My 8mm Mauser Dilemma

[jeff-10]

I have a Yugo M48A I paid $125 for around 2 years ago. It is in great condition as far as the wood and bore goes. The only problem is it will only set the rounds off 1 in 5 trigger pulls. I have tried Yugoslavian, Turkish surplus, new manufacture Remington Core-Lokts and Winchester Power Points and new manufacture Olympic stuff. It has been to the gunsmith twice and I have spent like $80 on gunsmith fees, more than %50 the cost of the rifle. The gunsmith did not have a 8mm head space gauge but he believed that was the problem on the final trip. First time he filed a burr off the firing pin. I had thought the bolt was matching because it had the serial number of the rifle on it but the gunsmith seems to think someone scratched that serial number into it after they fitted it with it.

CDNN sells M48 bolts for $39.99. Should I order one? Do any Mauser experts out there believe that it would be a solution or is the rifle a total waste? Maybe I should just discard it and try buying a new one? When it does fire it gets a good 5 or 6 inch group at 100 yards with open sights and it shoots a little above point of aim.Thanks for reading all this.

Jeff

 

[sumpnz]

Even though you've had it at the 'smith, have you made sure the bolt was completely free of cosmoline or other nasty fouling crud?

I have a set of 8x57JS headspace guages that I might be willing to send you (though I was thinking of keeping them for a potential project with my Turk T38 Mauser). However, all I've got are the Go/No Go gauges, and you'd probably need a Field Gauge. My Turk will swallow the No Go gauge like it's not even there, and it still fires every time.

You could try a new bolt, though you would have to headspace the rifle to ensure a proper fit. Or you could swap the firing pins between the bolts. It's possible that the pin in your rifle may be too short.

Another possibility, if in fact the headspace is excessive, would be to turn it into an 8mm-06 chambering.

 

[cordex]

Your 'smith should have checked this, but I second the suggestion you disassemble the bolt and clean it well.

I bought mine and it appeared to be a good, clean gun. When I tried to shoot it, it acted like you described. I took the bolt apart and it was absolutely gummy with cosmoline. Washed that out of there and the problem disappeared completely.

 

[thatguy]

In my experience 95% of malfunctions occur due to a dirty condition. Ask the smith to disassemble the bolt (if you don't know how) and check the level of cleanliness. If he already had it apart then you might try a new firing pin. The old one may be worn or broken and not striking hard. How do the cases look when fired? If not bulged or deformed at the bottom I doubt the headspace is off enough to cause misfires. May also be the firing pin spring has lost its... spring... and is not driving the pin hard enough to ignite.

A new pin and spring are cheap. I'd try them.

 

[thisisdenny]

I doubt it could be this simple after having a gunsmith look at it and all that, but since no one else mentioned this yet: the firing pin spring could just be weak and in need of replacement.

-denny

edit: need to learn to read more closely instead of just scanning posts, sorry thatguy

 

[jeff-10]

My father is quite the expert on Mausers and he broke the bolt down completely and it is as clean as can be. We boiled it in hot water and soaked it in mineral spirits before we even tried the gunsmith. The Gunsmith showed me a test where he dropped a pencil down the barrel, eraser first and 'shot' the pencil out of the barrel. It went completely across the room and he indicated that showed the spring and firing pin were fine. We have pretty much tried everything short of a new bolt. That was my dilemma, should I order the bolt or write the rifle off? I don't handload or gunsmith so I have no desire for a project gun.

 

[jeff-10]

How do the cases look when fired? If not bulged or deformed at the bottom I doubt the headspace is off enough to cause misfires.

There was nothing at all wrong with the cases. On all rounds that wouldn't fire the primer was barely dented. Sometimes I would put the same round through the rifle a few times to make it go off. Thanks for all the feedback guys. Maybe I'll buy the gauges and the bolt. That way if I buy a new Mauser I will be able to check it first.

 

[fisherman66]

There is a wonderful site that shows how to disassemble the mauser bolt via video. It shows every step in great detail.

I'll see if I can find it. Stop me if you already know.

 

[oldfart]

Since you say the firing pin and spring are pretty good but the pin isn't making a very deep impression on the primers I'd say the headspace is bad. While a new bolt might cure that it would be best to know just how much excess headspace you're dealing with.
Get a field gauge and see if the bolt will close. It probably will, so be prepared to start putting layers of tape on the end of the gauge. I use ordinary vinyl electrician's tape and trim it off around the gauge. The stuff I use is about 0.005" thick though others may be different.
Once you know how much it's out you can decide what to do. Either A) get another bolt, which may or may not do the job, or B) have the barrel set back 1 thread and rechamber the barrel. Option A) can be done by you but you might have to go through a bunch of bolts before you find the right one. You'll also have to find a source of bolts where they'll let you go through the lot. Option B) has to be done by a reasonably competent gunsmith and will cost you some money but you'll then have a very good rifle. Just because you didn't pay much for it doesn't mean it's a cheap gun. If it were me, I'd go with option B).

 

[jeff-10]

There is a wonderful site that shows how to disassemble the mauser bolt via video

The gunsmith and my father both showed me how to dismantle it has been done repeatedly. Thanks though.

have the barrel set back 1 thread and rechamber the barrel

I am the first to admit I do not know much about bolt action rifles. The gunsmith informed me that the bolt face would have to be 'built up' and that is a very expensive process. Not worth it in his opinion. If I could find one who would set back the barrel and rechamber I would consider it. I live in a huge metro area with a reasonable number of gun shops, South Florida, but I have only been able to locate one gunsmith here. I am not sure how good he is but he is all we have. I will be moving to the Ocala area soon maybe I will be able to find better ones up there. Thanks for all the help guys.

