Difficult Barrel Removal on Mauser

[bruce drake]

OK,

I've removed about a dozen Mauser barrels over the last few years. Each has only required that I load it into my Wheeler Barrel Vise, crank the vise down tight and than give the barrel wrench a good strong hammer whack (scientific term there) to loosen it up from the receiver for easy removal.

I've got a M24/47 Yugo with a crap barrel that has not budged with several good whacks. Instead the rifle turns within my oak blocks and I've got the vise cranked down and then tapped tight. I've never used the Rosin (at $14 for 6oz) that MidwayUSA hypes in their catalog.

I've read before that heat applied to the barrel may help loosen things up (expansion/contraction)or that relief cuts on the barrel itself might help.

Three Questions:

1 -IS the powdered resin worth the money or is there something else that can be used to keep the barrel from turning within the barrel blocks?

2. Heat should be applied to the barrel since it's crap and to prevent any issues with heat treating of the Mauser Receiver, correct?

3. IF I Cut the barrel (its worthless due to rust and pitting),How deep? And are the relief cuts parallel to the barrel's bore or do I cut the relief cut around the entire circumference? Brownells' "Gunsmith's Kinks" book series talks about the cut but don't provide a picture. I've got a Dremel and I'm not afraid to use it (famous last words...)

My regular gunsmith friend closed his shop while I was deployed and is currently in Afghanistan on contract maintenance work for the next year.

I'm on vacation for the next couple of weeks and I'd like to get this barrel off to reset it for a cast boolit only 22-250.

Bruce

[725]

I had one that took literally a month to take off. I set it in a vise, did on and off heat and PB Blaster / Kroil / WD-40. Even started to look for clove oil, but it came off before I actually went out and spent money for some. Every day I would walk past it, hit it with some kroil or PB Blaster, try a twist, and then do it again another day. It came off with some herculian effort. I was tempted to do a relief cut but never got around to it.
PS. I spend a little time south of you during the summer. On the lake. I do love it up there.

[oneokie]

Super Glue? Remove with fingernail polish remover.

[Junior1942]

>I'm on vacation for the next couple of weeks and I'd like to get this barrel off to reset it for a cast boolit only 22-250.

?????? That's one of the last cartridges I'd consider for a cast bullet barrel. Would you explain why you want that?

[waksupi]

Bruce, you can get rosin from a sporting goods store much cheaper. Look around baseball, or gymnastics supplies.
I'd leave it submerged in some good penetrating oil until you got home.

[Ozarki]

I had a barrel on a CZ 24 that defied everything I tried to do. The oil, the heat, and even tightend down the vise so hard that I broke the oak inserts. This over a year or so. One day I stumbled onto dad's old pipe vise and since the barrel was junk anyway so what. It came off only after gauging up the barrel badly. I have a K-98 that is next and I going to try some of the rubber that goes in the bottom of tool box drawers.

[anachronism]

Freeze it for a few days, then apply heat with a propane torch. Don't overheat it, it's not necessary. The quick change from frozen to hot is usually enough to break the bond. When you apply heat, heat only the part that you want to expand, which would be the receiver. Heating the barrel & not the receiver would likely make the fit tighter until temperatures equalize

[m.chalmers]

freezer trick or dremmel/hack saw 1/8" from receiver and 1/8"-1/4" deep in the barrel

[HeavyMetal]

The Mauser action runs the barrel up against a shoulder inside the action itself!

Therefore cutting gets you nothing! I think the idea of stripping the action and letting it soak in Kroil for a week or two a good idea!

Since the barrel is junk a good pipe vise, as already mentioned, put the barrel in it and crank until it bends if need be! Get as close to the action as you can with the vise! Now this is the important part: set this up so that the barrel wrench is at a right angle to the floor! If you have a barrel wrench that has two sides put a cheater bar on each side and, with help from a friend, add a bunch of even pressure to both sides!

This should pop it loose! Heating an action scares me! If this was mine this is the tactic I would use until the barrrel came loose or I got a hernia, whichever came first!

[m.chalmers]

cutting will reduce the stress. It works well on Mausers and M1917 Enfields.

