Welding on 98 Action ?

[jjnpg317]

I've been given an unknown 98 rifle in a nice Bishop Stock. The problem is the rifle has been drill on top for a scope mount & none of the holes line up with a new Leupold 1 piece mount. The first hole towards barrel is scary because I can see the barrel threads. Should I dump action and barrel & look for another action? Or, can all the holes (5) be welded, and redrilled correctly?

[fast ronnie]

I have one that was drilled incorrectly. Hole was off to one side on the rear. I used a two-piece mount and moved one hole sideways in the mount. It still wasn't enough, so used a Burris ring with offset bushings. It was enough to center the scope without using the scope adjustments. I already had Leupold bases form something else. Burris rings are available to fit standard Leupold bases. The two piece mount gives you more room to load and eject than the one piece.

[runfiverun]

you can always fill them with blind screws loctited into place and drill in between them.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Another way to go is to buy a piece of blank scope base material from Brownell's and to make your own base that will fit the existing holes. The front hole in the receiver ring is supposed to be a blind hole and not go all the way through to the barrel shank's threads. Nevertheless, I have seen many of them that did, and using it is going to be a judgment call on your part. I have seen many in use without dire results, but would not myself use one where the hole actually penetrated into the threads. Welding on receivers is never a good idea because you can alter the heat treatment and weaken its structure. The chambering would play a large part in my decision whether or not to use the existing receiver, as would the level of loads to be used. You didn't say that the holes are not in alignment, just that the spacing is wrong. I'd go with the existing holes instead of the Swiss cheese look.

[lefty o]

aside from nothing lining up. the front hole going through so you can see the barrel threads doesnt hurt anything. if the barrel is off the rcvr when its drilled and tapped, its an easier way to do it, and causes zero harm.

[Teddy (punchie)]

you can always fill them with blind screws loctited into place and drill in between them.

Sound like a good idea.

[RustyReel]

Welding on the receiver ring is generally considered a very bad idea. Use some of the methods suggested here to get a scope base to line up. Worse case, drill some new holes (and hope the base covers the old ones). I don't think drilling all the way thru to the barrel threads is a problem. I've seen actions were the front screw had to be removed in order to get the barrel off! Welding on the bridge (rear of action) should be OK but you still want to use some sort of heat protection (wet rag or ??) on the receiver ring when doing so. JMHO

[Frank46]

There are a couple welding methods that could be used. Tig welding which is tungsten inert gas, then there is micro tig welding and last is laser welding. While there is concern regarding welding on the receiver ring on any rifle the first would greatly lessen the chance of changing the heat treatment. I've seen tig done on a 98 receiver ring and total area was less than 3/16 in diameter and this was for one screw hole. The other two are even smaller and probably more expensive due to the extra equipment needed for the process. As far as stick or mig welding, or oxy actelene rule them out. Check in your phone book under precision welding and call them up. Frank

[bstone5]

I have TIG welded up some scope holes in a 98 K action.
The welding was done on the reciever with out a barrel installed.
To keep the heat local to the weld area a very wet rag was placed internal to the reciever and kept touching the weld area.
The process worked with only the weld area heat effected.
The reciever was used to make a 308 Win which shot fine.
The area around the barrel threads was cleaned up with a Dremel Tool before a tap was used to completely restore the female threads on the front of the reciever.
A very small tungsten was used with some .035 diameter filler rod.
Keeping the heated effected zone small is important when welding on a reciever.

[JSnover]

How far off are the holes? If they're too close to weld or drill, maybe you could slot the base.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I agree that welding on the receiver ring is worrying, and at the very least should only be done with TIG. Even then it should be done with the barrel removed, and I would use piece of fireclay moulded into the threads, to make sure you don't end up with weld protruding into the threads. If you do, you would need that expensive barrel thread tap to clear the way for the barrel, and for plenty of other actions there isn't one. If you do have the tap, the best way to use it is to screw it home before doing the weld, so that any protrusion is into one of the flutes.

Remember, if you weld with the barrel in place, only a few hundredth of an inch at the unseen bottom of that weld make the difference between not strengthening the receiver all it could, and leaving a really bad job for whoever tries to rebarrel that rifle someday.

