M98 mauser receivers
- Thread starter Nanook of the north
- Start date
- Status
Sorry about my slow reply but out of town on business.
You should be ok in 8mm or some of the similar pressure 8mm wildcats if the receiver has no setback or other issues. One such wildcat is the 8mm-06 that uses .30-06 cartridges necked up to 8mm. You could also go with the 7 mm family and its wildcats staying within the parent round 7mm pressure levels on the old WWI receivers. I would, however, stay away from hot loads if you are dealing with WWI or earlier era m98's. Some of the better buys are actually Brno Czech m98 receivers from 1920's to the 1930's. If you feel adventurous, the Yugos got a lot of m98 receivers as war reparations and promptly scrubbed and replaced the markings--aka the so call Preduzce 44's--these are true m98 German actions with the history scrubbed--usually they still have the mod. 98 marking on the side of the receiver. If the marking uses Gothic lettering then it is the older GEW 98 receiver. I have seen these around for $50-100 dollars.
In my opinion, the older WWI era m98 receivers are unsuitable for magnum rounds and are problematic for modern higher pressure cartridges such as the .308 above the original designed cartridge pressure levels. The rifle receivers, if not altered, have the feeding rails and ramp for the military cartridges machined into the receiver. Departing from the 7mm and 8mm cartridge families can create feeding problems or even worse safety issues if the desired cartridge needs too much material from the feed ramp to be machined away.
Regarding barrels, most large ring m98 barrels will fit any m98 receiver with a few weird exceptions. Here is Hoosier Gunworks Mauser reference guide to Mauser types that will help. http://www.hoosiergunworks.com/catalog/mauser_reference.html
Some Turkish receivers have a flange that covers the receiver-barrel interface so they measure as large rings in diameter but take small ring barrels (aka m38). Intermediate receivers such as Yugo m24/47 or m48 are also floating around and these are a bit different and will only take an intermediate length bolt.
When buying used receivers, the major risk is the lug bearing surfaces in the receiver itself. These have case hardening on the surface and a softer interior core. Sometimes, a well worn receiver will have these surfaces either gouged, surface hardening worn off through extensive use, botched lapping jobs (these are more likely on sporterized rifles) where the lapping wore through the case hardening, or setback (ridges, humps, etc) where the surface hardening held but the underlying softer core was swaged out of position usually by a high pressure event involving ammunition, firing one with excess headspace (some militaries held bolts and rifles separate as a security measure which sometimes resulted in swapping bolts among rifles), or other abuse. Occasionally you will come across ones that have been pinched by an inattentive person with the right tools or bubba using the wrong tools--what has happened is that the bolt cannot fully enter the receiver to lock in place due to distortion of the receiver partially compressing the bolt raceway or in some cases actually put too much pressure on the receiver ring and deformed it from its nominal circular shape to one that causes havoc for a barrel replacement. A twisted receiver happens when too much pressure is put on the relatively soft receiver and the whole body of the receiver becomes twisted resulting in all kinds of problems.
These receivers cannot be economically fixed--you would need an expert TIG welder to build up the surfaces that would then be precision ground to original specs, the receiver would have to be re heat treated, maybe a new non-matching bolt, and so forth. To repair gouged or ridged receiver lug bearing surfaces would require grinding that surface off which probably will destroy the case hardening making the above repair necessary. Pinched or twisted can possibly be fixed by a craftsman depending on the severity but the failure rate could be high on these as well.
Last edited:
Olympus
Member
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2008
- Messages
- 4,212
I used a Yugo M48 for the rifle I built. I bought the rifle for $150 and only used the action. By the time I had my gunsmith remove the original barrel, slim up the overly wide trigger guard, put a better quality safety on, machine the top of the receiver for scope mounts, drill and tap for scope, bought a custom barrel, had the gunsmith taper the barrel, crown it, install and headspace it, put in a Timney trigger, bend and contour the bolt handle, reblue the barreled action, and buy an after market stock, I was WELL over the $2k mark.
My advice.....forget this project and move on to something else unless you have more money than sense.
My advice.....forget this project and move on to something else unless you have more money than sense.
Yes, Oberndorf (the mothership of Mausers) did so for sporters before WWII. W.H.B. Smith terms these as K (for Kurz) model sporters. These bring high prices if you ever find one.
See "10) Kurz (true Short Action) 1.30" Diameter receveir ring, 8 1/4" Action Length. Hole spacing of 6 .60.
