Mauser 71/84 Travails

[rockrat]

Bought one of these years ago, but never shot it. No ammo

Fast forward to a post by "Gunfreak25" about making brass from 45-90 and a further bit about making it from 300 win mag brass. Got plenty of 300 win mag brass from our range, but no 45-90 (so I thought). Made a few cases but really not enough rim to extract, I thought.

Getting ready to go to sleep, it suddenly dawned on me that I DID have some 45-90 brass, so next morning dug it up and proceeded to trim and size to fit in the gun, headspacing on the shoulder.

Next problem, bullets. I thought I had a mold, but couldn't find it. Thought about sizing down some 45 boolits, but no .446 size die. Hated spending the money for a gun I might shoot a dozen times. Almost ordered a mold from Arsenal, asking them to make one of their designs at .446" diameter instead of .458", but as above, hated parting with the $$ (durn scottish blood!!). Later it dawned on me that maybe I could either bore out an existing size die or modify a case size die. figuring a 30-06 die would work, I proceeded to shorten it. Took about 7 tries of cutting more from the top and polishing it but finally came out with a die that works like the Lee push thru die and the boolits came out to .4466".

Loaded two rounds, but neither would chamber. Went to bed. Next morning got out the calipers and measured the neck of the loaded rounds. Came out to .468" but the last 1/4" towards the case mouth was .474". Hmmm. Got out my 7mm br die and just kind of taper crimped the mouth area down to .468" and it chambered!!! Figured out that I was flaring the case mouth too much and the roll crimp worked but the mouth area below the crimp was too big. Reset the flaring die and loaded a third round, but just roll crimped. Chambered just fine.

Now to load some more and see how this rifle shoots, at least once it warms up a bit.

[BlackPowderLove]

Excellent!

[skeettx]

Watching,
Well done
Mike

[upnorthwis]

I love your ingenuity. How many grains of what powder are you using? I've found 20 gr. of 5744 works but needs a Dacron filler to keep powder against primer. Cut a half inch square and stretch it out like an accordion. My bullet is the Lyman 446110 cast from 50/50 WW/Pb. I used to use 24 gr. of 5744 but got to a match where it was 97 degrees and was leveling primers. You might want to find someone with a lathe to put that clearance on the brass rim too. After trying several tricks for altering the rim for headspace, I now just seat the bullet into the rifling.

[rockrat]

Did cut down the brass rim a few thou and radiused the rim a bit to fit the bolt face. Loaded a few with 7.5 gr Unique and a few more with 19gr 4759 with a card wad over the powder, then Grits to a point where I would compress it about 1/10th of an inch seating a 295gr SWC sized down in my sizer. Actually went out to a spot down the road where some locals shoot on public land and just shot the six rounds into the dirt.

Unique load didn't expand the case fully, didn't expect it to, but the 4759 loads did. Loaded 20 rounds a bit ago, six with the 295 swc and the remainder with a Ranch Dog 300gr boolit designed for the 45-70 in plain base flavor, and sized in my home made sizer. Wasn't all that hard to size from .462" down to .4466". Not much left of the lube grooves. Might have to re-coat with LLA again or at least size first and fill the grooves fully before the big resize job if I get leading. Bore on the rifle really looks good. Can't see any pitting anywhere.

Hopefully will get to the 40's next week and can try for group.

[beltfed]

I believe that original loads were with Paper Patch bullets
beltfed/arnie

[BlackPowderLove]

I believe that original loads were with Paper Patch bullets
beltfed/arnie

I believe that is the case for the 1871 but not the 71/84

[enfield]

45 acp die will work to neck size ( you can even size the case with a bullet if you need to size them a little more )

[rockrat]

Well, got about 25 rounds formed/loaded and went to the range today. The 310gr boolits (sized down 300gr RD pb) went into about 2" @50yds and the 295 gr SWC boolits went just a bit larger, about 2 1/4" group. Took some of the 310gr boolits and tumbled them a second time in LLA as didn't seem like much left after sizing so thought I would add a bit more. A lot better as the group was 1.5" @50yds and fairly uniform.

Only problems were the groups were about 6" high @ 50yds and 2.5" left. At 165 yds, group was still around 8" high and 15" left, but @ 217yds the boolit was about 2' low. Velocities were 1126 fps for the first two shots and 1150-1157 for the other three of the 310gr boollits I put over the crony. The 295 gr swc went 1250 fps. Would have thought the 295 would have been a bit more accurate because I am only sizing from .452" to .4466" and the 310gr is from .461" to the .4466", but that wasn't the case.

Have a few other molds to try and a bit more tweaking of the powder charge. Lets see what this 132 yr old rifle can do (limited by my 65 yr old eyes!!)

[john.k]

RR,its very easy to chnge the lateral impact ,simply cant the rifle slightly..........all military rifles are sighted high,most a lot highr than yours........with BP guns 12" high at 100 yds is common.

[rockrat]

Gotta love "battle sights". My Trapdoor is the same way, about 12" high @100yds

[uscra112]

Far as I know all the original ammo military had PP bullets. I have about 30-40 rounds, none are naked/greased. Bullet is smooth-sided, swaged, dead soft lead. Black powder, of course. Have never attempted to fire any.

CIL produced ammo with naked bullets - I have a couple of boxes of that, too. Smokeless load. Apparently a lot of 71/84s were imported to Canada after WW2 and cut down for hunting guns. That's the legend, anyway.

[upnorthwis]

I've got both PP and naked. A friend of mine used to buy them a gun show for a dollar apiece. He loaned me the rifle to try and the first thing I find out is that most of them are Belgian Mauser and don't even fit. The ones that were .43 Mauser, only a few of them would fire and then I find out they were Berdan primed. (maybe some day I'll try to reload them) Took the shots over the chrono and was quit surprised that they are some real thumpers. From memory I think they were 1600 fps and with black powder.

[SvenLindquist]

I use factory brass in mine. No headaches.

https://www.grafs.com/catalog/product/productId/1172

[Buckshot]

..........I still have a Mauser M71 Single shot, but sold the M71/84 I had. The 1871 is a tack driver. I use the Lyman 457121P which drops a 475 gr slug at ~ .451". Being similar to a Loverin design it's easily sized to .446" if that's what you truly need. Using the issue sights I can hit a 1.5 x 1.5' steel plate at 600 yards without to much problem.