Mauser Action Questions

I'm trying to learn what is the good, the bad, and the ugly about Mauser actions.

I'm looking for an action to use for a 458 American (458 x 2") build. Was hoping to use a Remington short action but I'm not locked into that. Do really like the Mauser extractor.

Have been offered a "Mexican Mauser" but have no idea what the pedigree is on that.

Large ring, small ring? What's the difference other than barrel shank diameter?

In a perfect world I would trip over a Ruger 77 Mk 1 or a Remington 600 as with a magnum bolt face as I go out the door this morning but we all know how perfect the world is.

Yes, you need more info on the "Mexican Mauser" as some are not so good and others are very desirable to custom rifle makers. Really need a pic of the action and markings.

I think you want a large ring simply because there is a bit more metal around the locking lugs. If you want a Mauser I would suggest keeping an eye out at gunshows and pawnshops for an Interarms Mark-X or similar in 7mm Rem Mag. You can usually get these fairly inexpensively (<$400) and all you really need to do is rebarrel it. Bolt face is correct and action should feed fine or with very little tweaking.

If you want to convert a military action, which is what the "Mexican Mauser" is, you will have considerably more into in than the used commercial Mauser, unless of course you can do most of the work yourself.

My 458x2 is one of my favorite rifles and I really like the fact that I can use pick-up range brass and not have to pay a buck a case for it!!

Agree with Rusty. Military Mausers require a lot of customization and if you have to pay for the work, you will never recoup your investment. I would go with a commercial Mauser or M70 action.

Hi. Boyds website has some cross reference info for the screw spacing and barrel diameter. Might be a good place to start.
Like most milsurps, if you can get the barrel off and it is relatively unmolested, you are off to a good start.
Be well

A good Mexican Mauser in one of the mod 98 variations is a very desirable action and can be worth a lot to a custom gunmaker. It would not be my choice for a 458x2 though and would be better used for a 7x57 or similar cartridge.

Jerry Liles

Even though I'm a Mauser fan, I guess your ideal platform would be to just rebarrel one of the short action "short magnum" rifles. That should require the least expenditure in funds for gunsmithing. As those short magnum rounds have very little taper, you may not even have to modify your feed/guide rails or magazine lips (magazine fed rifle) for the short and fat 458 American.

Given the big hoopla on the introduction of the short magnum rounds, I really don't see many of them at the range. Perhaps once the newness wears off, you'll be able to find one prime for rebarreling at a decent price.

Something else you might consider is a 45/70 on a Siamese Mauser or perhaps an Enfield action. It would give you about the same ballistics without the need to cut down 458 Winchester cases. The Siamese Mausers that I've shot in 45/70 were quite accurate and certainly capable of elephant killing performance on the top end and cat sneeze loads on the low end.

I see tons of 7 mm mag Savage rifles in pawn and guns shops locally, I know they are not Mausers, which I love and have built over 100 custom rifles on when I ran a shop full time, but I see these go for $200-250 because they have set there for so long. If you don't like the syn stock, boyds makes a bunch of replacement stocks. The Savage 110 long action is a more modern action, will stand much hotter loads, more safety margin. Also, and this is big, you can change and headspace a barrel in about 20 minutes!

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Originally Posted by Alan in Vermont

I'm trying to learn what is the good, the bad, and the ugly about Mauser actions.

I'm looking for an action to use for a 458 American (458 x 2") build. Was hoping to use a Remington short action but I'm not locked into that. Do really like the Mauser extractor.

Have been offered a "Mexican Mauser" but have no idea what the pedigree is on that.

Large ring, small ring? What's the difference other than barrel shank diameter?

In a perfect world I would trip over a Ruger 77 Mk 1 or a Remington 600 as with a magnum bolt face as I go out the door this morning but we all know how perfect the world is.

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I know of at least 3 different rifles that are passed off as Mexican Mausers...all originally chambered for 7 X 57 Mauser.

