1908 DWM action problem on a custom rifle

[eka]

I recently acquired a custom .375 Winchester rifle on a 1908 DWM action. The guy I got it off of was a former gun dealer and gun store owner. He acquired the rifle several years ago, while in business. He put the gun up and never messed with it. He said the story that came with the gun was that the rifle would not chamber a round and you would have to tap the action open, if you did manage to. He said he didn't know what the problem was, but thought it a headspace problem possibly. Well, I got the rifle from the guy for a steal, figuring the action was worth what I paid for it. I took the rifle home and using blown out 30WCF case (length: 2.005) that I use in my 38-55, I tried to chamber the empty case. I dropped the case into the chamber, and tried to close the bolt. The bolt extractor would not go over the lip of the case and therefore the bolt would not close. I retrieved my rod and tapped the case out. I removed the bolt and slid the case under the extractor and all looked well, it appeared the bolt head was of the correct size. With the case held in place on the front of the bolt by the extractor, I installed the bolt back into the rifle and the bolt closed effortlessly and opened the same way. I pulled the bolt all the way to the rear and off flew the case. It appears to my untrained eye, that the problem may be simply the extractor. What do you guys with Mauser action experience think.

Now, for the good news. The barrel is a McGowen and is in excellent ++ condition. It slugs at .374 is a 1 in 13 right hand twist. The action is bedded and looks to have been done very well. The barrel is floated in a walnut stock with above average grain. The finish is just average and will need a new finish to show off the nice stock. There is no butt plate or pad on the rifle. I cleaned the barrel and it was slick. I didn't get a drop of copper out of it. I have to wonder if it has ever been fired. The trigger is crisp and breaks around two pounds.

So, lets hear some ideas on the chambering issue.

Thanks,

Keith

[badgeredd]

I can think of 2 things that would/could cause the problem you desribed.

First, the extractor could be too long and when the shell is in position it forces the extractor out some to cause an interference situation.

Second and more likely, the cutout relief area for the extractor in the barrel face doesn't allow the extractor to truly clear the inside of the action adequately.

Just a couple guesses based on building a 375 Winchester in a Mauser 98 action myself.

Good luck....

Edd

PS...One might use some prussian blue on the front of the bolt to see if the extractor is crushing into the face of the barrel.

[waksupi]

I'd agree that there is no clearance for the extractor to over ride the rim. Very common on Mauser rifles, as this is something that has to be done extra. Mausers should feed from the magazine, with forceful bolt manipulation. No sneaking rounds out of the magazine and sliding them home slowly. That ain't how they were designed to work.

[Morgan Astorbilt]

This is a controlled feed action. The cartridge is supposed to slip under the extractor as it rises from the magazine, as it's pushed forward by the bolt. This rise is controlled by the cutout in the action rails, which act like the lips on a sheet metal magazine liner. They probably have to be cut out a little, due to the longer distance to the case shoulder. For these claw extractors to slip over a round already chambered, the front has to have a good bevel.
Morgan

[eka]

Wow, what have I gotten myself into here. I pushed an RCBS .375 boolit into one of the cases and tried chambering from the magazine. Man, these babies are pretty short in that mag well. I was able to get one to chamber a couple of times when I came forward forcefully. But, most of the time, the cartridge was pushed up and off to the left into the lug recess. The nose of the boolit was battered as you can imagine. The extractor did slid up onto the rim a few times, but mostly not.

Does this setup sound like an ill conceived idea somebody had, or could a good gunsmith straighten this thing out? I really liked the idea of this caliber in a rifle like this, but now I'm wondering.

Keith

[bruce drake]

Waksupi and Morgan have identified what I would have suggested as well. It's an easy fix for your gunsmith since it sounds like you are just starting to mess with Mausers.

You can probably clean the bevel on the Claw Extractor yourself. Just have a spare available if you mess up the first one. It's part of learning how to do your own maintenance.

"Measure Twice, Cut/File Once"

Bruce

[bruce drake]

You can buy a poly Magazine well filler block from Numrich that you can file to fit your magazine area in the front or rear area. Put it in Front if you intend to use stripper clips - make sure you rasp a channel in the top to help guide the bullet up into the chamber. Put it in back to just fill the difference between the .375 and the rest of the magazine area. THat should help with the case size difference.

