Harken back, harken back to the advanced stages of the STEAM age, the Age of Mechanism.  (1890's to 1920's to be more specific)

You look at products produced in this period with electronic aged eyes, and are amazed at what your great grandfathers could actually build using steel and relatively simple machine tools.

They didn't have milling machines, they had rotary table grinders, lathes and shapers.  For measuring tools they had vernier calipers and twist spindle micrometers.   They couldn't machine tighter than a thousandth or so and they really couldn't measure more accurately than a half thousandth.

Yet some of the very very best gun design work was done during this same period of time.



Little bitty European woman's defense carbine ???



Momma's gun to protect the house with ????   Silly bayonet is almost as long as the barrel ....


I have a couple of Steyr 8x56r carbines that were built during this period, the ones I have were carbine models that were intended for horse cavalry soldiers.  

The little 6.5 pound rifles were intended to be pointed at a gallop by the left hand while reins were held in the right and the gun was cycled by jerking a knob straight back and forth with the reins hand for rapid fire while on horseback.   The Austrian/Hungarian Empire spec'd the round to be able to kill a man or a horse with only one shot.  

It was a horse cavalry dude's rifle all the way.    Many of the guns out there today were originally 30" barreled trench rifles that were cut down and rearsenaled into horse soldier carbines between WW1 and WWII.   The Nazi military issued the rifles to all their "behind the front lines" troops as a handy, easy carry weapon.

The cartridge is not a wimp, 200 grain round nose at 2,400 was the original load with the improved Nazi loading being 205 grain spitzer at 2,550 fps.   This is the same as a WWI era Mauser or the first 30-02's performance back before it got improved to the 30-06's 2,750 fps using a 150 grain bullet.  

Needless to say, the carbine does not get the full 30" barrel ballistics, at 19" the carbine does a lot less fps and has a higher kick and greatly increased muzzle blast.

Shooting full bore mil-surp ammo from the shoulder isn't pleasant, the gun is too powerful and too light for that to ever happen.    What is nice shooting and quite effective is a 250 grain lead slug at 1,750 fps -- which makes a very accurate round that could easily kill a deer (or a man).

Elmer Keith had a favorite rifle size, the .333 caliber which was in Elmer's eyes the smallest bore size that he could count on with elk and Grizzly Sized animals.   Elmer and his ilk liked Williams receiver sights instead of scopes and Elmer would shoot a lead slug in preference to an expensive jacketed bullet if he could get a mold for his gun.

Guess what bore size the old Steyr uses?   Yup, Elmer's favorite.   0.330" at 2,400 fps with a 250 grain slug puts it in the range of the older cartridges that Elmer liked to shoot.

Shooting my home cast gas checked lead slugs I am treading in the shoe prints of Elmer Keith and the Age of Mechanism guys.  

I find I like that, a lot.

I'm a sucker for military surplus rifles, have two 7.7 Arisakas, a sporterized Springfield and just bought a Mosin 90/31. Been reloading a cute little 100 grain cast bullet over 5-6 grains of fast burning pistol powder. Real fun load out to about 50 yds and works in all the 30 and 303 calibers. Sort of like shooting a .22 on steroids and only costs about five cents per round which beats the he11 out of .22 ammo now adays.
 Also enjoy bruising the shoulder with full jacketed loads at 100 yds. Just put a Weaver Buck Commander 3x12 50 mm scope on my Reminton BDL 700 in 30-06. Had to buy the scope, it was on clearence at Midway for under $85.00.
 What the heck, I'll admit it, I'm a gun nut all the way from desktop cannons and flintlocks to milsurplus rifles.