1. Around the turn of the 20th Century Mexico bought allot of 94/95 German made Mauser rifles.
2. During the time between WWI and WWII Mexico bought some more German made rifles, but these used 98 actions made by DWM.
3. Later Mexico began to make their own version of the Mauser rifle.

There are general short action, small ring type Mauser or Mauser clones, some are suitable to conversion to your desired caliber and some are not. If you can pick up a DWM made 98, I would grab it. I would pass on the others.

A mex action in any of it's flavors would not be my first choice. Not due to any inherent weaknesses but cost of modifications. It certainly "can" be done but the extent of the mods would be cost prohibitive if you are hiring the work done.
I am not at all familiar with the cartridge and don't know the pressure it builds but in most any milsurp mauser you would want the pressure to remain in the designed pressure range.
Speculation on my part, but, the best option might be to find one of the Rem. 798's in 458 WM and set back/rechamber the barrel to the new cartridge. I have not taken any measurements of one and I don't know if this would be possible but I would think it would be a good place to start looking. They were once plentiful and cheap because few people wanted them. The mods necessary to make a milsurp function properly would already be done in the Rem. and little to no fiddling around with the bolt face and feeding would be needed. Being a modern made action would also assure one that the action was strong enough for the magnum pressures.
Of course if you are willing/able to do the mods yourself you could make just about any 98 Mauser action work.

Mexico has a long history of severe internal troubles and economic difficulties, and those are the things that can make for poor quality in firearms. I would trust a Mexican 98 imported from Germany, but there is no advantage in using the pre-98 Mausers for this purpose, and I would be wary of any which are Latin American made. The last point may be unfair, but if you are buying only one, it doesn't matter to you if "typical" is OK.

I think your preference for the Mauser is pretty sensible. I like the extractor and controlled feed, and a lot of the features some call improvements are in fact production economies. The extra strength of some modern actions over a good Mauser 98 is less significant than it sounds, as it takes something drastically wrong to make it matter, and the .458 American is less easy to accidentally wander into excessive pressures with, than strongly bottlenecked cartridges.

The Wikipedia article contains the measurements of threads and receiver ring. It shows you that the large ring leaves less receiver metal over the 1.1in. receiver threads than the small ring does over the .98in. thread. But that isn't what really matters. The .98in. threads leave enough barrel metal for the .458 American. But the large ring of the 98 leaves more metal on the outside of the recess where the bolt locking lugs turn - and it is gas pressure in that space after a case failure, bursting the receiver ring, that turns a breech explosion really catastrophic. The 98 also has an internal web or stop-ring around the front end of the bolt, which adds strength and gives gas escape a more convoluted path to follow.

There is a good quality South American 98 (Chilean? Don't take my word for that) which has the small threads inside a large receiver ring, and might be strongest of all. But any well made 98 is good enough. They are robust enough by design for case hardened mild steel to be amply strong, and are therefore less dependent than many rifles on alloy steel or correct heat treatment. They also offer an unrivalled selection of after-market triggers, safeties, bottom metals, scope mounts etc.

As you know any old mag brass can make the 458 2" that said I would want a good 98 action because you can put some stiff load in there. you will open the bolt faced tune the rails and then you have a fun gun. Not a easy do if you have virtually no experience

As far as I know, the only large ring 98, with small ring threads, are the Turkish. Some of them are large ring, large ring threads, too. Sarco has the turk receivers, and maybe complete actions. I would look for a 110 Savage, in a magnum, if I was going to build what you want.

the Yugo 24-47 and Czech 24 actions are good in terms of metallurgy and manufacturing standard. gew-98 and k-98 german actions are 1090 steel surface carburized, so not as strong. Swedish actions are also good, but all in small ring. you want a large ring action with all the 98 improvements. the 24-47 is your cheapest and most reliable donor choice for a custom gun. I just bought one at auction in service grade for $105, so they are still out there.

Thanks to everyone for the information.

I'm going to be working a club table at a local gun show this weekend and hope to have some time to cruise the aisles and see what might be there.