Dave DeLaurant
Member
I'd like to describe the three rifles that have put a much needed smile on my face recently.
The first is a Yugoslavian M98/48 Mauser that I bought with a reproduction ZF-41 telescopic sight mounted. I've been curious about this sighting system for decades, ever since I first read about Jeff Cooper's Scout Rifle concept; more recently there have been a number of interesting videos on YouTube about these reproduction scopes and mounts, on InRangeTV and 9-Hole Reviews. I found this one sitting on the LGS rack with a resonable (as opposed to bargain) price and I thought why not.
The rifle is your basic Yugo K98k rework with milled steel furniture and a solid hardwood stock. I think it started life in Germany before having it's markings scrubbed and restamped. The only original mark is Model 98 on the side of the receiver. The barrel is neatly import marked "INTRAC KNOX TN 8mm Germany" on the underside near the muzzle. The bore is in superb condition, as is nearly all of the exterior metalwork. It has non-matching numbers stamped all over the place, the most egregious area being the floorplate. Here one number was crookedly stamped, lined-out, and then another number crookedly stamped right below the first. Since I had a total of five unused military Mauser floorplates in my parts box -- somebody offered them to me on the cheap years ago -- I invested about an hour fitting an unnumbered replacement in place of this defaced example.
I also replaced the front triggerguard lock screw, which had evidently fallen out, as well as the missing cleaning rod and front sight hood. When I attempted to remove the barrelled action from the stock I discovered that the last armorer who worked on this rifle liked mallets. The front 'H' band was almost cold welded onto the forend cap, and the stock had a death grip the front sling band. After working these loose with a rubber mallet and a piece of hardwood, I spent another two hours filing and polishing the forend cap and the inside surface of the 'H' band until they slid together without binding, refinishing both parts with Birchwood Casey Super Blue. After that I relieved the stock so the sling band would fit into place by hand, and then for good measure deepened the channel for the hellaciously-strong retention spring. Everything ended up looking virtually the same as before, but now the floorplate looks much better and the stock bands can be removed as Muaser intended: without tools. One last little change was to replace the front sling stud with a Chicago screw, so I can now remove and replace the thing quickly and easily. It will probably be some months before I can take the rifle to the range and check the scope's zero, but I've the requsite tools and have boresighted it at 25 yards.
Mauser number two is a lightweight post-WWII Husqvarna sporter with an FN action, also in 7.92x57. I've owned this rifle for a few years, but when purchased it came with a side mount scope base that A) was difficult to find rings for, and B) those that were available were ugly, ungainly and expensive. For a brief time I had an old Weaver scope mounted using unitized 11mm air rifle rings in an offset positon (ike the Garand M1C/D), but I was dissatisfied with this kind of kludge and decided to remove the side mount entirely and then have a coventional Weaver base mounted on top of the receiver.
The side base was both screwed and sweated into place, and once I got it off I discovered some shallow pitting around the soldiered joint that had to be polished out and touched up with cold blue. I filled the three side mount holes with set screws and AcraGlased a hardwood block to fill the inletted void in the stock.
I took the rifle and a new Warne base to a local gunsmith and waited. For the next 13 months. I finally reached him by phone in late August (his shop had been closed since March) and learned that he had been wading through his work backlog so he could sell the business by year's end. My rifle still lacked its scope base and he would not commit himself to a definite completion date.
I drove over the following week, reclaimed it and took it to Sportsman's Warehouse. Their gunsmithing facility is located in Utah, so I knew I was looking at another delay with shipping costs thrown in -- just doing the preliminary paperwork required waiting in line for almost 90 minutes. As of Monday the 21st, it has yet to return to Fresno, 13 weeks and counting. I had no conception that drilling and tapping four holes would be such a production.
Rifle three is an air rifle rather than a firearm, but it carries a genuine Mauser factory banner on the receiver and is configured to broadly resemble the K98k service rifle. It was made by Diana in Germany and comes with a hardwood stock that mimics the shape of the K98k quite well.
It also weighs about the same or perhaps a little more than the real Wehrmacht rifle, although the balance is a bit further toward the front. In fact, it was so muzzle-heavy that mounting a rather large scope actually improved the balance somewhat.
The rifle uses an underlever to cock the very stiff piston spring. You grab the end of the lever roughly where the bayonet lug would be on the original, then haul back for all you are worth. When fully cocked, you load a pellet directly into the exposed chamber, then you must depress a safety catch to return the lever to the stowed position. Cocking also engages the safety at the rear of the receiver tube, but otherwise the rifle is now ready to shoot. It is both powerful for an air rifle and quite accurate, though between the cocking effort and the weight, shooting offhand becomes tiring very quickly.
These rifles bring my Mauser 98 total to seven: three commercial, three military plus the airgun, which is actually marked Model 98.
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It will likely be some time before I'm able to purchase another rifle -- my wife was recently diagnosed with cancer and I had to sell over $7K of my most valuable firearms (mostly handguns) to get ahead of our bills. As Ned Kelly supposedly said on the gallows, such is life.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the other participants in Rifle Country for providing such a welcome distraction.
