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Joined: 03 Feb 2008 Posts: 830 Location: Adirondak Mtns

I’m looking to rebarrel a Mauser action and need a competent gun smith , hopefully, in the northeast. Any suggestions are wrlocome.

Thanks

Joe

16 gauge? GECO mauser?

Single barrel trap?
https://www.gunsinternational.com/guns-for-sale-online/shotguns/mauser-shotguns/mauser-bauer-model-496-single-barrel-trap-12-gauge.cfm?gun_id=102345439

I have a stock and forend for one Smile

Member Joined: 31 Aug 2005 Posts: 1257 Location: Nebraska

https://precisionrifleworks.com/about

Tyler Weaver can do up your Mauser, or should be able to.

Joined: 03 Feb 2008 Posts: 830 Location: Adirondak Mtns

I’ll give Tyler a call. It’s a rifle mike but thanks for the reply too.

Joe

My three more modern mauser rifles are

Original Haenel 98 now in 6mm Rem
Churchill 1 of 1000 in 30-06
98 in 222 Remington with special bolt face

Member Joined: 27 Jun 2012 Posts: 1114

I also like the old Mausers. I have a Columbian M-98 sporterized in 280 Ackley Improved that has been my primary big game rifle for the last 30 years. I also have commercial Mauser actioned rifles in 30-338 Mag and 338 Win Mag. The old warhorses still get the job done quite nicely. The 338 Mag is an FN Mauser and the 30-338 Mag is a Mark X. I also have a vintage 22-250 Ackley Improve built on an FN Mauser Benchrest (single shot) action and topped with a Unertl Ultra Varmint 15X scope.

Member Joined: 31 Aug 2005 Posts: 1257 Location: Nebraska

Joined: 12 Sep 2010 Posts: 1973 Location: Maine

I'm currently working on one of my own. I have a Belgian-proofed commercial 98 action, bought a Shaw's barrel, and got a nice 60s-vintage semi-inlet stock. Possibly a Bishop. Going to come out in 7x57.
This will keep me occupied, especially since I have to rework the stock a little. It's in the 1960s, rollover comb and white-line spacer (real holly wood, not plastic) paradigm and I'm a lefty. That comb will bite if not smoothed out.
If I remember, I'll do a photo essay.

Oddly, Dave in Maine, I'm doing something very similar. Currently, as part of my self education on my lathe and mill, I'm re-barreling a really nice M93 Mauser in it's original caliber 7x57, and will, of course, put on new wood of my manufacture also. Additionally, I have an FN M98 (J.C. Higgins Model 50) currently in .30-06, which I intend to re-barrel in .280 Rem, and re-stock. I'm still riding the fence on whether to go the Ackley Improved route on that. I guess I'm kinda stuck on .284. Wink

I know some will wonder why anyone would spend so much as a nickle improving an M93, but this one is such a nicely made gun, the action length is particularly designed for the 7x57 , and I'm that kind of fool. By the way, this gun came to me as one of the many M93 and M95 carbines that were somewhat crudely sporterized by chopping off the forward part of the stock, removing the handguard over the barrel, and then refinishing the wood. Since these guns and the 7x57 cartridge were thought to be obsolete after the '50's, even in South and Central America, the Carribbean, as well as in SE Asia, the arms dealers had tons of them they could not sell. Many of these guns were then given this "sporter" treatment by some company, and sold cheap. A lot of the barrels had already been eroded from corrosive primed ammo, so they did not have a good reputation as shooters - some were good, some bad. Mine was bad. It looked great on the outside, though! Laughing

By the way, this particular M93 (verified from its markings) was one of those made under contract for the Orange Free State to use against the British in what we now know as the Second Boer War (1899 to 1902). The British had blockaded the two rebellious Boer Republics (Orange Free State and the South African Republic), so this batch of M93's never made it to the Boers. It was returned to Mauser (DWM) who later re-marked it and sold it to Chile. It has really nicely finished parts, and finish-wise, it is the equal of any commercial post-war Mauser -- miles better than any military Mauser of any version I have seen, except, perhaps some Swede M94's and 96's. Those Swedes are not any stronger or better in any way to the M93's and 95's, unless you just have to have a 6.5x55 -- which is a pretty damn versatile and effective cartridge, I should say.

Cheers!

Member Joined: 27 Jun 2012 Posts: 1114

Interesting conversation on the older Mausers. Earlier this year I had a customer bring in a really nice M-94 sporterized with the factory barrel reworked to octagonal and an exceptionally well done Mannlicher stock. Unfortunately, the bore scope revealed the darkest, ugliest pitted bore I've seen in a long time. We discussed re-boring the original barrel, but none of the suitable caliber options appealed to the customer. We finally settled on a McGowen barrel #3 contour that would clean up the original barrel channel and chambered in 250-3000 (250 Savage). He wanted a cock on opening conversion done and the original gun had the bolt handle modified for low scope and the receiver drilled and tapped. When the gun was finished, I made up some feeding dummy cartridges and was amazed the gun fed them better than the 7X57 rounds. It was kinda sad that someone had put that much effort into building a pretty nice gun with such a bad bore. I'm a firm believer in the value of a good bore scope to prevent sinking money into a project doomed to failure.

