Wanting to Build Custom Mauser

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jmar

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I don't want to necessarily build a Mauser but I couldn't really think of any other action to start with and I want something cheap and unique which is why I'm not going with a R700. So here's one of the potential actions I might use, I've heard really good and also bad things about it which I why I'm asking for 2nd opinions on what to use. http://www.e-sarcoinc.com/dumoulin-mauser-action.aspx

Is there any other good actions to start with? From my research this is the only one still sold that is not $1000. I want it to have the flats on top so I can mount a rail as it will be a long range rifle and I should also mention the caliber I'm planning on going with is .308. As I said I don't think there are any still sold commercially but there's always quite a few sporterized Mausers for around $400 on sites like Gunbroker and I thought maybe some of you would know what to look for for a high quality receiver. I'm new to Mausers so researching them is a very overwhelming.

And for the 2nd part of my question, I'm going to be changing the Mauser to take a detachable box mag, there are companies like PTG that make conversions but they use long action AICs mags which are made for the 300WM. So if I went for that bottom metal/mag combo could a .308 feed in a 300WM magazine? If not I will have to build my own magazine system and use .308 mags which I'm not opposed to. But I would need help selecting a .308 mag to use which I'm thinking of using AICS .308 mags if they will fit in the existing mag box or AR10 mags if they wont.
 
you will have your work cut out for you if you go the route your talking about. after having had custom rifles built for myself 40-45 years ago when things were much cheaper, I think you are looking at spending more money then you think. good luck. eastbank.
 
Monitor the gun auctions, not only the pedestrian sites like Gun Broker , but the auction houses, Julias, etc.

Let the OTHER guy build the gun, spend the money, then in typical Custom gun sales....You buy it for fifty cents or less on the Dollar.

Here is a formula that has ALWAYS seemed to work out in the past fifty years anyway; Custom= Lose $

Good Luck.
 
Thanks for your concerns but I'm looking for a gunsmithing project not a custom gun. It's the journey not the destination for me, and I like tactical style guns and 99.9% of the customs for sale are hunting style rifles. The price won't be too bad, if I get the receiver I linked the total price should not be over $1000 considering I do most if not all the work myself.
 
You'll find something suitable. I just found a 98 mauser custom rifle in 257 roberts for $300 at my lgs. Not the best job, but not done in the garage. I'm in California, and this is probably one of the most expensive states to buy firearms just keep looking.
 
you will have your work cut out for you if you go the route your talking about. after having had custom rifles built for myself 40-45 years ago when things were much cheaper, I think you are looking at spending more money then you think. good luck. eastbank.
Got to go with Eastbank on this. I love the 98 Mauser actions, but if I was to put a semi-custom together I would look at a Howa. You have modern metallurgy and a refined mauser action, plus Royal or Boyd's have some semi-inletted stocks. Royal has some really nice wood available if you have a desire for a gorgeous stock. Then you have to get it finished and find someone who is a decent hand at checkering.

I tried to crunch numbers once for a project like you suggest, but with only my wife and I working we couldn't come up with the funds.:rofl:
 
maybe take a look at the cz-550 rifles and the mark 10 interarms mausers. how ever its your dollar, so have at it. eastbank.
 
I have been sporterizing Mausers for 52 years.
When they had real gun shows in this state, up until Nov 2014, I would buy Mausers that had been done poorly. I could see what good parts were left.
The easiest thing to fix and most common show stopper was "could not get to sight in" as the scope bases were not parallel with the bore.
 
Like most of your threads, your OP has many indicators such this project already seems beyond you. You have a fundamental lack of understanding, on multiple levels.

1) Custom Mausers were the rage before the Rem 700 was a gleam in someone's eye, and still a very popular option, since base mausers are still readily available. They aren't without headaches, you'll spend far more sporterizing one than starting with a more expensive action would cost. There are many reasons why custom Savage and Remington's have displaced Mausers as the most popular base, but the Mauser action remains to hold the title as the most commonly customized rifle in the world.

2) PT&G does offer short action K98 bottom metal. It's not hard to find on their site, and it does use the fantastic AI 308 mags. Anyone prepared with the knowledge to build a rifle would realize the 308win is not compatible with 300wm magazines, and would know only ONE of the three k98 action lengths would be compatible with the 300wm bottom metal (and vice versa for the 308 short action model - three lengths of action = three lengths of bottom metal). Since you're a kid trying to figure out custom builds on the cheap, I might point out here the fact the AICS mags tend to run around $80 each, which really eats into your "savings" by using a (poor choice) Mauser action for your tactical build. Even the "iffy" magpul AICS pattern mags are $40. There are other bottom metal options out there which utilize CETME or M14/M1a mags, giving you access to $10 mags instead of $80 mags... either being a bad choice, since the Mauser pick is ill advised.