Very rare, made in Germay pre WW2"
from http://www.hoosiergunworks.com/catalog/mauser_reference.html
One of the problems with the Yugo is that the actions are cheap but a lot of the parts necessary to customize it are not available. Gunsmith time is expensive and will run up the cost quick.
Most aftermarket Mauser stuff for sporterizing is for the m98 std. length action. Sporter barrels in whatever contour are also available off the shelf from virtually every barrel maker and customized bolts are also around. If you do want to do a sporter using a Mauser action, I would recommend the std. Mauser 98 action as the cheapest, strongest (assuming post WWI), and most customizable action of the Mausers.
That being said, you can still spend a lot of money that way that might not outshoot a new Ruger American, Remington 700, or Savage. One possible compromise is to buy a sportered Mauser in good shape with a couple of things you don't like and are easy to fix (e.g. trigger, rust splotches, trigger guard, even a barrel) and mold that into what you want. There are quite a few of these around that you can get for about the same price as the new Ruger American etc. Some of these have spectacular stocks or beautiful rich bluing etc. but have some flaw such as a strange caliber, bad trigger, missing parts, that cause a lot of people to pass.
One cheap way to locate such bare bones is to locate 1950's era J.C. Higgins sporters sold by Sears--if you know the manufacturer product code which you can find online, you will find that FN made mauser rifles for Sears. It is a little known fact that Winchester also made a Model 70 plain jane for Sears in that era among other manufacturers less noted.
K98 small ring large shank receiver with low scope bolt improvement and low scope safety. Bolt appears to be unused. Push button floor plate release. Excellent condition. Drilled and tapped with Redfield style one piece base installed. The hard work has been done. Ready for a barrel.
Model 24 Yugo 1935 vintage, intermediate length (short) in excellent condition. Very light pitting.The bolt has a new low scope bolt handle and low scope safety, bolt handle is a premium hollow, checkered style. The bolt is timed perfectly and functions flawlessly. Receiver rings have been laid out and center punched for drilling and tapping. Ready for a barrel.
There are actions available, but it is hard to find clean actions.
Model 24 Yugo 1935 vintage, intermediate length (short) in excellent condition. Very light pitting.The bolt has a new low scope bolt handle and low scope safety, bolt handle is a premium hollow, checkered style. The bolt is timed perfectly and functions flawlessly. Receiver rings have been laid out and center punched for drilling and tapping. Ready for a barrel.
There are actions available, but it is hard to find clean actions.
cdb1
Member
I would be proud to own a new Dumoulin action and would MUCH rather have one than a milsurp M98. As mentioned already a Zastava would work great. A J.C. Higgins Model 50 would be a good donor if the barrel is in rough shape. If the barrel is in good shape I wouldn’t want to change it out because Model 50’s are famous for their outanding barrels.
Montana actions are close enough to a M98 I’d be happy to have one too.
Montana actions are close enough to a M98 I’d be happy to have one too.
My first high power rifle was a .308 Norma Mag and was built on one of those" WEAK" WW1 actions. The rifle was made in Danzig in 1915, in 1964 it was barreled to .308 Norma Mag. I figure if the action was strong enough for the 8/mm a hundred years ago it is strong enough for the 8/mm and other calibers today. There are numerous magnum caliber rifles built between WW1 and WW2 by European manufactures and it did not seem to worry them that the receivers were weak. The "weak" claim has been repeated for generations is like a lie, if you tell it often enough you start to believe it.
cdb1
Member
I don’t know about weak receivers but I do believe M98’s manufactured during the latter stages of both world wars aren’t as well made as those made before and during the early stages of the wars.
morcey2
Member
I have a Dominican Republic that was nicely sporterized that I picked up for $200 a couple of years ago as a donor. It has a Dayton-traister trigger and safety, is glass-bedded, D&T'ed, and had the bolt handle forged. The stock is a little "bulkier" than I like and the barrel is 20". I was going to rebarrel it, but keep it 7x57. Then I shot it. It shoots extremely well with a cheap Centerpoint scope from walmart. The only thing I don't like is the barrel length. I wish it had a 24" barrel. But, right now, if I had to grab a gun for anything larger than coyotes out to about 300-ish yards without thinking, it would be that one. (coyotes and smaller would get an AR with a 20" RRA predator pursuit upper). I'd just like to have the extra 150-ish fps that another 4" of barrel would give me.