I wouldn't worry about one hole showing the barrel threads, or even going slightly into them. The threads are all-round grooves in the barrel anyway, and thickness there isn't at all critical, especially with the large ring Mauser size of thread. It is in the receiver ring that rifles fail, and I really wouldn't want more than two holes in it, welded or not.

The gunmaker base is surely a good idea, but I believe I would weld and redrill the Leupold base to suit the holes your receiver came with. That is only mild steel, and you can weld it any way you like, or even insert silver soldered plugs.

[justashooter]

speaking as a welding engineer and inspector with a strong background in metallurgy, I would never recommend welding on the front receiver ring. not even on an over-engineered gun like a k-98. this is just principle.

german K-98 are 1090 carbon steel that has been surface carburized. being junk metal with a designed hardness of less than 190 KSI, welding on them in extremely limited areas will result in small pockets of 135 KSI steel that partially fills drilled holes. this kind of repair is a stress riser, but the k-98 ring is thick enuf to tolerate it, generally. Czech, Swede, and Yugo mausers are a mix of 4340 and 4140 alloys, heat treated to 240 BHN, on average. welding on these receiver rings creates an even steeper stress gradient. Spanish mausers are 1060 (early) and better (post WW1). Belgian mausers are also better in later years, beginning with 1060 in the 1890's and winding up with 4140 or 4340 by 1920. so we see that the mauser design allows for 180 BHN when balanced with a 40 KSI cartridge. it needs to be 220 BHN or better when balanced with a 55 KSI cartridge for a similar safety margin.

in short, your bolt is held in battery by the lugs in front receiver ring. getting heat near these lugs (left and right sides) will soften them resulting in a progressive failure (setback resulting in harder to open bolt lock-up and slowly increasing headspace). heat on the top of the ring threatens dramatic failure (ring stretches and barrel walks forward till case wall fails with increasing headspace and subsequent venting destroys balance of gun), but only marginally so in a thick ring like a k-98. modern lightweight receivers on sporting rifles are much more risky to weld on.

so how much heat are we talking about? in 4140 and 4340 guns we are talking about 500* plus. in 1060-1090 guns we are talking about 350* and up.

[PaulG67]

I would not weld it or drill anymore holes in it, I would get a blank base and drill the holes to match.

[Goatwhiskers]

I once saw a 98 that Bubba had drilled all the way thru into the chamber, then mounted the scope. GW

[plainsman456]

I have had a few that were drilled off.
I just plugged the holes and used some green loctite,after it cured i filed flush the screws then drilled as needed.

They have not blowed up yet and were covered by the new bases.

[PAT303]

I would not weld it or drill anymore holes in it, I would get a blank base and drill the holes to match.
Absolutely,I've seen a mauser action that was drilled for one type of mount and then re-drilled for another,the ring split down the line of holes and put the scope into the forehead of the owner.I would not weaken the receiver ring any more than it is. Pat

[Ballistics in Scotland]

speaking as a welding engineer and inspector with a strong background in metallurgy, I would never recommend welding on the front receiver ring. not even on an over-engineered gun like a k-98. this is just principle.

german K-98 are 1090 carbon steel that has been surface carburized. being junk metal with a designed hardness of less than 190 KSI, welding on them in extremely limited areas will result in small pockets of 135 KSI steel that partially fills drilled holes. this kind of repair is a stress riser, but the k-98 ring is thick enuf to tolerate it, generally. Czech, Swede, and Yugo mausers are a mix of 4340 and 4140 alloys, heat treated to 240 BHN, on average. welding on these receiver rings creates an even steeper stress gradient. Spanish mausers are 1060 (early) and better (post WW1). Belgian mausers are also better in later years, beginning with 1060 in the 1890's and winding up with 4140 or 4340 by 1920. so we see that the mauser design allows for 180 BHN when balanced with a 40 KSI cartridge. it needs to be 220 BHN or better when balanced with a 55 KSI cartridge for a similar safety margin.

in short, your bolt is held in battery by the lugs in front receiver ring. getting heat near these lugs (left and right sides) will soften them resulting in a progressive failure (setback resulting in harder to open bolt lock-up and slowly increasing headspace). heat on the top of the ring threatens dramatic failure (ring stretches and barrel walks forward till case wall fails with increasing headspace and subsequent venting destroys balance of gun), but only marginally so in a thick ring like a k-98. modern lightweight receivers on sporting rifles are much more risky to weld on.

so how much heat are we talking about? in 4140 and 4340 guns we are talking about 500* plus. in 1060-1090 guns we are talking about 350* and up.

