Linstrum
08-04-2005, 06:47 PM
A Thank You to all of you who responded to my first post on the 8mm Mauser I bought two weeks ago. Here is what happened next:
On July 30, I dashed the hopes and expectations of Sarah Brady and Handgun Control, Inc. along with their misguided cohorts. I did this by not abandoning my desire to own a Yugo 24/47 K98 Mauser rifle during the mandatory purchaser’s ten-day denial of possession and harassment period. I did not suffer the fit of infantile impatience that the gun haters must think all gun enthusiasts suffer from of not being able to endure the entire ten-day waiting period, and I did not prematurely go back to the place of purchase to demand my money back and thereby nix the sale. Nope, I did not have the anticipated break-down of resolve that HCI hopes will prevent United States citizens from exercising their second most valuable Constitutional Right.
As scheduled, I picked up my Yugo 24/47 K98 Mauser rifle from the Big 5 Sporting Goods Store and took it home. Like a kid with a new toy (and that sums it up pretty good!), I went over it with a fine tooth comb and everything turned out to be in a lot better shape than I had observed at first. When I first looked it over in the store it had been pretty well covered up with a gummy layer of 50-year-old Cosmoline like a bad coat of coffee-colored varnish. But as soon as I got the gunk off and things cleaned up, I found out that the rifle had never been issued!
I slugged the bore, which measures 0.3115” at the lands and 0.3235” at the grooves. Using a 10X magnification eye loupe (every reloader ought to have one of those!) I also examined the engraving profile left on the slug and discovered that Mauser rifling is pretty complex. The sides of the grooves that form the leading edges that take all the guff from making the projectile rotate are cut slightly deeper than the trailing sides of the grooves. Both the leading and trailing land sides are radiused at the roots (where the rifling lands are connected to the bore), with the leading edge outside corners of course being quite sharp so they can effectively bite into the bullet surface. Another nice surprise I found was that the chamber is also on the tight side, and I hope that translates into longer brass life. Since this is the only 8x57JS I own I suppose I can get away with neck sizing for most of my reloads.
The wood and secondary hardware for these rifles were recycled from old M24 rifles, and the stock has several inconspicuous repair plugs and wood putty patches, but there aren’t any cracks or splits in it and the upper barrel handguard is new. Once I got a look at the wood in natural lighting instead of the green fluorescent lights used in the store, the color match of the stock and hand guard are a little bit better than I had originally thought. After nearly sixty years of storage the bluing is still in excellent shape and seems to be right around 100%, even on the places like along the wood contact lines where rust usually shows up first. I pulled the handguard off of the top of the barrel and underneath it there was zero dirt and dust stuck to the gobs of cosmoline that had never been melted because the barrel had never been hot from being fired, which is more proof that it was never issued. Having a mix of new and rebuilt used parts is normal for the Yugo 24/47 K98 rifle because that particular model designation is for a specific arsenal rebuild, and according to the information on Allan’s Armory and other web sites these rifles were made in 1947 by disassembling old FN M24 K98 Mausers made in both Belgium and Kragujevac, Jugoslavia. The rifles made in both locations were identical because FN-trained machinists made them on the same FN machines that were used in Belgium with steel from the same source. The best receivers, front sights, sling swivels, and other parts were checked over and if they were still within original manufacturing tolerance they were re-blued, and new barrels were installed. According to what I read, a few other slight modifications were made to convert them into rifles very nearly identical to the K98k rifles, the only major difference between these and the World War Two German K98k version is that the receivers of the 24/47s are about 1/8-inch shorter (actually 0.127”), and the barrels are also shorter by the same amount. (continued below)
On July 30, I dashed the hopes and expectations of Sarah Brady and Handgun Control, Inc. along with their misguided cohorts. I did this by not abandoning my desire to own a Yugo 24/47 K98 Mauser rifle during the mandatory purchaser’s ten-day denial of possession and harassment period. I did not suffer the fit of infantile impatience that the gun haters must think all gun enthusiasts suffer from of not being able to endure the entire ten-day waiting period, and I did not prematurely go back to the place of purchase to demand my money back and thereby nix the sale. Nope, I did not have the anticipated break-down of resolve that HCI hopes will prevent United States citizens from exercising their second most valuable Constitutional Right.
As scheduled, I picked up my Yugo 24/47 K98 Mauser rifle from the Big 5 Sporting Goods Store and took it home. Like a kid with a new toy (and that sums it up pretty good!), I went over it with a fine tooth comb and everything turned out to be in a lot better shape than I had observed at first. When I first looked it over in the store it had been pretty well covered up with a gummy layer of 50-year-old Cosmoline like a bad coat of coffee-colored varnish. But as soon as I got the gunk off and things cleaned up, I found out that the rifle had never been issued!
I slugged the bore, which measures 0.3115” at the lands and 0.3235” at the grooves. Using a 10X magnification eye loupe (every reloader ought to have one of those!) I also examined the engraving profile left on the slug and discovered that Mauser rifling is pretty complex. The sides of the grooves that form the leading edges that take all the guff from making the projectile rotate are cut slightly deeper than the trailing sides of the grooves. Both the leading and trailing land sides are radiused at the roots (where the rifling lands are connected to the bore), with the leading edge outside corners of course being quite sharp so they can effectively bite into the bullet surface. Another nice surprise I found was that the chamber is also on the tight side, and I hope that translates into longer brass life. Since this is the only 8x57JS I own I suppose I can get away with neck sizing for most of my reloads.
The wood and secondary hardware for these rifles were recycled from old M24 rifles, and the stock has several inconspicuous repair plugs and wood putty patches, but there aren’t any cracks or splits in it and the upper barrel handguard is new. Once I got a look at the wood in natural lighting instead of the green fluorescent lights used in the store, the color match of the stock and hand guard are a little bit better than I had originally thought. After nearly sixty years of storage the bluing is still in excellent shape and seems to be right around 100%, even on the places like along the wood contact lines where rust usually shows up first. I pulled the handguard off of the top of the barrel and underneath it there was zero dirt and dust stuck to the gobs of cosmoline that had never been melted because the barrel had never been hot from being fired, which is more proof that it was never issued. Having a mix of new and rebuilt used parts is normal for the Yugo 24/47 K98 rifle because that particular model designation is for a specific arsenal rebuild, and according to the information on Allan’s Armory and other web sites these rifles were made in 1947 by disassembling old FN M24 K98 Mausers made in both Belgium and Kragujevac, Jugoslavia. The rifles made in both locations were identical because FN-trained machinists made them on the same FN machines that were used in Belgium with steel from the same source. The best receivers, front sights, sling swivels, and other parts were checked over and if they were still within original manufacturing tolerance they were re-blued, and new barrels were installed. According to what I read, a few other slight modifications were made to convert them into rifles very nearly identical to the K98k rifles, the only major difference between these and the World War Two German K98k version is that the receivers of the 24/47s are about 1/8-inch shorter (actually 0.127”), and the barrels are also shorter by the same amount. (continued below)