.
I have a Mauser 98 that looks very similar to this Cugir - double triggers; claw mounted scope; silver oak leaf enlayed in rear of stock; 8mm. Father-in-law was in Germany after wwII for around 14 years in Army counter intelligence.
…yeah, but I would bet you the level of craftsmanship is magnitudes of degrees better than the rifle in the video.
How does it shoot tho? Thst's really all that matters.
@@molochi Is it though?
ATF would classify this as a "bolt action machinegun" :)
nice
😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤪
The rest of the following videos will be various other firearms each containing 1 part of an MG34, so if you collect them all you have one complete MG34. It's like summoning Exodia.
I always get excited when i see a thumbnail with my country's flag in it, specially when its about historical stuff. Great video.
Sure, it's an interesting rifle but that finish is atrocious - and they gave this to the prime minister?!
Can you imagine what kind of crappy rifle they would sell to normal people 😅
Exactly. My Romanian M44 Mosin has a nicer finish…
That is interesting. Much like telling your friend...she has a really nice personality.
That backwards Eotech is back! My Tism is acting up
its so you can pretend you are taking farther away shots!
I think it's a sightmark lol which is somehow worse.
That's a sightmark, it supposed to be that way
@@Stoopidmunky Below it is also a backwards Eotech.
This looks oddly reminiscent of last-ditch Volksgewehrs
I wasn't even born until 1998, but it's still crazy to see a rifle this recent with that style of scope mount.
A true forgotten weapon. Anything with repurposed MG34 barrel is cool.
The stock is something to behold, not mentioning the 1950s tech on a rifle made in the 90s. But the stock really triggers me something hard. They took a old 98k stock, sporterized it, made a attempt on checkering (not even 16 lines checkering) and stippled it with a standing drill and not to forget glaced it. Well, at least they tried to make a "Suhler Einhakmontage" for the 4x scope of dubious quality.
Einhaken oder Einhacken, das ist die Frage. ( Aus Hamlet, Theaterstück des britischen Nationaldichters Shakespeare)
@@brittakriep2938 Touche, da hat sich doch glatt, ein Rechtschreibfehler eingeschlichen.
@@rauchgranate5648 : Sie haben mir meinen Scherz hoffentlich nicht übelgenommen. So etwas kann vorkommen.
@@brittakriep2938 Aber keines wegs.
I think that was probably a newly manufactured stock, they just didn't do a great job.
Magnificent.
The manual is what attracts me the most on this weapon.
The workmanship is highly questionable...
Romania was in an economical debacle in the nineties, though.
Thank you for sharing! 👍
Talk about that awesome Mauser from “Public Enemy”!!!
Good God...the height of the detachable claw lock scope mounts would be high enough to use as a chin rest...
Im pretty sure I scratched higher detailed "checkering" into exam desks as a child armed with nothing more than a compass
Pretty! I like Mausers
Man that is a beautiful rifle
Only to Bubba!
That is one swaggy case
To think that this rifle was made the same year I was born, is mind-blowing. I have been far too long on this planet.
"Cu respect și prietenie" translates to "with respect and friendship" (friendship equates to collaboration, in this context - I would say)
Props to Cugir was doing the best they could with what they had, during a very difficult time. Is there any word on how the rifles performed?
Its surprising that they could put a workforce together given the economic & social conditions of the time. Give some credit for keeping the business going.
FWnever disappoints
A super interesting guided tour.
Gotta get Henry over there to test it. heh.
My guess is they did OK. It's hard to make a really bad Mauser rifle. That hunters bought them say they weren't awful, but the triggers probably wasn't a all that good. If the trigger action shown was that clunky, then a more standard trigger actions probably weren't any better.
@@blahorgaslisk7763 I suppose a competent locksmith or even a general gunsmith could rework the trigger ?? Is that a possibility ?
This thing looks good to kill a bear. South China Morning Post reports today on a growing Bear attack problem in Japan. The hunters need police permission to fire a shot (USA !! What did you do to that country after WW2) ... but the shooting doesn't work anyway as the Japs are using scatterguns.
Maybe they need to talk to the Romanians 😊.
@@blahorgaslisk7763 The set trigger was heavy, the shooting trigger was light (but awkward). On Mausers without a set trigger it cocks on reload, so I would imagine they would have a medium but crisp trigger pill like other Mauser. The Mauser format is almost hard to screw up. And with that klonker of a barrel 8mm Mauser might only kick like a mule (ass opposed to kicking like a zebra with 50 meters of run-up as sporterised Mausers with pencil barrels do).
This thing actually has potential to be the coolest hunting rifle ever. If only it could have a takedown barrel, slightly better stock and pivot mount instead of claw mount. And some better optics like S&B.
So if it was a completely different rifle other than the action and the source of the barrel blank, then?
@@jic1 right.
They should at least have used one of their premium domestic IOR riflescopes. The claw mounts are classics, though a bit outdated.
@@sorenlilienthal1368 claw mounts are classic, but they're kinda hard to install and there's a lot of room for gunsmith's error.
