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Taylor
08-27-2022, 07:53 AM
Some of you may remember I had posted about being given a Portuguese capture mauser 98. Well..I've started gathering up my parts for restoration. It was in bad shape, barrel was toast and the stock was cut up to be a sporter..I guess. Got a stock from Boyd's, a Timney trigger with safety. And a barrel (30 cal) from Brownell's. Also picked up a bolt shroud to replace the bolt safety. Turns out I have to replace the floor plate and spring..it had broken and had been welded...they made a mess of that.

I wanted to chamber it in .308...cause I ain't got one. Now on re-thinking that. It's a large ring, will a 308 fit OK? Will there be chambering issue's? Cycling and etc.?

Along with putting a scope on it, I want sights on the barrel, just ain't made up my mind what I want yet.

Another issue is a good gunsmith. The one I always used passed away a couple of years ago. He was damn good. Knew his stuff. Yes there are "smith's" around. Most all put together AR's. The way I see it, anyone whoever humped one, can put one together.

I don't have any before pics, but there will be after pics. I'ma workin on it.

Moleman-
08-27-2022, 08:55 AM
308 usually can be made to work. A block to take up the extra mag space may be needed. The other common mods are the magazine which may need widened at the case shoulder to keep the cases flat so that the bolt doesn't pass over the base, and feed lip mods if you still can't get it to feed. I'm rebarreling a sewer pipe barrel Yugo M48 at the moment. Initially it wouldn't feed 308 ,sort of single stack at shoulder enough to let the 4th and 5th rounds base drop low enough the bolt wouldn't pick it up. It had the stamped magwell so it was an easy fix to spread the shoulder area out slightly to let the cases stack correctly. Ended up going with an original unissued NOS 8mm barrel over the 308. Keep forgetting to order the headspace gauges to see if I'll need a reamer or not. Make up 5 dummy rounds, stack them at the rear of the magwell and see if they'll strip out of the magazine and start to feed into the barrel or not. They won't chamber of course, but you're looking to see if they start to enter the chamer or not. If they do, you can likely rebarrel the rifle yourself. Old school gunsmiths are harder to find v/s parts changers depending on where you're at. The semi retired guy I'ved used the past 12 years totally retired and moved up north. Some LR mausers have an extractor cut (like the M48) and require a little more work. If your current action doesn't have the extractor cut in the barrel, you can get a short chambered barrel, screw it in yourself, set headspace, soft solder on front and rear sight bases and then rust blue. The action wrench can be made fairly easily, the barrel vise is a little harder to make, but can be made or bought reasonably.

725
08-27-2022, 08:59 AM
.308 is a good choice. Many convert to .30-06, but the mag well length limits the over all length of the cartridge. You won't have that issue with .308. Besides, the .308 is a marvelous cartridge that many under-rate. I took one to Africa (the only caliber I took) and everything I hunted went down cleanly with one shot. Can't beat that!

Texas by God
08-27-2022, 09:07 AM
The last Mauser 98 that I rebarreled to .308 worked perfectly with no modification. It was a Turk 98/22.
Before that I rebarreled a VZ24 to 22-250 and it worked perfectly as well.
I was lucky both times, I figure.
Nothing set in stone in Mauser World.
I'm looking forward to seeing your project- I love this stuff.

Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk

405grain
08-27-2022, 09:40 AM
I built two Mauser 98's in 308. One cycled perfectly with no modifications, the other required extensive work. You won't know if it will work until you try it.

LAGS
09-03-2022, 12:34 PM
I bought several Trashed Yugo Mauser 24/47's to build in .308.
They all worked great with the shorter cartridge in the shorter Mauser action.
I built one in .257 Roberts.
On that one I did have to use a different follower to get it to feed when working the bolt slower like you do when you are hunting.

JoeJames
09-03-2022, 03:04 PM
I kind of lucked out ages ogo. I came up with a Model 43 Spanish Mauser (also called the Mauser standard model) which had been re barreled by Spain to 7.62 NATO. Bore was good, and I had my gunsmith cut the barrel down to 20" and turn the barrel down to take out the normal steps on it, drill and tap the receiver for scope mounts, bought a 3 - 9x scope, replaced the bolt handle with an FN commercial type bolt handle, put a Timney Featherweight deluxe trigger w/ safety on it, got an FN Bolt shroud to replace the safety, and a Bell and Carson synthetic stock. I did not have much in the 43 to start with but after all of that work probably had $450 in it. This was in the mid 90's. But I have killed more than my share of deer with it.

303889

wilecoyote
09-03-2022, 05:22 PM
if you're interested in comprehensive and in-depth answers to all your questions above, this is THE book.303892

Shiloh
09-03-2022, 08:03 PM
"Turns out I have to replace the floor plate and spring it had broken and had been welded...they made a mess of that."

Geeezzz...... I have seen Bubba'd repairs.
Yes you can put a .308 barrel on it. The rim diameters are very close. Mauser case is a hair more than .250"

Shiloh