That's interesting, Dogfish - I did not know about the Oberndorf 96's.

I re-chambered a 96 in good condition once, to 6.5x68. I didn't run the throttle at the top, but still got 3,100fps with 129gr. Hornadys. Got 2 snowshoe hares with one shot with it - that was fun. 120 and 140gr. Speers disintegrated 20 yards in front of the muzzle, but the 129's shot well, go figure.

The action would not extract a loaded cartridge from the chamber, had to pull the bolt a bit to expedite that, but it extracted and ejected fired cases just fine.