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As per the other reviews, (and my expectations), my type 53 is pretty rough. Well, we won't say, "rough", we'll say "has character". LOTS of character. Thing is, I rather like a gun with a lot of character-- getting an old survivor and putting some more rounds through it feels right somehow. Buds shipped to me in a ridiculous hurry (three days from order to first delivery attempt when my dealer wasn't in, delivered the day after), especially considering the ice storm that hit at the same time; I expected at least a few extra days because of the weather. Great updates and order tracking, which is good for people like me who care entirely too much about such things. Top notch on their side.

The rifle seems pretty similar to a lot of the reviewers' rifle-- the stock is in one piece, but looks like it was used in a misguided attempt to beat a tank to death. It may have succeeded, for all I know. Certainly looks like it was an epic battle; it also has lots of little stamps in the wood to add even more character. Cleaning rod is gone to wherever the cleaning rods from this batch of imports went-- I'll give a little salute to its passing and make a new one. The bore shows promise (In what little time I've had lately for hobbies I've completed the first of many steps you have to go through with Mosins to get down to the truth of the matter), and looks good enough that I expect most of what I shoot will end up more or less where I want it to. Not counterbored, though the crown is a little beat up. I don't expect superb accuracy-- I expect horrendous noises, giant fireballs, and a kick like a mule. That's what carbines are for, after all, and what I'm all about. Honestly, it's not looking all that much worse than my 91/30 ex-dragoon's bore, and that one is quite the shooter. The metal does have a lot of bluing wear, and some small corrosion spots. Just surface stuff, no bad pits. "Good" condition is a pretty big stretch, but I'd give it a "fair". Thing is, when you get it it looks ten times worse, and you have to put a LOT of time into cleaning and cosmoline removal. The first time I looked down the barrel I nearly had a heart attack-- it looked all the world like a rusty old water main full of mud. Shoved a patch through and pushed out an amazing amount of gunk-- and just kept cleaning it out until I'm fairly pleased with it. You go though an odd progression of, "why did I buy this awful thing?" to "well, maybe this was a good idea", to "I need to bayonet something. Now.".

All in all, a heckova deal at the price. If I wasn't so broke I'd probably buy a few more-- if I knew about these a few years ago when they were REALLY cheap, I'd have a room full. Already way too excited about getting the time to go out and try this thing on some unsuspecting (and soon to be in orbit) soda cans.

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