re-inventing the wheel, re-threading a turk mauser

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MechanicKid

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looking through the gun safe (becoming more and more full by the month) I came across a turk mauser action that was gifted to me by an old friend. The barrel is pitted, wood was crap, so on and so forth. I came up with and idea, albeit with the addition of a couple shots of Jameson's, to bore and re-thread the action itself to a savage small/large shank thread pattern, turn down the action face to flat and viola, switch barrel mauser. The inspiration to do such a thing came from the availability of savage pre-fit barrels and my ability to headspace at home.
I LOVE the mauser control feed style action and the Savage barrel nut system would just be icing on the cake, IMHO. That and a 3 position safety. I know a lot of people will be thinking, just switch barrel a Winchester 70 or FN, but this is what I have, and it would be an interesting option for the turk mauser action. And I love to "create".
Question is, anyone know of anyone who is capable/equipped to do such a thing?
 
It doesn't look like any of the Savage barrels are big enough to accomplish this. The Mauser is a 1.11" shank, the biggest Savage is 1.125. You wouldn't be able to clean the Mauser threads out before being too big. Unless your Turk is small shank barrel, in which case it's just a bad idea. Get a barrel, or a pair of them, and rethread them to fit the Mauser....don't mess with the receiver.
 
If I were going to do somrthing like that, I would clean up the existing threads only and fit new barrels with longer threaded shanks to accomodate a fabricated barrel lock nut to mimic the Savage system.
 
The turk mauser is a large ring receiver with a "small ring" barrel shank to include the one in question. Now saying that this "is a bad idea" is all well and good, but my question is why? Is the receiver too soft to have .1775" of material surrounding the barrel? (overall receiver dia is 1.410 vs savage at 1.380). The original barrel threads are .980 @ 12tpi with the small shank savage barrels at 1.055 @ 20 tpi or large shank at 1.120 @ 20 tpi (leaving me with .145" of material around the barrel, which doesn't seem like a great idea to me). When it comes to this being a bad idea,the only things I could think of is barrel thread depth or receiver steel hardness. Now the mauser action does have an inner ridge of sorts that can be used as a point of barrel indexing vs. the receiver face, but that would counter the whole idea of a self indexing/switch barrel set up.
 
As to the idea of "over threading" a barrel in the normal small ring pattern of .980 @ 12 tpi, I have thought about this, but the steep angle of 12 tpi. does not seem condusive to a barrel nut system to hold on to. But the idea was broached. Being able to order and install pre-made barrels seems more attractive than getting blanks custom threaded.
 
I'd first call around to see if there's a local machine shop with a Rockwell hardness tester and check the receiver's hardness. Find out what Savage hardens their receivers to and find out if there's a very wide discrepency. If not, I would be inclined to try it. Sounds tike a project with promise...
 
Rockwell, or other hardness tests on Mauser actions are pretty pointless.
As is comparing it to a modern Savage action pointless.

All the old Mausers were made from low or medium carbon steel, then carburized to give a hard surface skin on critical contact points.

They are not hard all the way through like a modern induction hardened high-carbon steel receiver.
The outside surface may be completely soft, and the inside harder then woodpecker lips.

That would be one thing that would concern me about this whole idea.

If you machine the hardened threads out of the receiver, you will be cutting new threads in relatively soft steel.

rc
 
i've seen a few turk 1903 & peruvian 1909 high humps with the threads recut.
the ones i've seen were recut with square threads and were takedown rifles. the guy that did them likes to use the turk 1903 and preuvian 1909's for takedowns since they have a slightly longer shank than a standard lr mauser.
just about any smith that blueprints remington 700's will have a truing fixture for his lathe to put the action in to recut the threads, but finding one thats willing to do the work on a mauser might be difficult.
i would also recomend sending the receiver & bolt to pacific to be re-carbed after the threads are cut.
 
So for safety's sake, I would have to be willing to scrap the action if this didn't work but I would do the initial internal turn before threading and test the hardness of the surface area. Hmmmm...curiouser and curiouser. Getting PTG to re-carb the action and bolt wouldn't be a bad idea either just for GP.
 