That's why I proposed a pivot mount instead. Or a siderail mount like Apel or Griffin and Howe.
@@SamuraiAkechi I know, that claw mounts require a lot of hand fitting and are therefore relatively expensive and outdated. An EAW pivot mount would be a more economic approach, for sure.
That's basically the definition of "weird flex".
Hello, thank you for the video and information. Sincerely, Antonio Constantin
Great! Another Romanian firearm I need…
That's pretty cool Bolt action rifle
I've see a Aot of people Mouthing off about the Quality of the stock as this one is done, so I will say if it was given to me I would Smile REALLY REAL BIG and say Thank You Very Very Much!!! 🤠👍
“sporty Cugir” has a different meaning these days… great video though! Beautiful Plumage!
"Okay Mr Prime Minister, welcome to the new job, here's your complementary gun."
"Wait what"
Meanwhile Keir Starmer gets handed a cat and directions to go speak to the King.
The first gun I ever bought was a Romanian WASR-10, which Century Arms totally fucked up the conversion from single-stack to double-stack, making loading a magazine into the rifle a slow, careful process because if I just loaded it like a regular AK the magazine would jam in at a weird angle, rounds would slam into the lower receiver instead of the chamber, and then it would take a hammer and an act of God to remove the magazine so I could reinsert it more carefully so it would actually feed rounds into the chamber. Which I blame Century for, not Cugir. Besides a Raven .25 ACP pistol I got for free, it's the only gun I've ever sold.
Ian, you have to go to Serbia and review some of the rifles from Tito's collection. He had some masterpieces out there
I went to the museum in Belgrade. First thing I saw was the Marshall his personal hunting rifle: a Zastava in stutzen execution, exactly as I have one in my vault. And big surprise as a Belgian: one of the gifted hunting rifles was a FN .
@@woutergijs5246 I've got a pdf file, an album from the Tito collection exhibition. He had lots of stuff there: Cosmi semi-auto, soviet shotguns, some Ferlach guns, one Indian rifle and so on. But the most interesting would be Interarms Mark X with suppressor and ART scope (a gift from US, rather funny one, considering that Mark X is actually Zastava LK M70) and a sporterised Mosin built in Hungary on the request of Hungarian leader Janos Kadar - it's a mix of russian design and german style of craftsmanship, with double set trigger, GDR Zeiss (I suppose) scope and so on
Little OT Info for those who do not know : Tito was a test driver for Ferdinand Porsche at Austro Daimler before WW I - so a genuine petrol head
@@aasphaltmueller5178and a womanizer, but that is a totally different vlogger department 😅
@@aasphaltmueller5178 wow. And I thought that the only things they had in common with Brezhnev were passion for hunting and WWII service
Not bad for an industry just getting on it's feet.
the glass cases look cool
EOtech in the background distubs me more than I am willing to admit.
Lmao, I hadn't even noticed that. I was too distracted by the bridged Sightmark on the rifle above it. On HKs no less.
Today I learned I share the same birthday as a Romanian PM
Then a Happy Birthday to both of you. 🎉
Interesting content, thanks.
The scope mounts are the best part, they should just sell those. I'd buy a set
Mg34 barrels can hold up quite good speed and energy ,in the .30 cal a .30-338 Win was popular to make over here .,
Makes me appreciate tenite.
Dang, if that is the presentation grade version is the stock on the standard grade just some pallet slats nailed together?
The background HK with a Sightmark and backwards Eotech are cracking me up.
Ian did they let shoot a video at the military museum in Bucharest? I was there and it is amazing! Please please please a video please!
nice
Looks like it was made with an angle-grinder and a pocketknife. 😆
^How are the gun laws in Romania now?
Awful
Restrictive
Is kind of interesting to see lower quality arms, when you get a story as to why.
The Swedish" Mauser" was good as a sniper rifle during the WWII. That one is too fancy. Too shiny.
Ian releases a video about a Model 92 romanian Mauser. Me thinking: Cool, something Mauser from Romania even before the Gewehr 98 🤣🤣🤣
The work done on the rifle mechanism looks great with the exception on that double trigger. But the woodwork on the stock is just awful! It reminds me of those cheap "fancy" walking canes I see in small discount stores. It would have been better if they kept it in a semi-military style.
Not a huge fan of the colour of the wooden stock, but besides that- a very interesting weapon. Good find!
The stock is terrible. What kind of wood did they use? A beam from an old pigsty that fell down?
@@philhawley1219 My guess, since it seems to be the most common wood for cheap gunstocks in Europe, is beech. Heavy, but inexpensive and very tough, and probably what they used for their military rifles.
@@philhawley1219 It's the lacquer and the carve job that makes it look bad. If this had been made by a competent woodworker, and it had been finished with mat wax, the same piece of wood would have looked stellar.
Damn! Did they varnish that with a wallpaper brush?
Ian I was under the impression that firearms ownership was/is BANNED for private citizens there.