3) Feeding reliability is one of the most difficult aspects of the Mauser DBM conversion. This isn't a bolt together option, experienced and knowledgeable smiths still sometimes don't get it right, even with premium parts, proper training, and years of hands on experience. Even Gibbs rifle company, some of the best rifle builders in the world, missed the mark with several of their conversions.

4) You do not need a flat top line to mount a rail. Fitting a rail to almost any action which is not top fed or top eject is really no different than fitting to any other - flat to round, offset height, round to round, flat to flat... it's all common, and all easy.

5) $1000 to build a custom Mauser? Yeah, ok. Wanna buy the Golden Gate Bridge? $350 for the action, $450 for a short chambered, turned, and threaded match barrel, $40 for the chambering reamer rental plus $50 for renting the pilots, arbor, and T handle plus cutting oil, $40 for the reamer rental, $150 to $200 for the cheapest of junk stocks, $50 for bedding compound and pillars, $150 for the bottom metal plus $40+ for one mag, $50+ for the mount... That's already over $1200 before you even get to ANY blue printing or trigger work, and before rings and the optic on top. You'll need to pay a smith to true the bolt lugs, then you'll be $500 into the hand tools required to true the receiver lugs, receiver face, chase and true threads, and true bolt face. And of course, that will do nothing to improve fitment of your lugs to the raceway, bolt to the action bore, or pin to the pin bore - if you find your action to be sloppy, sleeving is a remarkably expensive, and will overshadow the cost of your bargain barrel action. And of course, that offers no budget for action and barrel wrench, torque wrench, inletting tools, cost of bluing - especially if you take it on yourself - or any other tool you may need. If you just want to screw something together and pretend it's cool because it looks cool, great. If you want it to be as functional as it looks for its application, you're not getting it done for under $1000. Lots of us have been down the custom rifle road - many of us live on this road, actually having built what you're considering, and many others like it. If it were as simple and inexpensive as you're planning, more people would have done it, and those of us with dozens of custom rifles in our safes would have spent a lot less money a long time ago.

6) And maybe the most critical aspect to my string of comments - anyone can screw a barrel into a receiver, it's not so different than screwing in a lightbulb. Screwing in a barrel isn't gunsmithing. There's much more to barreling or rebarreling a rifle, as I've somewhat outlined above in the list of tools, than simply buying parts and screwing them all together. Bolt guns aren't AR-15's, especially Mausers.

If you DO want a custom build someone like yourself can accomplish without extensive tooling and on a low budget, build a Savage, or build a Rem 700 with a Remage barrel nut conversion. Plenty of "drop in" aftermarket parts, and specific designs which allow customization without precision tooling, while still yielding precision results downrange. Donor Savage actions can be found for $250, drop-in barrels readily bought for $300-400, plenty of stocks and DBM options, some even factory offered. Rem 700 ADL's can be bought new for $350, stocks, barrels, and bottom metal sold off for about $200, getting you into the action for $150-200, and there's no more popular action for aftermarket options. A Blueprinted 700 action can be bought from PT&G for around $450, adding a Remage barrel for another $450, Boyd's At-One or Pro-Varmint stock for $200-250 plus $50 for blocks and bedding, and a Seekins rail, you're all in for $1200 before optics and you'll have a rifle which will outshoot your "bargain" Mauser for several hundred dollars less.
 
Varminter is right about everything. I have been sporterizing Mausers for 52 years and it is never worth it. You have to want to do it.

If you are set on a Mauser 98 action to base a sporter on, I would advise picking up Jerry Kuhnhausen's Shop Manual on Mausers--has a lot of details about sporterizing and accurizing Mausers from a master gunsmith. It is especially important if you get a used action. Very useful on troubleshooting and alterations.

https://www.amazon.com/Mauser-Bolt-Action-Manual-Through/dp/999396400X/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1514569725&sr=1-4&refinements=p_27:Jerry+Kuhnhausen

I consider that the worst book I ever read.... not really a book, more like lecture notes of bad ideas that were never edited. I am highly suspicious that R.A. Walsh wrote his book on Mausers just to correct all the misinformation and scatterbrained nature of Kuhnhausen Mauser book. OTOH, Kuhnhausen's book on double action Colts is so good, I am highly suspicious he was spoon fed the information by the Colt factory, as it is beyond the IQ of anyone who wrote or tolerated his name on the Mauser book.
https://www.amazon.com/Mauser-M98-M96-Favorite-Custom/dp/187935652X
 
Varminter is right about everything. I have been sporterizing Mausers for 52 years and it is never worth it. You have to want to do it.



