Argentine Mauser

[7br]

I am hoping to chronicle my journey with my father's 1891 Argentine Mauser. I am sure dad bought it at least 35 years ago with hopes of using it for deer and coyotes, but I doubt he has shot it more than 20 times. The only time I saw him shooting it was at a couple of coyotes. I remember that he had an ammo tin about half full of corrosive ammo than I would occasionally sneak in and look at. A few years back, Dad finally managed to be in the same place as a deer during rifle season. He lifted the mauser up and couldn't see the sights in the fading light. Shortly after that, I found a Rem 788 in .308 for him. We topped it off with a 3x9 varible and he has been hunting with it since.

I have been wanting to play with the mauser, so I offered to work up some hunting loads for him. He was a little reluctant at first. His excuse was that he wouldn't have a deer rifle for Mom, so I loaned him my 788 in .243 in exchange for the mauser.

With that settled, I managed to pick up a set of 7.65x53 dies from ebay and had them on my bench before my father and I could complete the swap. A few weekends ago, my nephew made the trip from Haysville to Emporia. He offered to do the gun running for us. He was just west of Cottonwood Falls when a deer decided to take up permanent residence on the grill of his '72 Chevy C10. A Chase county sheriff was kind enough to haul him and the rifle to Cottonwood Falls where my folks picked him up. Dad loaned my nephew his old Ford Ranger and my nephew made it back to Haysville. To the best of my knowledge, that is the only dead deer that the mauser was responsible for.

My father's view on firearms is strictly utiliatarian. He cleans firearms only when absolutely necessary. The first thing I did was to scrub the bore with Ed's Red. Five black patches later, I decided to let time do most of the hard work for me. I slopped Ed's Red in the bore and let it sit for three days. I completed two more of these cycles and the patches are now coming out with a slightly bluish cast. There are several spots on the bolt that still need to be polished out.

Next item on the agenda was to aquire brass. I considered ordering 100 pieces from Graf's, but decided the cast offs from my nephew's .30-06 would do fine. With the kids playing in the front yard, I moved the shoulders back to the proper location and wound up with a 1 inch neck. A drimel tool with a cut off blade took care of the first quarter inch. My RCBS trimmer with a cordless drill chucked up to it took care of the rest.

More to follow.....

[Buckshot]

...........7br, nice story so far. Waiting to read more when you have the chance.

.............Buckshot

[Urny]

Those '91's can be addictive. It took me 35 years to do it, but a couple or three years ago I wore through the case hardening on my RCBS file trim die and had to buy a new one, a C-H this time. Through most of that time I've made the cases from .270 brass, always plentiful, and had no interest in the .270 itself. Now, with a .270 in the safe there's no more loose brass around and something else will have to serve. Your way sounds lots faster. More of the story, please.

[KCSO]

I'm just starting with a real unusual M1891. We have 5 in 7.62x53 and now I have one in 7 MM Mauser. Someone screwed on a comercial &mm bbl and I am going to start workig on some loads. I bought a ton of Privi loaded ammo a few years ago and I have about 250 rounds of brass.

[7br]

Nov 2 -- After changing fuel filter and changing oil in the old beater Mercury Tracer, I tried to get a good bore measurement. I ran a bullet style fishing weight down the bore and came up with .305 as a measurement. Being fairly sure that was too small, I swaged the next sinker up with a 3lb hammer. I drove the sinker through the bore and came up with .3125. This still seems to be a little small if I recall other people's measurements of .313 to .318 correctly. The slug was a fairly tight fit until the last four inches of the bore. At that point, the sinker pushed through with minimal resistance. I am afraid that the muzzle end might be wollered out. I thought the rifling looked weak at the muzzle end. My hopes for a good cast shooter has taken a dip. Examining the bore afterwards shows that I still need to do some more cleaning. Hopefully, this will clean everything up to the muzzle diameter. I am considering using my homemade foul-out if I can find the directions.

[Buckshot]

..............7br, that .312" sounds just right. I have 2 M91 Infantry rifles and one is a very tight .310" and the other is a .312. I also have 2 M1909 cav carbines and a 1891 Engineers carbine and they run from .312 to .314" with bores from .300 to .303" so your's is in the ballpark.

...............Buckshot

[7br]

Over the last couple of days, I have ran the homemade foul out on the mauser. (see link: http://guns.wolfcrews.com/links/stuff/foulout/default.htm ) I am not sure how much good it did. After the cleaning, I pushed a few patches through the bore. First one came out black with some white flecks. Next one was not quite so black, but still pretty nasty. Some more scrubbing is in order.

The bolt has some discoloration/rust on it. My first attempt was to use the Dremel tool with a cloth wheel and some of the grit that Veral Smith sold as a barrel lapping kit. The cloth wheel spun the grit off with minimal success. I wandered into the laundry room to get a rag to clean up the mess. Wonder of all wonders, the grit worked a whole lot better with the rag than the wheel. I still have a line of discoloration on the bottom of the bolt and one or two spots about a quarter inch around that I need to polish out.