I agree with what you say about Mausers, but it is worth remembering that welding may be much more harmful with receivers made of alloy steel, such as is often used in investment castings, which are often used to produce the lightness you mention. Just as an experiment once, I joined two pieces of O1 tool steel together with small spots of weld. O1 air hardens, not as much as a proper air-hardening steel, but enough to be a nuisance in some situations. The weld broke out of the steel under levering stress which I am convinced similarly welded mild steel would have resisted, because the extremely local heat, quickly leached away into the rest of the metal, produced excessive local hardening.

The large ring Mauser is really a masterly piece of design, with just that little extra metal which made it immune, although built in mild steel, to anything like the occasional failures reported in Springfields of the old heat treatment. The Springfield problem is often overestimated, since failures weren't that numerous, and were usually in conjunction with some other factor. I would expect to find the odd failure in Mausers made of inferior or badly forged steel in wartime emergency conditions, often by contractors unused to the business. But I haven't heard of any general class of European Mausers which are inherently dangerous.

[justashooter]

I haven't heard of any general class of European Mausers which are inherently dangerous.

agreed that none of the mausers are inherently dangerous as a class, but worth noting is the softness of pre-1920 Spanish mausers, often resulting in lug set-back, especially when re-chambered to increased base pressure cartridges. I have also seen the occasional turk 1903 type and a few Yugo 1948 pattern with similar softness of action.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Here's a true tale for you. Back in about 1984 a friend brought in an 1893 model Spanish Mauser with Oviedo stamped on the receiver ring. It was a short rifle, not a carbine, and I don't know if it started out that way or if it was shortened by the Spanish--not really important to the story--but it was as-issued military and not sporterized. The complaint was that "It was hard to open the bolt on the last couple of shots. It kicked really hard, and I had to open the bolt with a piece of 2x4." No fired brass was supplied. So I opened and removed the bolt, then stuck my finger in to see if I could feel anything. It felt a bit rough inside the receiver ring, and as I looked at it under the bench light I at first couldn't understand what I was seeing, because I could see several streaks of pink on the top of the receiver ring. Then I realized that I was seeing my finger though three jagged cracks about an inch in length running almost the length of the receiver ring lengthwise, aligned with the barrel. A few days later the customer/friend picked up the rifle was shown the problem, was suitably shocked, and advised to hang it on the wall without a firing pin. I had removed the pin and gave it to him separately. About all the additional information I was able to glean was that the ammunition had been reloads supplied by his father-in-law, and that none remained as the customer had shot them all and disposed of the empties at the range. Father-in-law did have a bit of a local reputation for hot handloads. Conclusions--I don't know, could be that the ammo was grossly overloaded, or could be that the receiver was weak. Could also be that the receiver was amazingly strong to withstand repeated overloads. Could be that his father-in-law didn't like him!

[gwpercle]

Don't drill any more holes in that receiver...save the Leupold mount for another project and do as Paul suggests , get a blank base and drill the holes in it. Or find a base or bases that will allow use of the existing holes. 5 holes is enough !

[gnoahhh]

Here's a true tale for you. Back in about 1984 a friend brought in an 1893 model Spanish Mauser with Oviedo stamped on the receiver ring. It was a short rifle, not a carbine, and I don't know if it started out that way or if it was shortened by the Spanish--not really important to the story--but it was as-issued military and not sporterized. The complaint was that "It was hard to open the bolt on the last couple of shots. It kicked really hard, and I had to open the bolt with a piece of 2x4." No fired brass was supplied. So I opened and removed the bolt, then stuck my finger in to see if I could feel anything. It felt a bit rough inside the receiver ring, and as I looked at it under the bench light I at first couldn't understand what I was seeing, because I could see several streaks of pink on the top of the receiver ring. Then I realized that I was seeing my finger though three jagged cracks about an inch in length running almost the length of the receiver ring lengthwise, aligned with the barrel. A few days later the customer/friend picked up the rifle was shown the problem, was suitably shocked, and advised to hang it on the wall without a firing pin. I had removed the pin and gave it to him separately. About all the additional information I was able to glean was that the ammunition had been reloads supplied by his father-in-law, and that none remained as the customer had shot them all and disposed of the empties at the range. Father-in-law did have a bit of a local reputation for hot handloads. Conclusions--I don't know, could be that the ammo was grossly overloaded, or could be that the receiver was weak. Could also be that the receiver was amazingly strong to withstand repeated overloads. Could be that his father-in-law didn't like him!

