Some recent additions to my collection

[Nyles]

Got one great acquisition this month - an FN 1924 Mauser made on contract for the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which became Yugoslavia in 1928. Yugoslavian Mausers are pretty common in North America, but only the post-war Communist era models - the M48 and M24/47, which was a rebuild of an FN M1924 or Kragujevac M24 (which was the same rifle actually made IN Yugoslavia) with a new barrel with hooded front sight. Because almost all the M1924 or M24s were rebuilt to the M24/47 standard, you rarely find original pre-communist Yugo Mausers.

This one is all original, with a great monarchist crest and FN factory adress, along with the CXC stamp for Serb, Croats and Slovens and clear King Alexander I cartouche. It's all matching, and came with a postwar-era Yugo sling. As far as history goes, obviously it was used by the Yugoslav Royal Army up until the German invasion in 1941, but Yugoslavia went to utter shit in the 40s (not unlike Yugoslavia in the 90s), at which point it would have ended up in the hands of Communist Partisans, Serb Royalist partisans (Chetniks - some of whom then allied with the Germans to fight the Communists), Serb collaborationist government, Croatian Fascist militia (Ustasha) or regulars (Croatian Home Guard), pretty much all of whom fought everybody else at one point or another. I don't know how it managed to escape the Communist-era reworks, but it's a great uncommon WW2 rifle.