“A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.” 
– Eudora Welty

Instagram is for beginners. TFB’s Photo Of The Day is where you’ll find all the action. Today we have a conversion going on as Schrombo transforms an old and battered Karabiner 98k.

Here’s the story and background:

Sometimes I get what I can only describe as a kind of massive brain fart.

Sometimes those brain farts lead to very cool projects, sometimes all the brain farts produce is simply garbage.
With that preface meet the result of my latest brain fart – the vintage/tacticool Mauser Karabiner 98k.
It all started with one of my frequent trips to my local gunsmith. We were just shooting the breeze when I noticed an old and battered Karabiner 98k standing in a gun rack in the back.

The gunsmith noticed my shift of focus and declared that this was nothing worthwhile for me, he’d have to radically shorten it first  (he knows me so well).
One thing lead to another and when I checked the rifle and realized that it had been modified in the 1960s to shoot not 8x57IS but rather .308 Winchester, and since it therefore wasn’t anything of historic value, I bought it dirt cheap and started shopping for parts.
I wanted to build a rifle with my usual flair of vintage and tacticool. So the rear stock was cut off and replaced with a folding skeleton stock (and yes, it still folds) and an AR15 pistol grip. Then a picatinny rail was mounted to the receiver and finally I found a so called “Grabenmagazin” (trench magazine) that boosts the mag capacity from five rounds to twenty.
I must admit that I immediately thought “Steampunk” when I first had a look at the finished rifle. It has more of a retro-tactical than a retro-futuristic look, but still.

If this was of interest, you should check out his “La Coruña” Fusil Reformado – FR8“.

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The pictures are from Germany and Schrombo, used with permission. Please check his Instagram or Facebook out.