 

[spacemanspiff]

i'd stop putting money into it and find another mauser. but most other yugo m48a's are only going to fire with each trigger pull. yours sounds about as accurate as i can make mine.

find a k98, maybe one of the russian captures. it sounds like you enjoy the 8mm mauser as a shooter, instead of a collector. thats great cause ammo is cheap as long as you are willing to thoroughly clean after shooting with corrosive surplus ammo.

 

[sumpnz]

You may want to think about selling it as a "project gun". There's probably several people around here that may be interested. Or, perhaps as I mentioned earlier, get the chamber reamed to 8mm-06, and then either buy appropriate brass or neck up some .30-06 to .323" and get started handloading. Then bend the bolt, drill and tap for a scope (or put a scout scope on it) and you'll have a nice deer/elk slayer. If I had the time I'd be very interested in doing that, especially since it would make a nice excuse for me to learn how to make my own stock. Have the barrel chopped back to 24-26" and crowned, refinish the metal, and put a decent trigger in it. In the end I'd probably spend more money than buying a brand new Remington 700 in 8x57 but I rather doubt anybody undertaking such a project does it to save money.

 

[Gewehr98]

I'd almost agree to it being relegated to a project gun...

Save for the fact it's a Yugo M48, and if I remember my Mausers, that's an intermediate-length large-ring 98 action. Which means a lot of aftermarket 98 Mauser stuff like what one finds in Brownells may not work well, since they're usually intended for full-length 98 Mauser actions. Same goes for custom stocks, although I see one or two out there that now inlet for the M48 intermediate action. Boyd's, for example, offers a variety of stocks for the M48:

See what the headspace in the gun is doing, then proceed from there.

 

[oldfart]

What all this seems to boil down to is too much space between the bolt-face and the cartridge. The cartridge is held in place by the chamber and if the chamber is too long, the cartridge will slide forward, away from the bolt-face.
As your gunsmith said, you can build up the bolt-face (and expensive job) or you can push the existing chamber back a bit. Of course, to do that, you have to move the barrel back too and that entails cutting a bit more thread and then shortening the existing barrel. Then you have to ream out a new chamber which will hold the cartridge more solidly.
Unless you have a better toolbench than I think you do, you'll have to have it done by a good gunsmith or-- at the very least-- a master machinist. At a very rough guess, I'd say it will cost you about as much (or more) than you have in the rifle already. If you're looking at it from the standpoint of $$$ (and most of us do) it isn't worth it. But, if you're like me (and some others on this board) you'll approach the problem as if you're making something really nice out of a piece of junk-- a 'silk purse from a sow's ear' sort of thing.
Most of us have, at one time or another, put $400 or so into an $80 rifle and thought we'd made the best rifle in the whole danged world. Most of us would do it again too.
Have fun!

 

[db_tanker]

I have once ran into an issue similar to this...

friend had a sporterized mauser that he just got...synthetic stock...chambered in -06.

took it to the range and first round out shot beautifully...second round shot beautifully...third round nothing...ehh? fourth...nothing...huh?

Make a long story short...Finally discovered that the bolt wasn't going completely into battery...

Make sure that the bolt handle isn't impacting on the stock anywhere or that it isn't being bound in any way on closing due to the action...burs, gouges, etc...

With it being, if the gunsmith you originally took it to is correct, a "Forced SN Match" there is no telling what you might have there...

D

 

[cracked butt]

If the gunsmith started grinding away at the parts, charging you $80 and never even checking the headspace first, I'd find a different person to do smithing work in the future, sounds like he's about 1 step below a highly trained monkey.

I would just buy another M48 instead of putting more money into this one.

 

[cracked butt]

One other thing to look at....

Take the bolt apart and take a look at the shoulder of the firing pin. If the metal on the shoulder looks peened (like its smeared or hammered on) it might not be moving all the way forward. I'm convinced that some of the interior firing pin camming surfaces were sometimes machined incorrectly or the firing pins (along with other parts) were made of soft metal as I've seen this problem on more than one M48. People praise the quality of M48s, and I'm one of the few who differs on this subject but remember, the same factory that made M48s also made Yugo cars.

 

[jaimeshawn]

I noticed that no one asked you yet to try the masking tape test -

In the absence of a headspace gage, take a representative round of what you are shooting and put a small piece of masking tape on the base of the cartridge and try to chamber it - One piece of tape is OK, Two pieces of tape and it should be hard to chamber if not impossible, Three pieces of tape and you have too much (over 0.012") headspace...

Headspace is not a bad thing that will make your rifle unusable - I used a BSA 30-06 for years that was chambered about 0.015" long - If you have lots of headspace it just means you have to reload for it and can't use the cheap milsurp ammo. You fire-form your cases and necksize as you reload - It's OK! I have a nice Spanish Mauser in 308 that I have to reload for because the barrel is cut large - a beautiful gun that will not shoot milsurp worth a hoot yet will shoot much better than 5" at 100 yds with reloads.

It sounds like your bolt is very clean - and if you just turn it (rotate the lugs compared to the handle) so your firing pin sticks out; it should stick out about a millimeter so you don't even have to disassemble the bolt to see if the firing pin is damaged as 'cracked butt' suggests. He is correct that the guy you are using isn't worth much and you already paid too much for his help.