Investigators obtained clues including a palm print, a shoe impression and a high-powered hunting rifle found in a wooded area along the path the shooter fled. But they had yet to name a suspect or cite a motive in the killing.
Rem 700 is a good guess, my thought was Ruger American - it doesn’t match the current model of either perfectly but as you say a 20 or 30 year old model will often be different, and yes no piccatinny rail in that pic.
Based on the exit wound shown in the video I doubt it’s 30-06 to be honest - I think your guess of a .270, or maybe .243 would be my guess, particularly given how popular those two were 30 years ago for hunting. I guess could be .308 but as per other post in the thread the sort of damage I’d see on a pig or deer just doesn’t line up with what I’d expect a 30-06 to do and still light even for 308.
I myself have a … moderate amount of range time / time in the field, probably, by the standards of most actual hunters…
I’ve never actually shot a living creature, just like to go to the range occasionally to pop at targets, get that whole breathing zen thing going on.
But I do have a probably uncommon amount of gun related autism in terms of trying to accurately model and simulate and represent firearms in mods for video games and such, the engineering, the history of em, the wierd little nuances of shooting as a human experience that most video games dramatically oversimplify.
Anyway… yeah, glad you agree that is probably not an ‘older Mauser’, and I’m gonna go with you probably know better an estimate of the actual caliber, and yeah, could be a Ruger American from about 20 to 30 years ago too.
FYI the reddit thread seems to think it’s a mauser 98 in an aftermarket polymer stock. The potato quality photo makes it too hard for me to work it - dunno if they’ve found a better photo
The stock/grip housing is not Kar98k style, it has a bit of a pistol grip -ish form factor, like more modern, basic, out of the box US hunting rifles…
I guess that doesn’t disprove it could be a completely rehoused K98k, but it doesn’t prove it either…
And… the likelihood it is some kind of completely rehoused K98k is really low, in comparison to it just being the shooter’s dad’s Remington or Ruger or something like that.
Can you link me this?
Do they actually have some specifc, unique detail that would be an unfalseifiable indicator of it being a K98k?
This is the reddit gun community here, I am guessing they are mostly try hard wehraboos, you know, Nazi enthusiasts, very rational and clearheaded, unbiased thinkers.
They’re basing it on the tail end safety mechanism I think (I can’t see it well enough to be sure), although honestly I suspect they’re just taking the media report of mauser at face value and retrofitting what they see to that
Maybe what I should have more said is just that reddit is primarily dunning krueger sophomoric idiots who only understand things from the context of video games and purely abstract theoretical research, and have a tendency toward being hyperbolic and overconfident.
Very little practical, real world experience, very lot of e dick waving bluster.
That and… uh, maybe half of these are AI chat bots, who knows at this point?
Anyway… here is the single comment I’ve found so far that isn’t either useless or bullshit.
from ‘deLanglade1975’:
From the picture, which is just lousy, I can make out enough to confidently say that
It’s definitely a Mauser action, probably a 98-pattern. Receiver profile and trigger guard point this way. Which means it could be German (from either world war), commercial from FN, CZ, Zastava, Mauser, Husqvarna, etc, or military from one of the dozens of other countries that manufactured or adopted the Mauser in the first half of the 20th century.
It’s been rebarreled. To my knowledge, all the military Mausers have a distinct stepped profile, this is a smooth taper. A commercial Mauser sporter would likely have a smooth taper, but would be blued to match the action, where this barrel is unblued and bright, possibly stainless. Again, to my knowledge, stainless barrels were not a common thing during the Mauser era, either military or commercial. With a new barrel, the rifle could be chambered in anything from .218 to .458. The claim of .30.06 is possible and likely correct.
Two piece scope mount, which were very common in the market 50 years ago, but have fallen out in favor of stronger, more repeatable, and cheaper 1-piece mounts. This hints at it being an older sporterized military mauser. The scope itself is pretty modern. My guess is someone replaced an old, fixed power scope with some new and sexy, and had some headaches with the mount spacing.
Modern composite stock. To my knowledge, no Mausers were built with anything other than wood stocks. Maybe some weird last-ditch efforts in WW2, but nothing kel-teccy like this one. These were pretty popular in the 80’s and 90’s on knock around hunting rifles, they shaved some weight and didn’t require any maintenance. A screwdriver and 5 minutes will get this done.
The safety is a low-scope clearance aftermarket piece, which were common during the heyday of the sporterizing era. The bolt handles curvature looks like it was heated and forged into the low shape, welded on low handles look, I dunno, different.
All this adds up to a likely untraceable rifle. Surplused and imported somewhere between 1918 and 2025, sporterized for hunting by someone with enough skill to do a barrel swap, built to put meat on the table. It could have been picked up in a private sale at a gun show, at an estate sale, listed on Armslist, a classified ad in the local paper, lifted out of the gun rack in some rancher’s pickup truck. It looks janky as hell, but if it has minute-of-deer accuracy it’s all you’d need.
This is the kind of seasoned hunter FUDD I was hoping would appear.
…
He seems quite confident that yes this specifically is a Mauser type of action.
I don’t know how or why he can be that specific… but I am inclined to distrust my own relative lack of knowledge and experience specifically regarding this, over a more experienced rifleman who seems like he’s got more experience with Mausers than myself.
…
He seems quite confident it is a Mauser that has been rebarelled, but disagrees with us, who think its likely a smaller caliber than 30.06, he think’s it is likely 30.06… he notes the profile is all wrong for a Mauser… when, to me, that could also well indicate it just is not a Mauser.
We also do not know if he has actually seen the footage of the shot impact, seems like the both of us have.