After further investigation into the afformentioned subject matters I have determined this project to be a bit of a wash. The depth of the case hardening and the composition of the Turk reciever lends to the original thread pattern choice of the mauser, in this case .980 Dia with 12 Tpi. Even with the large ring mausers, the soft (relatively) material needed a more robust thread to ensure the barrel stayed put under multiple discharges. It can also be surmised that the entire Muser action with it's third safety lug and robust design were because of the materials available during the time of invention. Even with case hardening, I feel the threads would be too small, (1.055 @ 20tpi) to ensure safe operation of the weapon causing the threads to be to brittle or the remaining reciever ring to come from together causing catastrophic results. Perhaps going a different direction, like a Stevens/Savage action and modifying it to utilize a mauser extractor would be a better way to go. The reciever rails would need to be ground/broach on the extractor side, alon with the bolt turned for the extractor band, and I am sure a bolt face, sans extractor in the proper configuration could be machined a bit easier. Looking for imput :D
 
Yessir, that would be what I am looking for. I am also extremely fond of the 3 position safety found on Win 70's and FN's. So why not just go with a Win 70 action or an FN action? Looking at that too. But I would still like to run the small/large shank Stevens/Savage barrels. Although in going back to the perverbial drawing board I am looking into designs of 3-lug actions for their short throw. Now a mauser extractor pulling out shells 30 degrees from horizontal, that can strip from a double stack mag, that would be something. Combine that with a "barrel extension" that provides the locking lugs (much like an AR) and a switch system......Funny how the smallest ideas get you going.
 
You are up into the thousands of dollars of custom work to be able to make use of $40 off the shelf barrels. That does not compute. You could buy a Blaser and a sack of barrels for less.
 
MechanicKid said:
After further investigation into the afformentioned subject matters I have determined this project to be a bit of a wash. The depth of the case hardening and the composition of the Turk reciever lends to the original thread pattern choice of the mauser, in this case .980 Dia with 12 Tpi. Even with the large ring mausers, the soft (relatively) material needed a more robust thread to ensure the barrel stayed put under multiple discharges. It can also be surmised that the entire Muser action with it's third safety lug and robust design were because of the materials available during the time of invention. Even with case hardening, I feel the threads would be too small, (1.055 @ 20tpi) to ensure safe operation of the weapon causing the threads to be to brittle or the remaining reciever ring to come from together causing catastrophic results. Perhaps going a different direction, like a Stevens/Savage action and modifying it to utilize a mauser extractor would be a better way to go. The reciever rails would need to be ground/broach on the extractor side, alon with the bolt turned for the extractor band, and I am sure a bolt face, sans extractor in the proper configuration could be machined a bit easier. Looking for imput :D
Click to expand...
Or, you could do what Savage did back around 2002! For the UltraMag and WSM calibers, they removed the lower half of the rim around the bolt face, so that the cartridge base slid up under the extractor on feeding. The ejector plunger was removed from the bolt face and a receiver-mounted ejector fitted.
I had a nagging memory about hearing about this years back, do a Yahoo or Google search for ' controlled feed Savage ' to find articles on this modification. Way easier than cutting up the receiver to fit a Mauser extractor: there is more than one way to achieve controlled feed.
 
You are up into the thousands of dollars of custom work to be able to make use of $40 off the shelf barrels. That does not compute. You could buy a Blaser and a sack of barrels for less.
Click to expand...
That would be correct.....if someone else was doing the work. Besides, these are ideas that will be a few years in the making. The barrel extension could be threaded for any thread pattern for any barrel and basing the switch barrel system off of the extension. I know this has been done before, but I haven't done it. :D

Or, you could do what Savage did back around 2002! For the UltraMag and WSM calibers, they removed the lower half of the rim around the bolt face, so that the cartridge base slid up under the extractor on feeding. The ejector plunger was removed from the bolt face and a receiver-mounted ejector fitted.
I had a nagging memory about hearing about this years back, do a Yahoo or Google search for ' controlled feed Savage ' to find articles on this modification. Way easier than cutting up the receiver to fit a Mauser extractor: there is more than one way to achieve controlled feed.
Click to expand...

That is exactly what I am talking about, now where to find one....
 
re- inventing the wheel.

Reid Coffield did a multi part areticle in shotgun news a couple months ago on doing this with Mauser threaded barrels, but I thing he was using a regular 98.
 
On Model 1938 Turk Mausers, (and most all other Turks) the barrel thread is identical to the Swedish 6.5x55 1896 Mauser. I have read of some guys removing the Turk barrel, screwing in the Swede barrel and they were good to go as head spacing was right on. Different profile Swede 6.5x55 barrels are readily available from several sources.

http://www.turkmauser.com/gunsmithing/93s/

https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sa=X&..._pw.r_qf.&fp=e82e6d0d5e89cd69&biw=960&bih=442

Me, I have a M1938 Turk in the original 8mm Mauser round, the rifle is so accurate that in no way would I think of rebarreling it.

P1010379.jpg
 
What's the downside to rethreading the barrels vs. rethreading the action?

That's the route I'd go--you'd get to leave your action alone and have the ability to set a nut on the barrel itself.
 
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