I consider that the worst book I ever read.... not really a book, more like lecture notes of bad ideas that were never edited. I am highly suspicious that R.A. Walsh wrote his book on Mausers just to correct all the misinformation and scatterbrained nature of Kuhnhausen Mauser book. OTOH, Kuhnhausen's book on double action Colts is so good, I am highly suspicious he was spoon fed the information by the Colt factory, as it is beyond the IQ of anyone who wrote or tolerated his name on the Mauser book.
https://www.amazon.com/Mauser-M98-M96-Favorite-Custom/dp/187935652X


Sorry Clark, have to disagree with you on that one. I'll check out your linked book for future purchase though and it would not surprise me that it might well be superior for the purposes of building a sporter.

On Kuhnhausen,
I agree that it can be repetitive and at times is poorly organized. He probably needed better editing but self published books during a typewriter era were often exhibited this tendency. But, his troubleshooting and general observations on Mausers are pretty much spot on. Much of it can be cross checked with other old gunsmithing manuals Vickery, Chapel, Frazer, Gunsmith Kinks, and so on and I have not found any real disagreements with those folks or later ones like Sweeney or Dunlap.

Kuhnhausen's Mauser Shop manual is a book that has to be read multiple times to get the best out of it. The book is not really aimed at machinists nor amateurs but at general working gunsmiths who were dealing with either requests for sporters or fixing poorly made sporters. The first half thoroughly identifies military mauser actions and their parts because that is what most people prior to the 1970's dealt with on sporterizing. The second half deals with sporterization which has some things that time has passed on while other observations remain valid. Aftermarket parts are far more common than in Kuhnhausen's heyday and made with greater precision. However, most general gunsmiths of that era were generally better able to fabricate parts from scratch from what I have seen.

In my case, dealing with rebuilding military mausers of uncertain quality along with parts, Kuhnhausen has been very useful along with other books to separate sheep from goats.

Read what I believe is your critiques of his book online on Kuhnhausen recommending re-heat treatment after many gunsmithing actions which he did do so. In his case, in the 1960's, mauser receivers were cheap--so cheap that if you worked on them, you could still afford the heat treatment after working them which would be charged to the customer. Giving that a lot of folks loved to use grinders on them with shallow case hardening, re-heat treatment was prudent for these carbon-steel receivers. He was very cautious about Mauser actions and because of a near seventy years of production in all sorts of places with all sorts of workmen, material shortages, wartime usage, etc., believed in better safe than sorry. An individual working on their own rifle can choose to take "risks" but a businessman/gunsmith that risk could result in loss of life for others, serious liability and bankruptcy etc.

His troubleshooting diagnostics are really no different than those who work on cars--break down the subsystem responsible and then identify the part causing the problem. He did not, however, provide an easy way to get back to the specifics of that particular problem from his troubleshooting checklist.

Unfortunately, another source that I would recommend, MauserCentral which used to be a good website forum disappeared for awhile and is now on life support the last that I checked.
 
Varminter is right about everything. I have been sporterizing Mausers for 52 years and it is never worth it. You have to want to do it.



I consider that the worst book I ever read.... not really a book, more like lecture notes of bad ideas that were never edited. I am highly suspicious that R.A. Walsh wrote his book on Mausers just to correct all the misinformation and scatterbrained nature of Kuhnhausen Mauser book. OTOH, Kuhnhausen's book on double action Colts is so good, I am highly suspicious he was spoon fed the information by the Colt factory, as it is beyond the IQ of anyone who wrote or tolerated his name on the Mauser book.
https://www.amazon.com/Mauser-M98-M96-Favorite-Custom/dp/187935652X

Unfortunately the Walsh book is out of print and doesn't seem to be available anywhere...or at least it wasn't when I looked a couple of years ago.

Agreed with what many others have said: building a custom Mauser is essentially an excuse to buy a bunch of new and very specialized tools. Right about the time you're trying to get a good looking weld bead on your bent bolt handle is about the time you will probably think "Why didn't I start with a Savage Axis?"
 
Mr. jmar, if you want to build yourself a custom Mauser go for it by all means and don't be discouraged by the chorus of don't on this thread. And especially disregard recommendations for building your custom rifle around Rem. 700 and Savage actions. The old saying "junk in-junk out" has never been truer in this regard, which is why top-end custom craftsmen would never consider building around Remington, Savage or other similar actions. But they happily do their finest work on vintage Mauser actions, which is why they are routinely the heart of fine custom rifles, as well as big name European brands. As to the need for fancy tools? Fuggettaboutit! I built my first custom rifle on a milsurp Mauser when I was 14, using a semi-inletted stock from Fajens and the carving tools shown in attached photo. Many years later they are still in use. The best book on amateur gunsmithing is
"Do-It-Yourself Gunsmithing" by Carmichael and includes several Mauser projects requiring tools no more expensive than files and sandpaper and cold blue. Attached photos show pages in same book with step-by-step guide to customizing a Mauser trigger guard assembly, and a guard I did myself following the book's simple instructions. ..
 