My father stored the rifle with the magazine loaded and the chamber empty for the last 35 years or so. Needless to say, the magazine spring is weak. I will need to pull the magazine and try to stretch the spring.

[KCSO]

Don't

My experience has been that 9 out of 10 time streaching a W mag spring results in a broken spring. I would just go to GPC and get a new spring. A weak spring is better than a broken one any day.

[StarMetal]

Well that 1891 Argentine, if that is what you have (box magazine protrudes from bottom of the stock) has a curved flat spring to pow3r the magazine follower. Is it that weak that the cartridges don't even come up? If it is you're going to need another one, so hell, try gently bending, if you're getting a new one you don't have anything to lose.

Joe

[David R]

I sized up 51 30'06 brass in the 7.65 sizing die. Loong necks, so I cut em off in the band saw. Finished em up with the lee trimmer in a drill. I tried it with some OLD millitary brass, but the case was really thick where the neck ended up.

Looking for some one to send me a few 314299 so I can try em before I order the mold.

David

[45 2.1]

I sized up 51 30'06 brass in the 7.65 sizing die. Loong necks, so I cut em off in the band saw. Finished em up with the lee trimmer in a drill. I tried it with some OLD millitary brass, but the case was really thick where the neck ended up.

Looking for some one to send me a few 314299 so I can try em before I order the mold.

David

David-
Don't worry, the 314299 fits every 7.65 i've put them in without neck turning.

[KCSO]

First off I mis-spoke myself when I refered to W springs, as the 1895 has the w and the 1891 has two highly polished flat springs. One for the ramp and one for the link arm. BUT I still don't recommend trying to bend them. Trust me before you pep one up you WILL break it. Broken they make good scrapers and inletting chisels. Before you do anything else clean the magazine by taking it apart. Take the mag out of the gun and undo the big screw in the front. Pull it part way out and the trap opens and then hold your hand over it and pull it the rest of the way. Most of the time a good cleaing will put these right. I just did one the other day and cleaning did the trick. If the springs are still weak buy new ones, but if you break the old ones firs you have a very inconvienant single shot. I am working on a 7mm 1891 right now and will be setting it up as a cast gun. No not 7.63 but a true 7 mm, someone a long while back thought enough of the 1891 actin to have a Douglas tube screwed on it and I inherited the gun. I'm drilling and tapping it tonight for an old Lyman 57 and I will probably cut off the bolt tomorrow and weld on a brownell's $4 special. Just for general info NORMA makes a 150 gr load that they claim is safe in the 1891 and from my full leangth rifle the bullet comes out at 2950 fps. I don't load my old ones that hot, but the Norma round does show the potential this old pup has.

[KCSO]

When I got my latest Argie in 7mm the gun was in pretty rough shape. Someone had screwed a Douglas barrel on an 1891 and head spaced it properly and then someone else hacked off the stock with a dull crosscut saw and inlet the barrel with an ax and a rusty pocket knife. The same someone screwed on a Williams rear sight and tried to put on a front ramp. They missed with the ramp and the front sight leaned like a wino on a 3 day drunk. I filled the holes and re set the sights straight and turned down the bolt handle. A quick glass bed job and some stock shaping had the gun at least looking like it had some care in assembly.

Today I took the gun out to see if it was a shooter or a trader. With the Williams iron sights my first 4 shots from the only cast bullet I had, A Lee 130 gc, went into 1" at 50 yards,three shots touching and one abut 3/4" away. Not from the bench, but out the window of the jeep.
This was with a plinking load of 10 grs. of Unique. I backed up to 100 and slipped in 5 with 27 grains of RX7. Five into 2 3/4" and I will guarentee that is better than I can usually do with those sights. I guess this winter I will have to bleach the stains out of the stock and pretty this one up some. I will mount a Lyman 57 tonight.
Now if I just had a hunting bullet for this old girl, she might get a deer for me.
This one will go proudly into the Argie herd, even if it is a 7mm.

[Buckshot]

............KSCO, lemme know if you'd like to try some RCBS 7mm-168's. It's a long bore rider so your nice barrel should handle them well. Of my 7x57's only those (all milsurps) with nice barrels like it (curse of bore riders, ie: NOT riding!). And those that do, shot it like crazy. They weight about 172grs lubed and GC'd.

..............Buckshot

[KCSO]

Buckshot
That sounds like a super hunting bullet for the 7mm, I'll get you some 220 gr. Argie bullets off in trade. I just cast up another batch of these to send out samples. These will have a GC seated and will run 314 unlubed.

Thanks

[7br]

Got to back to the mauser the other day. Polished the bolt with one of the green plastic pot scrubbers. Shined it up right pretty.

[Buckshot]

.......Some jeweler's rouge on a felt bob in the Dremel can have it looking like a mirror.

...............Buckshot