I have 3 other mauser 98 actions that will be turned into guns over the next couple of years. One will be a 6mm Rem, another will be a 6.5x55, and the last will be something else. Could I do it cheaper? Probably, but that's what I want. I already have a 257 Roberts built on a Yugo-captured receiver that I really like. As others have said, keep an eye out for already-modified guns. They show up at gun stores and pawn shops quite often around here.
Matt
Not quite, the problem with older Mausers has been two fold--some have been abused over the years like a lot coming from various third world countries, the second is the nature of using carbon steel itself. Mausers have a softer core and are case hardened by impregnating carbon into the surface of the receiver by heat treatment at the appropriate temperatures. The whole process is actually quite detailed and as long as each phase is handled properly, then a safe receiver comes out. However, leave a receiver in for too long, use the wrong temperature, impurities in the steel, etc., can all have an effect on how deep the heat treatment goes or even worse, like the American 1903's leaving a brittle receiver that will shatter with the right blow.
WWI 8x57 mm proof level loads are posted online in numerous places with some disagreement but generally agree that service level ammo was about 44k with 1930's increased to about 46.5k. SAAMI figures reckon .308 Norma at around 55K or so. Modern CIP for the 8x57 Mauser is about the same or a little higher 56.5 K.
But, European laws can be quite strict requiring reproofing for caliber changes and the like (example of Britain's proofing laws found at http://www.gunproof.com/Proof_Memoranda/RULESOFP.PDF). U.S. SAAMI levels for the 8x57 Mauser are around 37K because of older 8x57 Mauser .318 bores instead of the later .323 (present day) because the U.S. has no standard for reproofing firearms for safety reasons. Thus, CIP feels more comfortable setting higher pressure levels for old cartridges than does SAAMI because of European proofing laws that weed out unsuitable firearms over time.
Some German 98 Mausers were known to be problematic in heat treatment as well as other features, as someone noted above, late in both Wars, the need for churning out weapons and shortages of skilled workers meant that defect rates rose in production and fewer of those defects were caught. Similar problems with ammunition were legion at the time and some of that was really bad stuff. Some producers were more affected than others.
Now, in part, if properly heat treated, the Mauser 98's case hardening and superior gas handling of punctured primers or cartridge separations, make it superior in safety measures compared with older Mausers and some other contemporary milsurps. 98's receivers often can fail gradually even after high pressure events but what often happens is lug recess setback which can be a gradual process (wearing through the case hardening through extensive use will eventually end up in the same place)--greater and greater headspace, more difficulty opening the bolt, deformation of the brass, and so on. Now, this does not mean the Mauser action is "weak" as far as "blowing up"--it will do what the original service design parameters required and probably for some degree above it.
It was not designed for firing the .308 Norma Magnum but German Service Ammo for WWI. Does it mean that it can't do so? That requires a whole host of questions--e.g. what is the depth remaining on the case hardening on receiver lugs, are there scratches, burrs, etc. on those surfaces, how much surface area of the bolt lugs are bearing on the recesses, how hot are the .308 Norma Magnum cartridges (what variances in pressure exist between rounds is one issue), what is the percent of carbon in the alloy after the heat treatment, what is its hardness, etc., has it been drilled and tapped, did that area get annealed, and so forth. And some receivers have been re-heat treated to higher standards (tricky business that). You may know the answers to all of these questions for your receiver, on a generic 1915 Mauser 98, your answers may not apply to that one.
Slamfire, a THR poster, has made it a practice to study metallurgy in these rifles along with much experience in actually shooting these beasts. He would be able probably to give you much more on the details of that study and it may be on the THR archives somewhere. My caution comes from restoring old military rifles and what I've seen on doing these as well as having a healthy regard for my fingers, toes, and health in general. I am a fraidy cat if you will. I have a 1916 Oberndorf GEW98 restoration (cut barrel and sporterized stock) undergoing and even at this stage of the war, Oberndorf was still producing "good receivers" by the measurements within .001 of a 1930's era Oberndorf. Despite my respect for Oberndorf, and doing the required safety checks on the receiver, would not try to fire modern magnum rounds through it. It lasted over a century in decent condition so I want to help it meet that next hundred years in one piece. As usual, YMMV and this is my reasoned opinion--take from it what you will.
cdb1
Member
Fantastic post boom boom.
- Status