It's incredibly regulated, but people in the countryside have hunting rifles and shotguns fairly often
Most of the European countries allows firearms ownership. But most either bans or make it a very lengthy process to get pistols or revolvers. I can't think of a country off-hand where hunting rifles and shotguns are prohibited.
What a waste of an MG34…
Cool rifle! Nevermind the woodwork. How does it shoot?
That's a pretty crude looking rifle. It's a cool piece of Romanian history though
I like the metalwork. The wood, shiny finish, and gouging/stippling/3 lpi checkering . . . not so much. But if it is accurate then much would be forgiven.
are you gonna look on new CZ bren 3 that came out?
The Sightmark on the H&K 416A5 is going to make my heart stop...
Why are the Eotechs backwards?
All the random little german bits and bobs that pop up any time Ian discusses an eastern/central european firearm that's not actually Russian gives the distinct impression that they were quite reluctant to use soviet parts unless they absolutely had to.
It wasn't reluctance, but a point of pride to not be a simple copypasta of whatever soviet system was en vogue at the time. You can see this play out all across the Warsaw Pact satellite states, with Yugoslavia being an extreme example, fully embracing the Mauser legacy whenever possible.
@@spellsecurity And they also tended to have used German calibres and arms pre-WWII and it’s also worth noting just how massive quantities of WWII inventory these countries tended to have in stock. Why buy new things off Moscow (and thus incur at least some level of foreign debt), if you can refurbish your own that’s “good enough”?
They also seem to have followed the Soviet/Russian pattern of rarely clearing out and selling/destroying their old inventory, but simply stockpiling it “just in case” (as seen currently in the massive Russian “reactivation” of old Soviet gear for their war in Ukraine).
Come to think of it, a lot of the former Warsaw Pact, now NATO countries still had quite a lot of old Soviet style gear in inventory when Russia invaded Ukraine, which is essentially what constituted the first round of massive, immediate, military aid for Ukraine.
The Romanian communist leadership criticized the USSR for the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 so they were cut off from most military developments that followed. That's why Romania had to come up with the PSL and why we are using local variants of the T 55 tanks instead of the later soviet models.
Very strange scope mounting system. Scope looks kinda high. Also it seems more craftsmanship went into the box instead of the rifle.
By 2006 they weren't licking their pencils and reusing mail envelopes as post-it notes.
Sure is nice to watch some videos on youtube that aren't political or stressful lol. Thanks!
???? were any made for export???
Usually vids are with Ian McCullum talking about guns. This one was about gun being talked about by Ian...
The 4 coats of Ronseal polyurethane varnish on the woodwork don't help.
"Dip it in the bucket. Count to 10. Pull it up. Let it drip for 5 minutes over the bucket before hanging it on the rack. If the lacquer gets so thick it drips for more than 5 minutes give it a squirt of thinner... any questions?"
Hmm. I'll take my Cugir M44, thank you.
So, it's not a spare trigger?
I bet that book cost a thousand times more than the gun.
👍👍👍👍👍👍
I think that the bears in Romania felt on their fur that appearances of beauty do not matter at a real hunt in the Carpathian Mountains!
Hi Al
At least the wood is nice😊
Well. It is spiffier than my WASR 10 double stack.
Out of curiosity for Romanians viewers,what does "Dragana" means in Romanian(if it has any meaning). In Serbian it's a female name,can be translated as "her dear"
The female version of Dragan with no meaning to it just a name like the name Edward would feel to you.
Pardon the rifle because it was made from the hatchet.
The scope is all sorts of weird. Oddball choice to have the forward scope ring around the bell of the objective assembly, and it's only made worse by the poorly set German no.1 reticle.
Id rather have the mg34
Apparently, even Romanian rifles come in coffins?
Credeam că e pentru Bombonel ....dar nu e pt prostovănel.
It is interesting but I can't imagine many people buying this in 1992. By this time, you could buy something relatively inexpensive and much more modern without the scope being mounted 40 miles in the air, no steps in the barrel, a hinged magazine floor plate and a modern stock design and much better workmanship & finish.
you say that, but was it really the case in 1992 Romania?
@@timofiy98 Good point if we are talking about them selling the rifle in Romania.
However, if they were trying to sell it in the US in 92 it would have been a very difficult rifle to sell
That Cugir built these in the early 90s I don't find that surprising, what is hilarious is that this was offered to the prime minister in 2006. Those two probably laughed it up in private, or at least one of them did.
@@timofiy98 Well, obviously they didn't even sell well in Romania if they only made about 2500, and still had unsold rifles in the mid-2000s...
@@jic1 you are missing the point
Looks like the rear sight has been mounted back to front compared to other European made rifles.
I like to think some of Mark Serbu's distant Romanian relatives worked on stuff like this
At least the checkering and inlets are hand made, not mechanically pressed on.
That lacquering is awful as well, to be honest
Someone used a cold can of spray on varnish....on a cold winter day...outside.
I don't think that's lacquer, I think it's some kind of polyester resin varnish, probably whatever they used on their AKs.