When I was growing up, my old man and I watched a ton of World War II shows and movies. He got me hooked on watching “Combat!” while telling me about how grandpa fought in the Battle of the Bulge. I loved seeing the GIs with their Garands, Thompsons and BARs fighting the evil Nazis armed with their Mausers and MP40s.
Then, years later, when I went to buy my first gun at the age of 21 (I know, late bloomer, but I was living in Massachusetts and no one in my family was a gun owner!), I was about to buy a cheap Astra handgun when I saw what I thought was a genuine German Mauser 98k on the wall with a price tag of around $300. I had to have it!
I picked up what I later learned was a Yugo M48 Mauser and rushed home to clean off the copious amounts of cosmoline and grime. I still remember the first time I fired it. I was expecting stout recoil, but prior to that day, the biggest caliber I had ever shot was 5.45×39 mm from a Romanian SAR-2 AKM.
I lined up my sights, took a deep breath, and exhaled. I could feel my heart beat in my face as I nervously took up the slack of the two-stage trigger. A few milliseconds later, my finger pushed the trigger past the sear, and the internal hammer slammed home on the primer of a very overpriced new production 8 mm Mauser round I bought from a small gun shop in Plymouth.
BOOOOOM!
The silence of the nearly empty outdoor range in Braintree, Mass., in November was shattered by the concussion of a 196-grain 8 mm round ripping out of the 23.25-inch barrel of a nearly 60-year-old rifle. The reduced-size paper target at 100 yards didn’t know what hit it, and I was struck with the strange sensation of my teeth feeling oddly cold. I was smiling ear to ear like a kid at Christmas and was thoroughly hooked on surplus rifles from that point on.
Truth be told, I would have put a ton of additional trigger time on that rifle if it weren’t for the fact that in that part of the country, the cheapest 8 mm rounds I could find were nearly two bucks a pop. And that was in 2004!
Now that I’m an older and hopefully wiser man with children, I wanted my little boy to experience the same joy I did many years ago. But he’s only six years old, and 8 mm is a lot of gun for a kid who weighs less than 50 pounds. That’s when I began my search for a surrogate or analog to that gun that he could enjoy. And after a few hours of research, I found the perfect solution: the Norinco TU-33/40.
The Norinco TU-33/40 Story
The Norinco TU-33/40 is, at a glance, a copy of a Mauser 98k with a few choice details that give away the fact that it’s not a big-bore World War II workhorse. The first real clue is the rifle’s safety. While it functions similarly to that of a legit Mauser, it only has two positions instead of the typical three: Safe and Fire. It also works the same way by disconnecting the sear from the trigger and locking the bolt in position.
The scale of the rifle is very close to a 98k, but that’s actually on purpose. The TU-33/40 isn’t a .22 LR version of a Karabiner 98k, but rather the Gewehr 33/40, a handy little rifle fielded by Nazi Germany’s elite mountain troops (Gebirgsjäger).
Additionally, the gun doesn’t feed from an internal magazine like a 98k but from a detachable, five-round, single-stack, steel magazine that is a nearly identical copy of the ones used by CZ’s fantastic 457 rifles. So much so that legit CZ 457 magazines function perfectly in the gun. In fact, the Norinco gun is a perfect clone of the CZ BRNO Model 2/CZ 452 series of rifles.
But enough about how it’s not a perfect Mauser clone; let’s look at all the interesting features that make it look and feel like the real deal.
TU-33/40 Features
The TU-330/40 features a 20.5-inch barrel topped with a K98-style hooded front sight, which is drift-adjustable for windage (my example was missing the hood, but it does accept mil-surp hoods). Under the front sight, the mini-Mauser sports a bayonet mount that, in testing, properly interfaces with M48, Portuguese 937A and German Mauser bayonets. You know, just in case any of the squirrels you’re hunting attempt an infantry charge.
Further back, the Mauser-profile hardwood stock uses the same combination barrel band/sling loops as a real Mauser. The gun even features an adjustable leaf rear sight like a real K98 with elevation notches for ranges from 25 to 200 yards. Further back, the receiver has a dovetail rail for mounting tip-off scopes to help shooters stretch the legs of the little carbine.
Behind the rail, the TU-33/40 features a full-scale bent bolt handle that both looks and feels like a full-size Mauser rifle. The only differences are how short the throw is and how little force it takes to lock and unlock the action. Adjacent to the bolt on the left side of the receiver is a pair of bolts meant to mount a proprietary fixed-power optic that was originally included with the gun. Unfortunately, my example lacked this optic, and replacements are virtually impossible to find. When they do pop up, they often demand a price equal to the cost of the gun itself.
Continuing rearward, the stock features both a cutout for the attachment of a mil-spec sling and even the small steel disc at the rear used to disassemble full-size 8 mm Mauser rifles. On this rimfire rifle, it’s functionally pointless, but aesthetically, it really sells the gun as a “mini-Mauser.” Finally, at the rear of the gun, the Norinco rimfire Mauser incorporates a smooth, blued, stamped-steel buttplate like original Mausers.
TU-33/40 Performance
OK, so it looks like a G33/40, but it is based on the CZ BRNO Model 2. How does it actually perform? In testing, the gun is capable of roughly 1.5-1.7 MOA groups with quality ammunition. A shooter could presumably enhance the performance of the rifle by using match-grade ammo and glass-bedding the stock, but even with cheap Winchester Wildcat ammo, the little rifle was capable of smoking empty 12-gauge hulls at 50 yards, meaning it can still hold its own as a small game-hunting rifle or training rifle.
As far as reliability goes, the rifle and its magazines functioned flawlessly. The primer hits were solid without being overly deep, and extraction is lively, often flinging spent casings 10 feet away. My eldest child, who is only six years old, had no issues working the bolt, but the length of pull is a little too much for a youth shooter.
Overall, the Norinco TU-33/40 is a solid, little rifle that, if a shooter watches auction sites patiently, can be had for around $350-$400. It’s not super-cheap, but it’s the only real option if you want a .22 LR repeater that looks and feels like a Mauser. In fact, the only thing I would change about the rifle would be to thread the barrel so I can quietly lay waste to tin cans on my personal range. Thankfully, given how long the barrel is, subsonic ammunition fired from the gun is actually quite pleasant as it is.
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