Butter knife bolt handles and other old stuff

[BlueTrain]

In some old book about camping, there was a photo of a campfire with a rifle casually laying on a log nearby. This book was published in 1916 and at the time the whole point of a camping trip was to go hunting or fishing. Anyhow, this rifle was not the usual lever action that you usually see in old photos. It appeared to be a Mannlicher Shoenauer carbine. It had a "butter knife" bolt handle and an extended magazine. By butter knife bolt handle, I mean it was flat (and turned down) with no knob as you usually have on a bolt handle. Very attractive and very different. It also had a straight grip. There was no mention of the rifle in the text.

It may or may not have been a Mannlicher but it looked more like one than anything else I can think of. From what I have read, however, they were highly thought of and popular in certain circles while they were in production. There were a few other rifles or carbines that had unusual bolt handles, though the Lee Enfield cavalry carbine is the only one that comes to mind. Oh, yes, it was full stocked, also.

Does anyone else still make a rifle with an unusual bolt handle like that? I always like to have things other people don't have, probably like most of you.

Well, anyhow, the book also mentioned using sleeves to use subcaliber ammuntion. I know they area available but no one has ever admitted to either using or liking the idea. It also mentioned using another (pistol) cartridge directly in the chamber as a sub caliber load. I think the rifle was a .32-20 but the practice did not sound plausible. The other one was using a sleeve to use .38 revolver ammuntion (except .38 special) in a ".35 high power." The descriptions were a little vague for practical use. What was he talking about?

 

[Greg Bell]

Steyr was making butterknife bolts on their Scout's until everybody whined for a knob (I don't see the big deal, and mine has a knob, fyi). I think they still put them on everthing else.

 

[FirstFreedom]

Up through the 50s and 60s, sporterizing milsurps like the Mann.-Scho., using a butterknife handle was very much the rage. They are attractive, but a lot of people like the big knob too, for practical reasons (easier to cycle quickly). My 88 year old neighbor has a sporterized 1903 Greek M.S. which he made in the 50s, with a super-bull Douglas barrel in a Mashburn wildcat very similar to 6mm Remington, and the turned-down butterknife bolt handle, and an unfinished bois d'arc wood stock. He made the bolt handle *literally* out of a kitchen butter knife.

 

[BigG]

It was probably Mannlicher, but Schoenhauer was the revolving magazine so the rifle you saw in the pic was one of the older Mannlichers with the magazine that took the cartridges in clips. JMTC

I like the butterknife bolt handles, myself, too.

 

[Gryff]

Dead thread, but what the heck...

I actually have an Interarms Mark X in .243 that has the mannlicher stock, butterknife bolt handle, and set triggers. Received as a gift from my father in the early 1980s.

Nice rifle even though I never shoot it.

 

[sadsack]

Gryff: It may have been dead, but I'm glad you revived it. I'm in the process of building a mannlicher for myself and it has a butter knife handle. It's a 96 that has a 98 bolt fit to it. I work on it as I can, and its taken about 2 years so far.