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Jmar, I have a couple questions. You said you wanted this to be a long range rifle yet you choose .308, why? What do you consider long range? 300 yards? 500? 1000? Are you wanting to learn to shoot long range or are you wanting to shoot high scores? The 2 are not necessarily synonymous. 308 is GREAT for learning to shoot long range since it forces you to learn to play the wind and elevation drops. There is however a reason most long range competitors no longer shoot 308 win, there are just so many 6mm,6.5mm, and 7mm projectiles that buck the wind better and have flatter trajectories. They are easier to score well with than 308.
Now to the mauser..gotta agree with most others here. You gotta really just want that action for a custom gun to do it because there are many cheaper, better options. By the time you buy all the tools plus parts you need, you will spend as much as a big money custom action. Surgeon, BAT, defiance, kelbys, etc will all sell you an action that will be superior in almost every way for the same or less money. A 308 mauser is just not a great option for a cheap and long range rifle. But if you just want one, go for it. I love oddball stuff and if I wanted one and didn't care about cost, I would build one. If you are determined to have one but still gotta have the cheap, do as FN in MT said and let the other guy build it and lose his rear on it then you buy it cheap.
 
I was going to customize a 1912 Chilean 98 Mauser I bought about 20 years ago. I quizzed my father on the right way to do it. His reply was to buy a Model 70 and forget about it. (lol)
 
Sky dog, I buy Win M70s.
I still put on:
1) new barrel
2) new trigger
3) new stock

The things I have to do to a Mauser that I don't with a Win M70:
1) Bend and / or weld the bolt
2) drill and tap for scope bases *
3) mill out the bolt shroud for an M70 type safety from Wisner [I usually buy a trigger with a safety, because the shroud is case hardened]
4) lengthen the feed ramp to allow 3.34" cartidges
5) open the feed lips for belted magnums
6) open the bolt face for belted magnums

The things I have to do to an M70 that I don't with a Mauser:
1) extractor relief cut

* https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...-classic-mauser-sporter.829858/#post-10717935
 
This is a super thread. I learned lots of stuff. I’d love to do a remage 700 someday.
 
I have built 3 custom rifles based on large ring milsurp Mauser 98 receivers. My first one was done in 1994. The other two were 2005 and 2008. All 3 have ER Shaw barrels. I say to the OP, if its something you really want to do definitely go for it. It can be fun and rewarding in the end. When I built mine, I built rifles chambered in cartridges I couldn't buy off the shelf easily thus my justification for the builds. If you want a 308, you will save money by finding an existing rifle as that is one of the most common chamberings available and has been for a long time. But again, its your project. If you do some of the work yourself, you can certainly save money.

I do all my own stock work. I'm a wood-stock guy so final inletting, sanding, hand-checkering and finishing were all done in my garage. I free-floated 2 and glass-bedded one. Free floating won't cost you anything but time. Glass bedding and pillar bedding kits are optional but not than much $.

You can also do you own metal finishing yourself, but it does take skill and specialty tools like a low speed buffing setup, assuming you want a high-polish blued finish. Hot-bluing is more desirable than cold-bluing. I've done both and in the end, I do the polishing myself and send the bluing out for professional finishing. Last time I paid for that service, I think it was $60-$75.

Honestly, the real costs I usually incur are:
  • cost of the receiver
  • cost of the barrel
  • cost of the gunsmithing (chambering, headspacing, drill and tapping for scope, forge and polish bolt (assuming milsurp action), lapping the lugs (only if necessary - I've only had to do this one 1 of my 3 builds, per ER Shaw).
  • cost of the stock
  • cost of metal finishing
  • low-swing shroud safety upgrade
Your optional stuff would be:
  • cost of optics
  • cost of upgraded trigger
  • cost of upgraded bolt-shroud (assuming you go milsurp and don't like the look)
  • swivel studs, swivels, and sling
You can do a lot more, this is just a starting point. 10 years ago, I did my first build for under $1k but ended up upgrading more stuff over time. The best starting point is finding a good deal on a receiver. That's your base. Get that component and then go from there. If you have no time limit, you can shop the parts at gun shows and online or retail sales. I usually allow at least 6 months to do a build... sometimes longer.
 
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