.250-3000??!! Sorry, but what the heck for! That crippled cartridge, made for the Savage 99, has just about nothing going for it. Why not a .257 Bob as it has a lot more capability than the .250-3000, and being simply a necked-down 7x57, would feed like a champ in those mid-length Mauser actions of the 93 through 96, with no mods whatsoever. Frankly, as long as the barrel was being changed out, it would have been just as easy to keep it a 7x57, which is a much more capable cartridge than the .257 Roberts -- not that I have anything against "The Bob", except it rides the fence between being the varminter at it was conceived, and a decent deer/antelope gun. Then again, if de-boring the gun was desirable, presumably for more varmint hanky-panky, how about the .244 Rem -- frankly a lot better cartridge than the .250-3000, and also, just another necked-down 7x57.

The best thing about the .250 Savage (.250-3000), other than fitting the Savage 99, which was conceived a little less than a century and a half ago, and was only made long enough for the .303 Savage, as well as the equally ancient .30-30 and .25-35 Winchester, and .22 Hi-Power, was that it begat the .22-250, a really great .224 caliber round. Even the .300 Savage, their "modernization attempt", was so capacity restricted as to keep the short-actioned Model 99 ghetto-ized in "woods gun" category -- not that that is a bad thing, for a lever gun. I acknowledge everything has it's place . . . and I do appreciate the 99's as a clean looking, distinctive, "traditional" gun, as they have decent characteristics for the circumstances for which they were designed. You just can't hot-rod them beyond what they basically are, though, and I cannot figure out why anyone would chamber any other action in rounds as restricted in capacity and performance as the .300 and .250 Savage are, when the .308 Win and the .257 Bob or 6.5x55 or the 7x57, or even, God forbid, the 7-08 and the .260 Rem are perfect fits and still easy to get ammo for.

Cheers!

Member Joined: 27 Jun 2012 Posts: 1114

Joined: 08 Feb 2009 Posts: 1310 Location: Western WA

As long as we are venturing afar from 16 ga topics, if you like adapting Mausers, then definitely take a look at Nathan Foster’s articles. He has a remarkable career as guide and pro hunter in NZ and has recorded many thousands of head of game taken. He analyzes new and older cartridges from a scientific perspective, and has arrived at some rather uncomfortable, and in some cases shocking findings. His analysis of the .250 is at https://www.ballisticstudies.com/Knowledgebase/.250-3000.250+Savage.html. He also has a very comprehensive analysis of the .257 Roberts https://www.ballisticstudies.com/Knowledgebase/.257+Roberts.html. After studying his material and consulting with him, I’ve had to rethink my rifle usage.

V/R
B.

Member Joined: 31 Aug 2005 Posts: 1257 Location: Nebraska

Have to stay far from 16ga issues, Tony's disappointed you can't hot rod a .250 in a M99, how do you think he feels about the lack of commonly available 3" shells to hot rod our favorite shotguns? Wink

I'm not a big Mauser fan, but finding a cheap Interarms Mark X at a gun show I used it for my class project. I chose .300 Savage for the chambering, didn't find a spacer block for the shorter case so the follower is full length. Feeds fine as a .300, often a case will drop from the grip of the extractor when drawn back to manually remove it rather than using the ejector. Not a big deal. 150gr and 165gr at 2700fps have shot well, only deer was a doe at just over 300 yards with a 150gr Sierra BTSP.

.250 is easily hotrodded in a non-lever gun, mine's an AI on a 700 ADL action I had made 20 years ago. 2900fps with 120gr bullets, the Sierra data says it can go 2950 but I didn't push it. The gun follows the Sierra data very closely with light bullets, 87gr TNT at just under 3350fps. 100gr I can get over 3000, but the bullets I use in that weight don't reach the manual's listed speeds. They work, even at that.

I shoot high power silhouette with my deer rifles, haven't hit 7 rams but did have 4 hits on them as a best, using a .270 and 140gr bullets. We often hang our rams as the wind never seems to stop and they topple easily. A buddy has gone over to .243W and 105gr bullets, I figure they'll knock over rams pretty easily when we have a calm enough day to set them out.

This past year Midway USA put their stainless .25-06 Shilen Mauser 98 prefit barrels on big discount, I picked one up and rented a finish reamer from 4D. Hornady ELD-X 110gr ammo shoots very well and gave me some brass, being impatient enough I resized and trimmed about 60 pieces of .270W brass and have started in on it. Takes a lot of pressure off the heavy use the .250AI was getting, having seen its throat with a borescope, this was overdue.