Spanish Mauser

[SimplyChad]

So I picked up a nonmatching Spanish Mauser in 7 mm from J&G the other day so my nephew and I can turn it into his first deer rifle (14, straight A's, and no write ups). Honestly, it is in fair condition at best but I am not too upset.

The bad: the front sight and its cover were both crushed and unusable, its crown was garbage, its extractor is bent, and the rear sight doesn't actually have a notch.

The good: the actual barrel is in good shape outside the crown. The lands and grooves are more than adequate for hog and deer hunting. The trigger cleaned up really well and the barrel floated with almost no work.

What we have finished: We have cut the barrel back to 20 inches and crowned it. We have measured for scout scope mount that will cover the old rear sight mount and I have outsourced for an extractor.

Whats next: I haven't ordered the Go/Nogo gauges because I know I saw a field gauge somewhere for 10 bucks, we are going to sand the stock down, bed the action, and find some decent glass in the 3-6 power range.
With the exception of some form of refinishing what am I missing? And does anyone have any advice they would like to offer? I can have everything here and ready minus the gauges by Friday for a weekend range trip.

 

[boom boom]

Sorry that you have no replies yet but there have been some fairly intense discussions of the pros and cons of Spanish Mausers, particularly in their .308 conversions. Look around in the rifle forums on THR for some fairly detailed information about sportered versions using the keyword of Spanish Mausers.

Since I assume that you are familiar with headspace gages and how to use them, I will just mention one safety inspection that you might want to do--have the bolt lug locking recesses in the receivers inspected--either by you with lights and a dental mirror or if you go to a gunsmith. If you have the touch and know what you are looking for, you can detect gross problems with your finger. The best way is to remove the barrel and check with a depth gage but removing these barrels for reuse require certain specialized tools to do it right.

If the bolt has a mismatched serial number compared to the receiver, you will certainly want to do this. The Mauser receiver has a relatively thin case hardened surface with a soft center--headspace troubles often come from setback of the locking recesses which lengthens headspace.

A temporary cure is often to put a longer bolt (works if you have a lot of bolts to compare with) to restore headspace or to simply necksize fired brass for that rifle only but I would consult a gunsmith in this case. Since I suspect that JG's source was the now bankrupt SAMCO Global, it would not be unknown among such importers to simply shove any old bolt in the gun just to sell the gun--as is under such conditions. I commend you on keeping the caliber as is because that is what the system was designed for and the 7x57 is a darn good round. Just don't hotrod it and if you reload, lead bullets along with lower pressures will keep a sound rifle going for a long time.

A really good source for information on Mausers overall is Kuhnhausen's gunsmithing book on Mausers. He details each part and how to check to make sure that it is within specs--while some have accused him of being overly cautious, Kuhnhausen purposefully chooses maximum safety over taking risks which a good thing for gunsmiths to do. You can also find a lot of information and helpful folks at Mauser Central forums regarding sporterizing--military surplus forums can often be harsh to those sporterizing military Mausers.

One last thing, if you want an excellent single-stage trigger pull and lighter one--get a Timney (or Bold if they still make it) cartridge type trigger system for small ring Mausers--don't try to alter the existing two stage trigger to do so for safety and function reasons.

 

[BBBBill]

Sound advise from boom boom.

 

[RPRNY]

The throat on that rifle is going to want a good looking at. It comes from the age of corrosive primers and may or may not have had hard use. You obviously don't want to send the boy out with a rifle (what a fantastic present in a GREAT caliber! ) that will not be accurate. All the above actions and advice are excellent but the throat wants looking at. Definitely worth a chamber cast with Cerrosafe. It's likely that the throat will be fairly long anyway but if there is some erosion, loading longer bullets and loading them out to 1/10" or so off the lands will compensate and help get the bullet into the rifling with good alignment. If the throat is a mess, using a heavy lead bullet in the 160 - 165 grs range sized to the throat (maybe as large as .287") will work well. You will want to keep muzzle velocity if this is the case to 1800 fps or less which will bring MPBR a bit closer, but an accurate 160 gr 7mm bullet will be hell on deer in any event!

 

[boom boom]

Thanks RPRNY. I am waiting on my gunsmith to finish rebarreling a 95 Chilean Mauser with an original length barrel. I am going to borrow your load advice por favor.

O/P, RPRNY is correct on checking the throat which along with the crown is probably the most important issue for accuracy in old milsurps. If the crown and throat are sound, even barrels with remarkable pitting can shoot amazingly well (course cleanup is a mess).