Bruce

[eka]

Yeah, Bruce this is kinda new ground for me. I have a 24/47 Yugo, but no experience with rifles built using an old mauser action. I guess I'm gonna get an education on this one though. You know, I don't think anyone ever got this thing off the ground and there's probably good reason the barrel had no copper in it. Probably never had one go down the tube.

Keith

[bruce drake]

You are stepping into a fun world.

"Measure twice and cut once" probably the best advice my Dad ever gave me.

Take your time and you'll get it done right. Doing something twice just removes the profit margin from your life whether its time or money.

Bruce

[Bret4207]

I'd relieve the bottom of the extractor a bit to start with. Several of the old gunsmithing books cover extractor tweaking. Try Dunlaps to start with. All I can say if you need to take that crescent shape and sort of bevel the bottom off from 7:00 to about 8:30 as you look at it. If you bevel the face and relieve it a bit most extractors will snap over the rim as it chambers. Depends on how your's is fit though.

[NoDakJak]

A number of years ago there was a very active benchrest club here and the 219 Donaldson Wasp was a very popular cartridge for that purpose. The Wasp was formed from 30.30 brass and was usually fired in 98 Mauser actions. A couple of the old timers have told me that they turned the 30.30 rims down to standard 30.06 diameter and then fine tuned the extractor lip. Is the barrel actually stamped as being chambered for the 375 Winchester? If not I would advise a chamber cast before going any farther. If it has been chambered to something else you could have a rude shock upon firing the first round. Re-chambering to the 9.5x57 would cure most of your problems as the cartridge was designed for this action. simply run 8x57 brass through the 9.5 full length die, trim and you are in business. Dies are a bit speny but are vailable. Neil

[eka]

Thanks for all the help guys. I hate to be such a bonehead about this thing, but this is kinda new ground for me.

Now, the first photo is the extractor face of the 1908 action

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii255/donquijote_photos/Shooting%20Photos/DSC_0440.jpg

This second photo is the extractor of my Yugo 24/47. I can drop a round in the chamber and the bolt hooks up without a hitch, so I thought I'd look at it. When I compared the two, it appears to me that this one has a bevel very similar to what it sounds like you guys are talking about.

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii255/donquijote_photos/Shooting%20Photos/DSC_0441.jpg

Is this kinda what I'm shooting for as far as the bevel?

Bret, when you say relieve the extractor, are you talking about removing metal between the boltface and the extractor to increase the gap to except a thicker rim?

As far as the caliber, it is marked .375 Winchester and made by McGowen. It slugs at .374, so I think I'm OK there.

You guys were right on the money here. Just want to be clear before I start taking metal off of anything.

Thanks

Keith

[Buckshot]

..............Relieving the extractor is as you supposed. Relieving the backside (area on the backside of the claw. The rim has to WANT to slide up between the boltface and rear of the claw. Feeding problems are to be expected. Stand an 8x57, 7x57, or 7.65x53 up next to the 375 Win. Those slender BN cases were what the action was designed to feed. You will now have to alter the action for the shape of the new cartridge. It's all about angles.

Do NOT do any filing or grinding on the feed ramp to any extent as that is the shoulder for the right bolt lug. Ideally, as you push the bolt forward the bottom of the bolt pushes on the back of a case on the rim. About the time the bullet nose contacts the ramp, the base of the cartridge pops free of the magazine and is captured between the boltface and the extractor. Two things cause this. One is the shape in the underside of the action rails, and the other is the upward pressure of the lifter.

With the BN cases when the base pops up and is captured, due to their smaller forward OD and long(ish) pointy bullets they're well and truly funneled into the breech. The 375 Win is essencially the same OD from stem to stern in addition to being shorter in OAL. Best deal is to make up 4 or 5 dummy rounds with jacketed bullets as they'll get beat up. You'll have to spend some amount of time watching what's happening as you slowly work the bolt forward. You'll have to watch those feeding from the right AND the left side of the magazine.

Be sure you fully understand what is happening and where before you begin to do any grinding to the feed rails. There may be an easier way, and if there is I don't know it. This is exactly what I had to do with my MAS36 conversion to 45-70. That was a radical cartridge shape change. The one thing that helped to make it less then a career was the fact there was no lug recess the cartridges had to break over. Since it locked up at the rear the breech was right there at the end of the magazine.