Could be FIL and customer were idiots. Who in their right mind would continue firing a rifle if the bolt had to be pounded open with a 2x4???

[m.chalmers]

Don't weld the action. Silver solder is what you seek. But with a blank base you don't have to waste time or money.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Could be FIL and customer were idiots. Who in their right mind would continue firing a rifle if the bolt had to be pounded open with a 2x4???

Another possibility.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Don't weld the action. Silver solder is what you seek. But with a blank base you don't have to waste time or money.

It depends what you mean by silver solder. If you mean attaching a threaded in blanking screw with silver-bearing plumber's solder, which is about 5% silver and 95% tin, that is fine as a cosmetic measure, but will contribute nothing to strength of a receiver ring you plan to perforate with new holes. But most other silver solders melt at red heat, which is far too much.

[roysha]

What lefty o, PaulG67 and gwpercle said.

[justashooter]

agreed that most silver solders melt at 1150* and up. plumbers solders are 450* or thereabouts. either is hot enuf to mess with temper, and most soldering torches are indiscriminate with their heat by nozzle design.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

agreed that most silver solders melt at 1150* and up. plumbers solders are 450* or thereabouts. either is hot enuf to mess with temper, and most soldering torches are indiscriminate with their heat by nozzle design.

Yes, the heat would be much more widespread. I don't like doing it any way, but while 450 Fahrenheit shouldn't be too much for a receiver ring, overheating beyond that would be. At the very least you ought to do it with the barrel removed. A threaded in plug screw with the joint filled with epoxy and carbon black is very inconspicuous, but an extra hole still increases the chances of tearing along the dotted line.

A feeble advantage of MIG or TIG welding (though not enough in my opinion) would be the extreme localization of the heating. I still think the best way is to make a mount match the holes you have.

[justashooter]

A feeble advantage of MIG or TIG welding (though not enough in my opinion) would be the extreme localization of the heating. I still think the best way is to make a mount match the holes you have.

MIG in short bursts is a flash heat application, leaving behind an extreme grain structure differential in the heat affected zone underlying the weld bead interface, which is a severe stress riser. TIG with a small tungsten and minimal heat has an HAZ 3X the hole diameter when done by the most skilled, but the HAZ is somewhat tempered by the duration of the heat application. In either case what you have in way of a repair is structurally worse than the original defect, and generally will not re-blue evenly anyway, as the typical ER70 wire has different chemistry than a decent CNM alloy steel.

[jjnpg317]

After reading all your replies, I believe I'll dump the action, keep the nice stock, & look for another action and barrel. Safety is the issue with me now because my family would get the gun later. I don't want to hurt them. Thank you for your help !

[Ballistics in Scotland]

MIG in short bursts is a flash heat application, leaving behind an extreme grain structure differential in the heat affected zone underlying the weld bead interface, which is a severe stress riser. TIG with a small tungsten and minimal heat has an HAZ 3X the hole diameter when done by the most skilled, but the HAZ is somewhat tempered by the duration of the heat application. In either case what you have in way of a repair is structurally worse than the original defect, and generally will not re-blue evenly anyway, as the typical ER70 wire has different chemistry than a decent CNM alloy steel.

I didn't know the figures, but that would perfectly explain the way I described welds (made for experiment, fortunately) breaking out of O1 tool steel. I did get even bluing with Birchwood Casey Plum Brown, boiled to a warm black, when I MIG welded a new mild steel handle to an Enfield bolt, which I assume to be the same 3½% nickel steel as the receiver.

[Shiloh]

I once saw a 98 that Bubba had drilled all the way thru into the chamber, then mounted the scope. GW

Unbelievable but believable. Some people are just natural Darwin Award candidates.

Shiloh