Bureaucracy sounds about right - I once waited almost a year for the Canadian firearms program to de-register my Chamelot-Delvigne that someone called a .45 Colt... ugh.
Got some good stuff from the postman today! It's a very WW1 sort of week in the guntorium...
First, I got a very nice Italian Carcano M91 Fucile, made at Terni in 1918, to replace my very not nice 1897 M91. This one is in really good shape, all matching and isn't missing the cleaning rod. Great example of a WW1 Italian rifle - too bad it was made too late to see much of the war, and it cost 3 times as much as the other one, but the other one was so rough I only ever bought it as a place holder. I still think the Carcano is a really under-rated rifle, they're not very prettily finished and the action isn't smooth, but they shoot surprisingly accurately with the gain-twist rifling and are really very practical battle rifles.
I also got a very nice 1916-dated German S98/05 "butcher" bayonet to go on my Gewehr 98. This is a very impressive, very heavy 15" blade to mount on the end of a 50" rifle. These were called "butcher" bayonets because the very broad blade resembled a butcher's knife. These were also made with a saw-toothed back for issue to engineers and machine gun troops for cutting brush, however most of these were either thrown away or had the teeth ground off because they inflicted horrific wounds and the Allies started summarily executing anyone caught carrying one!
