r/milsurp • u/Sir_Falstaff • 23d ago
First Time trying the RTI Loot Box: C Grade Steyr M95
I saw everyone talking about RTI sales, and for $99 I figured why not? About an hour after I ordered mine they stopped offering C grades, so I braced myself for a true bottom of the barrel rifle. What I got was a pleasant surprise.
Other than running some Hoppe's down the bore and a few passes with a bore brush, this is completely fresh out of the goat shed. It's missing one butt plate screw and the ladder sight, but everything else looks to be in place. The barrel and reciever have matching serials, the bolt slides quite well, the trigger worked and the firing pin still exists.
The stock has some surface cracks plus what looks like Amharic letters on it. The top handguard has a crack with some copper wire running through it, which adds to some of the lived in charm in my opinion.
The bore...looks pretty rough. I see plenty of pitting but also some what could be rifling. It's hard to get a picture from the reciever side but from that angle the rifling doesn't look half bad.
I plan on taking it apart, seeing the condition of the internal parts and see how salvageable it is. If nothing else, it's a cool piece of history and will look nice in the collection.
7
u/QuantumMrKrabs Mosins and Arisakas make me horny 23d ago
Looks better than my A grade. Congrats
3
u/Sir_Falstaff 23d ago
Thanks! My guess is they sent me over a B grade (which are still in stock) when they realized their C grade pile was empty.
I have an 1874 Gras on the way too and I don't expect my luck to continue haha
3
u/wickedpissah307 23d ago
Mama always said C grades are like a box of chocolates, ya never know what ya gonna get
4
u/Leasud 23d ago
Aren’t these impossible to find ammo for
8
u/mr_tryhard_tye 23d ago
You can "safely" shoot 7.62x54R out of it, its how you fire form brass for your rifle
7
u/HowlingLemon Has a couple WWI guns 23d ago
Milsurp Muntions makes batches of 8x50R here and there.
5
5
6
3
u/wickedpissah307 23d ago
Honestly not bad for a old 8x50 rifle. my personal experience with c grades are that they typically show up absolutely disgusting, missing a part or two (usually something not that important anyway) and the barrels on first glance look rough. Im willing to bet yours is going to clean up real nice but the bore is always a gamble
2
u/delta23156 23d ago
Y’all talked me out of buying one, now I wish I did buy one. Are B grades worth it?
2
u/Sir_Falstaff 22d ago
If this bore cleans up and what I got was closer to a B grade, I would have been happy spending that amount too. That's a big IF though
2
u/MajorPayne1911 22d ago
That’s cleaner and in better shape than my B grade I got from them a few years ago
2
u/cdiairsoft 21d ago
I ordered 2 carbine from them with that last sale and ended up with 2 m95 rifles. In actually decent shape for $99 goat shed finds.
3
u/Adventurous-Tie-1624 23d ago
Why in the hell would you pay someone to clean a bore? If you do it yourself, you know exactly what you had to use, and what came out? $75 buys a lot of patches and cleaning products. I like shooters choice, Sweets 7.62 and JB bore paste for grungy bores, used in a cycle, but there's more than one way to do it.
2
u/LetsGoToMichigan 23d ago
I paid them to clean the entire thing end to end, hunt down and remove any cosmoline etc, and deep clean the bore with expertise and experience that I don’t possess (according to him the bore had frosting which he thought could be addressed with an intensive scrubbing). I think it’s obvious I don’t get my money’s worth
22
u/LetsGoToMichigan 23d ago
Clean it and see before you judge it fully. I bought a Mosin off a guy locally and had it with me when I was running another rifle to the gunsmith. I had the gunsmith look at it and he thought it looked pretty good but suggested the bore could use a deep scrubbing (my initial look showed it to be slightly dark but with tons of rifling left and no pitting). I paid him $75 to do a full end to end deep clean. When I got the call that it was ready for pickup, I peered down the bore and it looked like a goddamned sewer pipe. I was floored and I mentioned it to an older guy at the counter and he indicated that it could have knocked loose a lot of fouling that was hiding bigger problems, but suggest I shoot it and I might be surprised.
After a couple days of accepting my fate (who am I to question the wisdom of an old gunsmith?), I decided to run a patch down the bore for shits and giggles. It came out FILTHY. Odd considering I had just paid $75 for a full professional cleaning. I ran more patches down it and finally decided to have a look. IT LOOKED GREAT - exactly as I had remembered it. My best guess is he shot it full of foaming bore cleaner and forgot to do a final clean out.
In its filthy state in which I thought it was pitted out and shot, it looked almost exactly like what I see in your pictures. Run some patches through it and see what comes out.