…
Looks like we all agree its some kind of older two piece scope mount than a Pic rail, with a fairly modern scope… but he thinks this ‘hints’ at being a sporterized Mauser, whereas I would think that would just hint at being any ole hunting rifle from Pic rails took off.
…
We also all agree it is an obviously synthetic stock, likely from the 80s 90s 00s timeframe.
He believes it has a common stock from the era that a bunch of these older milsurp type things were being sporterized.
…
But he also believes that the bolt handle itself is not the right shape for an actual Mauser style bolt handle, that the bolt handle of what was originally a Mauser type was heattreated and reformed into a significantly different shape.
I find that … remarkably unlikely… to the extent that I would think it more likely it just never was a Mauser style bolt handle.
…
Fucking I dunno man.
Would be great if we had better quality images, and from different angles / lighting conditions.
Maybe the mismatch between the seemingly unblued barrel and the blued action could be helpful in narrowing things down, if investigated further?
Normally I would wink and make finger guns at you as a way of saying ‘hey thanks!’…
But that seems like a bad idea right now.
Lol, yeah I’m getting cautious how I word things to avoid misinterpretation all of a sudden too
I have updated my original comment with more of my best attempt at an analysis, now that there is apparently an image of the actual rifle.
Rem 700 is a good guess, my thought was Ruger American - it doesn’t match the current model of either perfectly but as you say a 20 or 30 year old model will often be different, and yes no piccatinny rail in that pic.
Based on the exit wound shown in the video I doubt it’s 30-06 to be honest - I think your guess of a .270, or maybe .243 would be my guess, particularly given how popular those two were 30 years ago for hunting. I guess could be .308 but as per other post in the thread the sort of damage I’d see on a pig or deer just doesn’t line up with what I’d expect a 30-06 to do and still light even for 308.
Appreciate the extra detail.
I myself have a … moderate amount of range time / time in the field, probably, by the standards of most actual hunters…
I’ve never actually shot a living creature, just like to go to the range occasionally to pop at targets, get that whole breathing zen thing going on.
But I do have a probably uncommon amount of gun related autism in terms of trying to accurately model and simulate and represent firearms in mods for video games and such, the engineering, the history of em, the wierd little nuances of shooting as a human experience that most video games dramatically oversimplify.
Anyway… yeah, glad you agree that is probably not an ‘older Mauser’, and I’m gonna go with you probably know better an estimate of the actual caliber, and yeah, could be a Ruger American from about 20 to 30 years ago too.
FYI the reddit thread seems to think it’s a mauser 98 in an aftermarket polymer stock. The potato quality photo makes it too hard for me to work it - dunno if they’ve found a better photo
… Wha?
Based on what?
The stock/grip housing is not Kar98k style, it has a bit of a pistol grip -ish form factor, like more modern, basic, out of the box US hunting rifles…
I guess that doesn’t disprove it could be a completely rehoused K98k, but it doesn’t prove it either…
And… the likelihood it is some kind of completely rehoused K98k is really low, in comparison to it just being the shooter’s dad’s Remington or Ruger or something like that.
Can you link me this?
Do they actually have some specifc, unique detail that would be an unfalseifiable indicator of it being a K98k?
This is the reddit gun community here, I am guessing they are mostly try hard wehraboos, you know, Nazi enthusiasts, very rational and clearheaded, unbiased thinkers.
… fuck.
Not the fash end of reddit I avoid that - this thread
https://www.reddit.com/r/liberalgunowners/comments/1nez6z9/the_rifle_aledgedlies/
They’re basing it on the tail end safety mechanism I think (I can’t see it well enough to be sure), although honestly I suspect they’re just taking the media report of mauser at face value and retrofitting what they see to that
Maybe what I should have more said is just that reddit is primarily dunning krueger sophomoric idiots who only understand things from the context of video games and purely abstract theoretical research, and have a tendency toward being hyperbolic and overconfident.
Very little practical, real world experience, very lot of e dick waving bluster.
That and… uh, maybe half of these are AI chat bots, who knows at this point?
Anyway… here is the single comment I’ve found so far that isn’t either useless or bullshit.
from ‘deLanglade1975’:
This is the kind of seasoned hunter FUDD I was hoping would appear.
…
He seems quite confident that yes this specifically is a Mauser type of action.
I don’t know how or why he can be that specific… but I am inclined to distrust my own relative lack of knowledge and experience specifically regarding this, over a more experienced rifleman who seems like he’s got more experience with Mausers than myself.
…
He seems quite confident it is a Mauser that has been rebarelled, but disagrees with us, who think its likely a smaller caliber than 30.06, he think’s it is likely 30.06… he notes the profile is all wrong for a Mauser… when, to me, that could also well indicate it just is not a Mauser.
We also do not know if he has actually seen the footage of the shot impact, seems like the both of us have.
…
Looks like we all agree its some kind of older two piece scope mount than a Pic rail, with a fairly modern scope… but he thinks this ‘hints’ at being a sporterized Mauser, whereas I would think that would just hint at being any ole hunting rifle from Pic rails took off.
…
We also all agree it is an obviously synthetic stock, likely from the 80s 90s 00s timeframe.
He believes it has a common stock from the era that a bunch of these older milsurp type things were being sporterized.
…
But he also believes that the bolt handle itself is not the right shape for an actual Mauser style bolt handle, that the bolt handle of what was originally a Mauser type was heattreated and reformed into a significantly different shape.
I find that … remarkably unlikely… to the extent that I would think it more likely it just never was a Mauser style bolt handle.
…
Fucking I dunno man.
Would be great if we had better quality images, and from different angles / lighting conditions.
Maybe the mismatch between the seemingly unblued barrel and the blued action could be helpful in narrowing things down, if investigated further?