Ulav8r ill go back and try to find it again .
Ulav8r ill go back and try to find it again .
I see at the top and bottom the indentation , if that is more than a few thousandth is it considered unsafe ?
Not necessarily unsafe, but it needs to be fixed if possible. The lug seating area needs to be cut flat and then checked for hardness. Most likely it will need to be re-heat treated by one of the few companies that offer heat treating of military surplus actions, such as Blanchards in SLC. There was one in Denver in the mid-70's, but I never knew their name.
If the action was sufficiently hard the lugs should not have set back. As I said, not necessarily unsafe but it can\will make the bolt hard to open after firing as the bolt has to force the expanded case into the chamber to gain clearance. At CST in the 70's, all Mauser actions brought in by customers were re-heat treated. If a student brought in their own action to work own, they were required to check the lug seat if they did not want to heat treat.
Last edited by ulav8r; 04-06-2018 at 03:41 PM. Reason: darn typos, mis-spelling
I think others may jump in here with advice as well on barrel cleaning. With a good cleaning, you may find a barrel that shoots cast boolits very well. The secret is a clean barrel. Some of these military rifles have lots of copper in them and it will take some effort to get it out. Over the years, I have used an electronic system to remove it, compounds such as Sweets and a common ammonia cleaned that was pulled up into the barrel as a cleaning patch was moved up and down. Method depended on how bad the copper filing was. The old powder residue can be a task in its own right and lots of solvent cleaning may be needed before you start to clean the copper out. At the end of the day, you may end up with a clean barrel that is dark or somewhat pitted. But that does not mean it will not shoot cast boolits well. Sometimes you can get very lucky.
I finally picked it up yesterday evening , but after work I was to beat to do anything except look it over a bit . I will try to get some pictures . Seams whoever had it previously did their best to take care of it .
First trip out today i ran a couple 5 shot group's with jacket bullets at lowest book charge - the 120 gr Hornady loads were a complete failure , but the Hornady 154 gr were not to bad . I sorta expected that outcome with .284 sized jacket bullets but the good news is the cast boolits a kind member sent me did pretty good to start with . I just loaded up a few rounds with 10 grain of unique to get the feel of them , and i could probably cover the group with a clay pigeon at 100 yards . So I'm going to play with it for a little while before I decide what to do about the barrel , but the cut up wood is going to be replaced rather soon . Anyway here is what it looks like .
It looks to have potential. 10 shots in a clay bird at 100 is a good start. How about close ups?
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I ordered a Ramline or its Champion now plastic stock and a Timmy 2-4 lb trigger that came in Friday , I'm not shore what I am going to do about the barrel yet it seams to have strong riffing so I am going to give it a whole hearted try before changing it . It's going to be a ongoing project so I'm going to relax and enjoy tinkering with this old mauser .
Well I finally got back to shooting my 7x57 , and I ran into a problem I had completely forgotten about .
When I first took it out for a try the scope was cranked all the way UP and all the way to the LEFT . With the adjustments maxed out it was still not even close , but I just wanted to shoot a few groups so I left it alone and tried it . I completely forgot about this until yesterday when I mounted the scope back on the rifle and took it out back to sight it in .
I took the scope off this past spring thinking it was the problem and mounted it on a side mount lever action to check it's adjustments . I had completely forgotten about it wile having a good time playing with my 30-30 . Now I'm happy with my cast loads in my trusty 30-30 so I removed the side mount to install a Redfield sight on the lever action . Now due to the offset scope mount on a top eject lever rifle I decided to center the adjustments before mounting the scope on the mauser completely forgetting the past adjustment issue .
It took a couple rounds through the mauser before it came back to me - with the scope adjustments centered it's kicking dirt off to the right in front of the target at 50 yards completely missing a 3x3 ft piece of cardboard .
So yesterday I spent the day fiddling with assorted materials to shim the base + work out the windage issues . I'm going to give it a try latter today .
The shim got the elevation worked out , but I'm only half way done with the windage , but at least it's on a regular sheet of paper now at a 100 yards .
I have had a couple rifles drilled and tapped for mounting a scope in the past that turned out just like this one .
I bought a K98 Mauser action, a used Bishop stock, and an unfired Zastava M70 take -off barrel in .308Win. Threaded the barrel into the action and torqued it, checked headspace with go and no-go gauges, it was perfect.
Installed the Bishop stock with the trigger guard that came with the action, perfect fit.
Action was already drilled and tapped. Installed a one piece Leupold base and a Leupold 3x9x40 VX-II. Bore sighted scope.
Grabbed a box of Winchester PSP 150 grain and proceeded to put 10 just under 3/4" @100 yds.
What are the odds?
My point is, this does not NECESSARILY have to be a big deal.
You should order one of the six cavity "soup can" molds from Midsouth. I've shot a bunch of those in my 7x57 with good results using 10 grains of Green Dot and, since I ran out of Green Dot, 10 grains of 700X. I size mine to .287, and that barely polishes the sides of ones that drop from my mold. Good bullet and with a six cavity aluminum mold, you can stack up a lot of them quickly.
Here it is - SciFiJim saved it for us.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ruvrr88tz3...__M96.pdf?dl=0
The insulated state in which nature has placed the American continent should so far avail it that no spark of war kindled in the other quarters of the globe should be wafted across the wide oceans which separate us from them." -- Thomas Jefferson
Now I lay me down to sleep
A gun beside me is what I keep
If I awake, and you're inside
The coroner's van is your next ride
pressonregardless, Thanks for the link.
NOE 291-170 FN sized at .289 I keep banging my head against the wall trying to make lighter cast boolits shoot good . I run into all sorts of problems mostly from my own decisions like sizing to .289 to fill the bore - just barely sizes the gas checks enough to hold them on when sizing them through my magma sizer without the lube pushing the checks off .
The easiest thing for me to do would be heavy cast boolits , or barrel change , but I do things wrong or harder over and over just to prove to myself I'm thick headed . It's for fun right !
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |