Is the Husqvarna Vapenfabriks a good rifle?

Answer 1

Husqvarna has produced firearms from very early times and have made very basic firearms afordable for everyone as well as extrememly nice and even custom rifles for heads of state. One thing that remains through all their manufacturing is that they use quality swedish iron ore that is second to none in the world. Which ever era you choose husqvarna was at the top of their game with the steel they used. Most husqvarna rifles have fine accuracy and many are very accurate. Most of the time they are underpriced in comparison to other comparable made rifles in their time. Manufacuring ended in the mid-70's. Since WWII, Husqvarna produced four rifles. During WWII, Sweden's army, like the US, had switched to a semi-automatic rifle, the Ljungman. Also like the US, they couldn't produce enough of them, so the Swedish national rifle factory, Carl Gustaf, sent the machinery for producing Sweden's Mauser 96 to Husqvarna, and they began producing the Model 38 Swedish Mauser, one of the most beautifully finished bolt-action military rifles of the 20th C. They are stocked in European walnut or beech.

After the war, Husqvarna imported some Mauser 98 actions produced by FN in Belgium, and did the finishing and stocking in Sweden. This may be the finest of the FN Mausers, altough an owner of an old Browning may disagree. This was called the High-Power. Most of these rifles have very light colored European walnut stocks, with a great deal of drop at the butt.

In the mid-50's, they developed the famous "HVA" action- it was a true Mauser 98, but a small-ring action, like the Swedish 96, but with a much more sleek bolt release and a the true third locking lug- the mark of the Mauser 98, and very expensive to produce. I met this rifle in the '60's when an olympic-class shooter and rifle collector in our deer hunting party bought his wife one of these in 7x57. When she unexpectedly died, he hunted only with this rifle for most of the next 15 years. He had many rifles in his collection, including many pre-'64 Model 70's, and he many times that he thought the Husqvarna HVA as the best bolt action of the 20th C.

They were stocked in several patterns, including a nicely shaped montecarlo, and a very trim schnabel-tipped version. From what I've seen, the schnabels seem to all be European walnut, but some of the montecarlos are American black walnut. The lightweight was also done as a full-length Mannlicher style. Some American companies built rifles on this action, including H&R, S&W and Sears. In the later years Tradewinds company imported them, and also sold actions and barreled actions. Various model numbers were used, which often are not imprinted on the model. In the mid-60's, these complete rifles sold for only about $125 at Herter's famous catalogue store in Waseca MN. Remember, they were competing head-to-head with Sako in Scandinavia; that will tell you about their quality.

At the end of the company, they came up with a much cheaper action, more like a Remington 700, which I believe is still in production under another name in Italy.