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AFAIK the Steyr factory did not sell barreled actions or actions only to other gunmakers. But as the M92, 93, 95 Romanian/Dutch/Portuguese military rifles were made only for export anyhow, they sold complete military rifles to anyone wanting them. As St.George Littledale once wrote to Denis Lyell: "In 1895 Sir Edmund Loder gave me a Mannlicher rifle, bayonet and all complete on the eve of starting for Tibet. Had only time to have sighting altered. On my protesting that I had a room full of rifles and did not want any more, all he said was try the Mannlicher, and like Lily Langtry and the soap, I have used no other since." (quote from Truesdell, The Rifle) The British imported the complete military rifles and sporterized them to varying degrees. Here are the Mannlicher ads from the 1910-11 Jeffery's catalog. As you see, the cheaper grades No. 4,5,6 retained the shortened military straight gripped stocks, with "civilian" sights and maybe checkering added, while the higher grades No.1, 2, 3 were restocked with pistol grip stocks. I know an "Army & Navy" M95 Mannlicher with such a sporterized and checkered military stock, still showing the plugged cleaning rod hole at the foreend tip.

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thanks kuduae for telling this story
to my knowledge Steyr was making 10000 M 92 and romania get only 5000 for a military test which led to the development of the Mannlicher M 93. until 1995 when the netherlands adopt the mannlicher M 92 as the model M 95 there was no need for Steyr to make another lot of this rifles and they had enough work to make the M 93 for romania.
does this means every british mannlicher was one of this 5000 not bought by romania? when the netherland order the M 95 Steyr had probably also no rifles for sale because to fullfil the order was more important than selling a sporter.
a problem for me is the so called "production overrun" by steyr. it was not common that a firm does making more than the order they had, it cost them a lot of money.
facts ,imho ,are: a big firm like steyr dont make a rifle for selling them as sporters, at least not in this time when every small bore bolt action was needed as a army rifle. they were busy more than enough to work for the big customers.
question is what had happen if Steyr dont had this 5000 rifles for sale. the sportsman's had probably to wait 5 years more when the Mauser 98 was making the the M 88 obsolete and surplus.
when was the lee enfield rifle first time available as a sporting rifle?

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Norwegian hunter misses moose, shoots man on toilet
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