The first is a Yugoslavian M98/48 Mauser that I bought with a reproduction ZF-41 telescopic sight mounted. I've been curious about this sighting system for decades, ever since I first read about Jeff Cooper's Scout Rifle concept; more recently there have been a number of interesting videos on YouTube about these reproduction scopes and mounts, on InRangeTV and 9-Hole Reviews. I found this one sitting on the LGS rack with a resonable (as opposed to bargain) price and I thought why not.
The rifle is your basic Yugo K98k rework with milled steel furniture and a solid hardwood stock. I think it started life in Germany before having it's markings scrubbed and restamped. The only original mark is Model 98 on the side of the receiver. The barrel is neatly import marked "INTRAC KNOX TN 8mm Germany" on the underside near the muzzle. The bore is in superb condition, as is nearly all of the exterior metalwork. It has non-matching numbers stamped all over the place, the most egregious area being the floorplate. Here one number was crookedly stamped, lined-out, and then another number crookedly stamped right below the first. Since I had a total of five unused military Mauser floorplates in my parts box -- somebody offered them to me on the cheap years ago -- I invested about an hour fitting an unnumbered replacement in place of this defaced example.
I also replaced the front triggerguard lock screw, which had evidently fallen out, as well as the missing cleaning rod and front sight hood. When I attempted to remove the barrelled action from the stock I discovered that the last armorer who worked on this rifle liked mallets. The front 'H' band was almost cold welded onto the forend cap, and the stock had a death grip the front sling band. After working these loose with a rubber mallet and a piece of hardwood, I spent another two hours filing and polishing the forend cap and the inside surface of the 'H' band until they slid together without binding, refinishing both parts with Birchwood Casey Super Blue. After that I relieved the stock so the sling band would fit into place by hand, and then for good measure deepened the channel for the hellaciously-strong retention spring. Everything ended up looking virtually the same as before, but now the floorplate looks much better and the stock bands can be removed as Muaser intended: without tools. One last little change was to replace the front sling stud with a Chicago screw, so I can now remove and replace the thing quickly and easily. It will probably be some months before I can take the rifle to the range and check the scope's zero, but I've the requsite tools and have boresighted it at 25 yards.
Mauser number two is a lightweight post-WWII Husqvarna sporter with an FN action, also in 7.92x57. I've owned this rifle for a few years, but when purchased it came with a side mount scope base that A) was difficult to find rings for, and B) those that were available were ugly, ungainly and expensive. For a brief time I had an old Weaver scope mounted using unitized 11mm air rifle rings in an offset positon (ike the Garand M1C/D), but I was dissatisfied with this kind of kludge and decided to remove the side mount entirely and then have a coventional Weaver base mounted on top of the receiver.
The side base was both screwed and sweated into place, and once I got it off I discovered some shallow pitting around the soldiered joint that had to be polished out and touched up with cold blue. I filled the three side mount holes with set screws and AcraGlased a hardwood block to fill the inletted void in the stock.
I took the rifle and a new Warne base to a local gunsmith and waited. For the next 13 months. I finally reached him by phone in late August (his shop had been closed since March) and learned that he had been wading through his work backlog so he could sell the business by year's end. My rifle still lacked its scope base and he would not commit himself to a definite completion date.
I drove over the following week, reclaimed it and took it to Sportsman's Warehouse. Their gunsmithing facility is located in Utah, so I knew I was looking at another delay with shipping costs thrown in -- just doing the preliminary paperwork required waiting in line for almost 90 minutes. As of Monday the 21st, it has yet to return to Fresno, 13 weeks and counting. I had no conception that drilling and tapping four holes would be such a production.
Rifle three is an air rifle rather than a firearm, but it carries a genuine Mauser factory banner on the receiver and is configured to broadly resemble the K98k service rifle. It was made by Diana in Germany and comes with a hardwood stock that mimics the shape of the K98k quite well.
It also weighs about the same or perhaps a little more than the real Wehrmacht rifle, although the balance is a bit further toward the front. In fact, it was so muzzle-heavy that mounting a rather large scope actually improved the balance somewhat.
The rifle uses an underlever to cock the very stiff piston spring. You grab the end of the lever roughly where the bayonet lug would be on the original, then haul back for all you are worth. When fully cocked, you load a pellet directly into the exposed chamber, then you must depress a safety catch to return the lever to the stowed position. Cocking also engages the safety at the rear of the receiver tube, but otherwise the rifle is now ready to shoot. It is both powerful for an air rifle and quite accurate, though between the cocking effort and the weight, shooting offhand becomes tiring very quickly.
These rifles bring my Mauser 98 total to seven: three commercial, three military plus the airgun, which is actually marked Model 98.
====
It will likely be some time before I'm able to purchase another rifle -- my wife was recently diagnosed with cancer and I had to sell over $7K of my most valuable firearms (mostly handguns) to get ahead of our bills. As Ned Kelly supposedly said on the gallows, such is life.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the other participants in Rifle Country for providing such a welcome distraction.
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