It's funny seeing a Mauser in .30-06.
I've known about Mausers for most of my life. One of the first rifles I ever shot was a Remington Model 798 in .243 Winchester, a funny Zastava barreled action dropped in a laminated stock. I've seen them in all sorts of video games like Call of Duty 1/2/World at War, Medal of Honor, Red Orchestra, RTCW, Battlefield 1942, Mortyr, Day of Defeat, and that one funky Dino D-Day game which featured them (mainly Kar98s) prominently. I've seen ones firing blanks at reenactments that I've gone to, I've seen some really expensive ones sold at shows that I've been to, and I've heard all about how pleasant they are from other people for years and years.
Two Mausers caught my eye on a visit to a local gun shop: A Czech vz24 with a zf41 scope for which the store wanted $799 next to a FN Mle 1950 priced at $550. I didn't want to spend that much cash for either of them, I was there to go buy myself a Ruger 10/22 anyways, so after a while of playing around with the rifles I put them back down and went on with my day.
I got talking about that trip to the shop with some buddies on Discord and one was very intent on me going back to take a second look at the Mausers after mentioning that I had $300 of cashback chilling on a credit card. She told me all I needed to know about telling if that zf41 was the real deal or just some reproduction, she gave me some pointers on checking the condition of the specific rifles, and she gave me a few tips on possibly haggling the price down a bit with the shop.
I went back to the shop five days after the trip where I initially saw the rifles and the pair were still there, just now marked slightly down! The vz24 was marked down to $650, the FN was marked down to $450. I asked to take a look at the vz24 and found out really quickly that the optic was a repro, I didn't have much interest after that. I then asked to take a look at the FN again. I noticed a few little issues, namely a small crack forming around the butt of the stock, and somehow I managed to talk $50 off the cost of the rifle. I thought about my finances for a second, I remembered that I had no real need for putting that $300 of cashback towards anyting in particular at the moment, and I bought the thing. Only $100 out of my pocket for a Mauser!
Quite the pretty rifle, eh? I love all the little markings on the receiver, it's neat how many stamps FN threw on the thing.
I really have no complaints with how this thing handles. I originally thought the action was a bit stiff but it turns out with actual ammo chambered the bolt is quite smooth, I guess it makes sense that the magazine follower isn't exactly what said bolt wants to ride over. The pull and return are quite light, the trigger is crisp, the sights form a nice picture, it's pretty comfortable to hold, and .30-06 is fun to shoot. I guess I could say "the recoil hurt a little" but that was more a me thing, not holding the metal butt plate tight into my shoulder made it kinda punch me which should have been entirely expected.
One thing that I'm uncertain on is what sort of ammo I can load. At the moment I'm strictly using M1 Garand-spec .30-06 because for what I understand that's the .30-06 that the rifle was based around, the stuff that the US Army could sell the Belgians for super cheap after WW2. I figure it's not worth using higher-power modern loads because I'd rather not possibly damage the gun. Maybe it can take them though? I dunno. I don't have much any intent on finding out.
Overall this is yet another "I'm very happy that I got it for the price I paid" and I hope to keep this particular rifle shooting far into the future.