Cartridge: .30-06; overall length: 110 cm (43.3”); barrel length: 59.4 cm (23.4”); weight: 3.85kg (8.5 lbs).
Presented below is my Danish Madsen Model 47. These rifles are also known as the Model 58 for the Colombian year of adoption and the designation on the receiver is MG/A. It has the distinction of being the last bolt-action military rifle ever designed and offered on the world’s arms market. Madsen offered to chamber them in a wide range of calibers with capacity of 5-10 rounds. Only Colombia purchased any and hence only 6500 were ever made. These were delivered to the Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armada de Colombia), as shown on the receiver. The last 1500 had a disc with a Colombian crest below the left receiver rail. Accounts suggest they were little, or never, used and later exported as surplus to the USA.
It has a five-shot Mauser-like integral flush mount magazine, but it is not a Mauser. The parkerized bolt is a cock-on-open two rear lug design with the bolt handle serving as a third safety lug. It has a two-position safety (safe in vertical position, fire to the left) and a thumb actuated spring must be depressed to move it from fire to safe, a very natural and easy switch. Conversely, moving from safe to fire only takes a firm push of the safety lever. This seems like a good battlefield design, since it could not accidentally be knocked into safe during a critical moment in a fight. The safe position also blocks the sight picture, making it obvious which position is which. The rear sight has a peep aperture on a sliding tangent sight calibrated from 100 to 900 meters that is adjustable for windage. The front sight is a post in globe design. It has a factory installed rubber butt pad and a muzzle brake to reduce felt recoil. The metal, excluding the bolt appears to be hard black paint and the wood has what I would guess is a lacquer finish. There are a couple of compression dings, but that is all. Mine came with the original sling but unfortunately not the matching bayonet, with which the rifle would have been issued. Mine may not have been fired since the factory and it only has a couple of light scratches in the magazine follower and chamber feed ramp to indicate that a round has been chambered. Needless to say the bore and chamber are in new condition.
The Madsen M47 was an anachronism--emerging in the same year as the AK47--it could also be a case study in poor market analysis, and it has no combat history. Yet this is a beautiful and well-designed bolt action rifle and it is the most pristine example of a military surplus rifle that I’ve ever owned!
Right side
Left side
Safe
Fire
Bolt, 2 rear lugs plus bolt handle safety lug
Link to the original manual, for your amusement: “Even in this Atomic Age a conventional military repeating rifle is still in demand for certain uses as an individual weapon of the soldier.”
http://www.forgottenweapons.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Madsen-Lightweight-Military-Rifle-Manual-English.pdf
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