InterArms G33/50: Not a Real Carbine

Among the many Swedish Mauser carbines imported into the United States is an interesting batch of guns marked “InterArms G33/50“. What are these actually?

They are rifles imported by InterArms, of course, and they began life as proper Swedish m/94 and m/94-14 carbines. Upon import, though, their manufacturing dates were ground off and replaced with that G33/50 designation. In addition, their original Swedish unit disks were replaced with new disks that said “Cal 6.5mm Swedish – Made in Sweden”. These changes allowed the rifles to comply with all import marking requirements without having anything that would appear to be a newly added importer’s mark.

While I cannot prove it, I suspect this was done as a marketing trick to make the guns more appealing than standard carbines. The designation is very similar to the legitimate German “G33/40”, which was a short mountain troops’ carbine, and highly desirable. In the days before the internet allowed easy access to information, this easily could have been interpreted to be an elite Swedish alpine carbine.

The replacement markings make these rifles largely shunned by collectors who are looking for original condition guns, but they do remain both excellent handy shooters and also a source of proper parts to restore other Swedish carbines.

13 Comments

  1. Along the same lines, InterArms drilled out the cylinders of S&W .38 revolvers in order to accept .38 Special cartridges, and sold them as .38 Special revolvers. Fired cases had a typical step in them.

    • That’s what Lee Harvey Oswald used to kill Officer Tippett after abandoning his 6.5 mm Mannlicher Caracano (according to the Warren Report, the most accurate and fastest-shooting rifle in the world) at the Texas Book Depository.

  2. These may be devalued to Mauser collectors, but to a person fascinated by the tales of Sam Cummings and other import-export arms dealers in the pre-GCA68 “Wild West”, the alteration and subterfuge makes it even more desirable.

    • What is “truck gun”?
      I heard about “gun truck” that is armored vehicles based on trucks, but this seems not fit there.

      • A rifle kept in your vehicle for farm or ranch use. Used for varmint elimination, predator control, and in extremis for self-defense if confronted by hostiles (four or two-legged persuasion).

        It’s the modern-day equivalent of the lever-action in the working cowboy’s saddle scabbard.

        You need a fairly powerful rifle for those jobs, but not a high-ticket one, because it’s going to get bounced around and etc.

        For generations, Winchester or Marlin lever-actions were the default choice, just as they were for a cowboy’s “working rifle”, and .30-30 WCF was the default caliber. More recently, 5.56mm selfloaders have been common.

        Surplus military riles of an inexpensive nature have always been popular for that job. For years, I carried an SMLE No 1 MK III 0.303in with a “sporterized” stock in the trunk of my personal car while both on and off duty. Later on, when regulations changed and we had to have arms firing a department standard-issue round, it was replaced by a Ruger Mini-14 5.56mm.

        For this kind of thing, an inexpensive surplus carbine, firing the versatile and accurate 6.5 x 55mm round, makes very good sense if you’re not required to meet a specific cartridge requirement.

        cheers

        eon

        • “A rifle kept in your vehicle for farm or ranch use. Used for varmint elimination, predator control, and in extremis for self-defense if confronted by hostiles (four or two-legged persuasion).”
          This give untypical requirements, as it require short, but allow heavier mass of weapon, than in case of rifles for that moving by foot-slogging.

  3. Thanks Ian my grandfather gave me one 45 years ago for my birthday. I have been curious about the markings and have found little useful info until now. My rifle was customized before I received it with a Fajen stock and a Lyman sight mounted on the rear of the receiver. I was able to date the rifle with information from this website http://dutchman.rebooty.com/ For anyone interested in Swedish Mausers this site has a lot of good information.

  4. I figured the G33/50 markings were a ploy for the unsophistcated buyer when “Ye Olde Hunter” marketed them back them when I saw the ads. Hey, they still shoot and are great little carbines!

  5. I hate how they change/faked the provenance of the gun.
    Rather than remove anything, just add a 2nd disk saying “Interarms-Made in Sweden-6.5 Swedish” !

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