.................Buckshot

[Bret4207]

eka- As you look at the extractor pic on your 375- First, as Buck says, make sure there is clearance for the rim between the bolt face and rear side of extractor. This space isn't going to be real tight, there should be a bit of play. Assuming that's okay check to see if the extractor is giving the rim enough room to fit within the boltface itself. If it's too tight a fit you'llhave a hard time getting it to feed well. If the extractor has enough clearance to let the rim fit easily within the bolt face, then you'll need to look at the bottom inside corner of the extractor, about the 6:30 position in your pic. This may need some beveling to allow the case to slip in under the extractor as it feeds. I'd also check to see just how much of the rim is being held by the extractor as it looks to me like it could use a little more of a crescent shape, but without having it in my hand it's hard to judge.

To get it to snap over a chambered round, not one out of the mag, depends on the chambering since a rimmed cartridge sits differently than a rimless. There may or may not be clearance to allow that. I'd worry about getting it to feed before I'd look at that area.

This is hard to explain and I hope I didn't confuse you.

[Hackleback]

mausers are desinged to feed rimless rounds. The 375 win has a rim. This may be your problem. I think that before you start grinding on your gun, I would take a couple of rounds and trim the rim off or nearly off and se how they feed. Brass is cheap and plentiful; gun parts are not. Note: I am not a gunsmith, but have dabbled with mausers a bit.

[waksupi]

Another little trick. Remove the extractor from the bolt. Lay it curve up on a flat surface, and give it a whack with a rawhide mallet to straighten the thing out a bit. It doesn't need a lot of tension to do it's job. Some are real tight to the body, and this can let them work a little easier.

[Buckshot]

.................Several years back I bought a beautimus all matching (inc matched cleaning rod) 1891 Argentine from a friend of Scroungers. Since we were 'gun guys' we got to yaking and he showed me a few of his. One of them was a VZ24 that looked totally military but had been re-barreled and chambered to ..................30-30, ha :-)! An uncommon (rather then odd) choice to rebarrel a bolt action to, and then to keep it all military to boot. I don't recall the details of it but he didn't do the rebarrel job, but may have done the bench work to get it to perk. I do remember him saying it worked like a champ, and it turned the old 30-30 into a totally different cartidge.

...............Buckshot

[Bret4207]

As far as feeding goes, I would secure at least one other spare follower and try modding the follower with JB Weld or something like that, or grinding, to work the feed. I wouldn't touch the feed ramp unless you see tool marks, etc, and then I'd be slow and careful and polish only. Ric mention tension and that's a good thought. The extractor can be so stiff it'll force the rim away I should think. You'll need to take a hard look at the clearance of the extractor when it's in battery, there may not be enough room to snap over a chambered cartridge.

I'm pretty sure you can get this working. I had a Siamese Mauser in 45-70 (NEVER should have sold it!!!) that fed perfectly with everything. Other than the altered follower I don't recall any major differences with a standard 98.

[waksupi]

Unless you remove the barrel, and relieve the chamber mouth where the extractor contacts, You will end up breaking the extractor. As was previously said. Mausers feed from the magazine.

[eka]

You know guys, I think Neil may have had the answer all along. He suggested a re-chamber, which was in a different direction than I initially wanted to go. But, the more I have studied on this thing, he may be right. Look, I went the gunstore the other day to pick up a $5.00 item and this thing called out to me from the rack. The caliber really caught my eye as well as the action. I figured this baby would be good to go and maybe I could have it ready by rifle season this year. That wasn't the case and it now appears I have bought someone else's headache. But, truth told, I have more than my share of woods rifles now, including a nice old Winchester 38-55 and a Marlin1894 in .44 mag. I'm not stuck on the .375 Winchester, I like it, but I'm not married to it. This may be the time and the platform for a big bore cast boolit shooter with a little more gitty-up. So, my thoughts are moving toward a future project in which to waste more of my hard earned cash for a gun I need like another hole in my head.:-D I'm thinking about making this into a wildcat Mauser build and I really would like your thoughts and input. Also, in order to facilitate more responses, I'm going to start a new thread with a more appropriate title. (I think there was one very similar recently. But, so as not to hi-jack, I'll do another if you will indulge me.)
Again, thanks to all that responded for your helpful comments and lending me a hand.

Keith

[Hackleback]

I think that your 375-06 idea is the way to go..........