[yondering]

Do you have access to a welder? I bought 4 of the VZ 24 mausers a few years ago when they were cheap, and every one of them was real stubborn when I removed the barrels. One of them was really stubborn, like what you described, and the barrel just spun in the vise. Since the barrel was junk, I used the MIG welder to run a weld bead along the barrel, parallel to the bore, for the length of the vise jaws. I did this on the other side of the barrel too, for good measure. This kept the barrel from spinning in the vise, and with the use of a cheater pipe on the action wrench, it popped right off. That action is now part of a very accurate 30-06 scout rifle.

[Charley]

The Yugo's I've played with were torqued up real good. First one I did, I went with an escalation of force. Relief cut didn't help...Kroil for a week didn't help...cold then heat didn't help.
Finally, since the barrel was going to be junked anyway, especially after a relief cut, I put the barreled action in my vise, tightened a 14 inch pipe wrench onto the barrel, and let the wrench handle bear on my bench, and then I could break it loose with body weight.
Rosin is cheap at sporting goods store, a rosin bag for baseball is about a buck or two.

[leftiye]

BIG pipe wrench! (not totally serious - just couldn't resist) IF the barrel is junk, you can even mill flats on it for purchase. ( In the extreme, you could even - Drill a hole through it and put a rod in the hole?) I do think that the freezing/ heating thing with kroil soaking sounds good. I'd apply the heat to the reciever only (just don't heat it beyond 200 degrees F.) to cause maximum disparate expansion. Bring up the heat as fast as is possible with a cherry, maybe.

[MtGun44]

I wonder if a chunk of dry ice held against the chamber portion of the bbl
for a while plus warming the recvr ring with a torch would do it.

Bill

[Larry Gibson]

The big pie wrench works quite well as does a large vise with teeth. Best is to chuck it up in a lathe and turn the shoulder off (or make s stright in cut) where it butts aganst the reciever. This relieves the pressure and the barrel will turn right off.

Juinior1942

The 22-250 generally has a 14" twist, that is good! It also has a larger case capacity so slower burning powders can be used lessoning the time pressure curves. Bass Ackwards can explain the attributes of that to you quite well. The 22-250 actually makes for a nice .22 caliber case bulllet cartridge especially with 225646.

Larry Gibson

[johnly]

I can send you some rosin if you want to give it a try.

Personally I use brass blocks in my barrel vise along with a Wheeler action wrench. Any brass smudges can be removed with Sweets.

John

[Phil]

GI Mauser barrels do NOT seat on the shoulder. The butt end of the barrel seats on the inner collar of the receiver. There is no shoulder to make a relief cut on.

What are your barrel vise inserts made of? They need to be aluminum or steel. Wood won't work. You need to put rosin on them. Tighten the vise halves with a piece of pipe on the wrench. They need to be tight. Put a very much oversize (in diameter) piece of pipe, about four or five feet long, on the handle of your action wrench. With the wrench handle/pipe parallel with the floor, lift the pipe until it stops, then SLAM it down. Never needed more than one or two whacks to get a barrel off, never harmed a barrel or action, done it this way for over thirty years. Its the sudden, sharp, snap that does it.

Cheers and Happy New Years gang,

Phil

[bruce drake]

Junior,

As the saying goes, Because I've got the barrel and I want to try it out with the LEE Bator 55gr Mold.

Phil, I've always used the wooden inserts cranked down tight to remove the barrels. So if I lay brass shims inside the wooden inserts along with the rosin (Waksupi - thanks for the idea. Rosin bag was .99 at the local sporting goods store.) it should help with the securing this barrel down.

I think I'll try the Coke tomorrow as I don't have that much Kroil available to soak the entire receiver.

My vacation is here at the house, so I'll be whacking at this barrel everyday until the dang thing comes off.

Bruce

[Phil]

Hi Bruce,

Keep me posted on how it goes. My barrel setup is Brownell's so it may be different than the setup you're using. My barrel vise is steel and has four big allen headed bolts to assemble the halves. I just bore 3" long aluminum round bar stock to fit whatever barrel I'm working on and then split it in a saw. You can get those puppies TIGHT. I would put a piece if steel in the bolt raceway all the way to the end of the barrel to keep from deforming the receiver.

Three more days to vacation. Whoopee!

Cheers,

Phil

[bruce drake]

It took almost an entire 2 Liter bottle of Coke with the top cut off to fit the receiver inside it. It's standing in the corner of the garage bubbling away as I type. More to follow later.

Bruce