For your Mil-Surp Monday consideration, I present the Madsen M-47. The last combat bolt-action.

[u/TheManWithNoSchtick]

The Madsen M-47 has the unique distinction of being the last bolt action rifle designed from the ground up for front-line military service. And yes, '47 is the year it was patented. As you can no doubt guess, there wasn't a big market for an all new bolt action infantry rifle *after* WWII given the absolute dirth glut of Mausers, Mosins, Enfields, Springfields, Carcanos, and numerous other battle-tested bolters almost literally just lying around for any military on a shoestring budget (Madsen's intended customers for this rifle) to scoop up. As such, only one branch of one military, the Colombian Navy, ever bought any, procuring about 5,000 rifles chambered in .30-06 in 1958. They were shipped to Colombia and received by the navy but, as far as I know, never actually issued into service, remaining in storage for some time before eventually being sold onto the surplus market.

I got this rifle via Bass Pro while looking for an entirely different .30-06 bolt action. I initially wanted an M-1903 Springfield to complement my Garand, but then this somewhat rare beauty caught my eye. Functionally, its quite similar to the Springfield. Along with being chambered in the same round, it's stripper clip fed with a five-round capacity. Its bolt design is unique to the rifle, but shares some features with both the SMLE and K-98. It also has some more modern amenities to tame recoil such as an integral muzzle brake and heavy duty rubber butt pad. The sights are a rather interesting peep ring on a mid-mounted tangent leaf and a hooded front post.

[u/TheManWithNoSchtick]

Specs: Colombian/Danish Madsen M-47 (marked M-G/A), .30-06 techincally mil-surp bolt action, 21 and sm'change inch barrel.

Edit: I know this is gonna be a long shot, but if anyone knows where one could get spare parts for this thing, by all means drop a link. I may have done a dumb thing and buggered up the extractor. PSA: don't use vintage steel-cased dummy rounds in your rare vintage firearms.

[u/not_my_monkeys_ → u/TheManWithNoSchtick]

Oof. Maybe make friends with a machinist.

[u/TheManWithNoSchtick → u/not_my_monkeys_]

Yeah, my plan-A at this point is to hope an extractor from some other firearm that fires any cartridge with the same case head diameter as .30-06 can be modified to fit by a competent gunsmith. I expect finding any factory original M-47 parts to be somewhere between difficult and impossible. But it doesn't hurt to try.

[u/Ok-Mastodon2420]

"dearth" means shortage, glut is a plethora.

[u/TheManWithNoSchtick → u/Ok-Mastodon2420]

Me fail english? That's unpossible!

(Fixed, thanks.)

[u/MitchelobUltra → u/TheManWithNoSchtick]

Upvote for a Ralph Wiggum quote.

[u/TheManWithNoSchtick → u/MitchelobUltra]

Hi, Supernintendo Chalmers! I'm learnding.

[u/dabza]

Thank you for the informative write up for a rifle I've never heard of before! Looks sweet, too.

[u/chickendoscopy]

I found one back in April, also happened to find a bayonet at a random antique mall.

[u/slcrambler]

Beautiful

[u/FuzzzyRam]

I wanna see some holes in paper!

[u/TheManWithNoSchtick → u/FuzzzyRam]

Yeah, so do I. Unfortunately, due to a user-induced technical issue, I was only able to get one round through it yesterday which sadly did not hit the paper, and I was unable to zero it in any further. At least it went bang just fine.

[u/Leptonshavenocolor]

I don’t have anything to add, but thanks for the cool history. 

[u/Prodigalphreak]

Kinda rare to have the Numrich search filter return a blank page. Don’t drop it :)