BTW, the sheetmetal box on a Weatherby Mark V is tempered steel so that the feed lips at the top are like springs.
The front of the box is hardened by the heat treat too.
Any feed lip adjustments will be made by grinding them.
Any front-of-box reinforcement is done by filling the space between the front of the box and the front wall of the magazine well of the stock with steel and epoxy.

The .255" length of parallel-sided free-bore is more than adequate for milsurp loads.
The Barnes 647-grain XFB has an ogive like milsurp ball ammo.
Seat it and crimp it on the cannelure and you have a COL of 4.000" in the 500 Bateleur.
This is a nice single-shot loader.
Even longer COL and heavier bullet can be obtained with the Hornady 750-grain A-Max, or a 705-grain AAA Harlow target bullet.
But 647 grains is plenty heavy enough for larger varmints.

A sabot load with 150-grain .308-caliber bullet deserves to be checked for velocity and accuracy. It feeds from the box of the Wby Mk V.

This could make for a versatile varmint rifle, with both heavy and light hollow point bullets.
500 Bateleur

It looks good, it is a fantastic designed cartridge, but in my opinion it has not enough case capacity for anything heavier than 600gr.

Pyzda

500 Bateleur Bertha weighs 10.25 lbs (4.66 kg) in her birthday suit.
That includes the Leupold Mark 4 scope bases with 8x40 screws and JB Weld, so now good as integral.
Her barrel is 25.59" (650mm) long, and the muzzle diameter is 0.915" at junction with screw-on thread protector.
She is muzzle-heavy. Screw-on the huge muzzle brake and she gets even more muzzle-heavy.
Balance will be improved by adding a scope and rings, and a slip-on recoil pad.
Mercury tube or lead in the butt? Nah ...

quote:

Originally posted by RIP:
The .255" length of is more than adequate for milsurp loads.
The Barnes 647-grain XFB has an ogive like milsurp ball ammo.
Seat it and crimp it on the cannelure and you have a COL of 4.000" in the 500 Bateleur.
This is a nice single-shot loader.
Even longer COL and heavier bullet can be obtained with the Hornady 750-grain A-Max, or a 705-grain AAA Harlow target bullet.
But 647 grains is plenty heavy enough for larger varmints.

A sabot load with 150-grain .308-caliber bullet deserves to be checked for velocity and accuracy. It feeds from the box of the Wby Mk V.

This could make for a versatile varmint rifle, with both heavy and light hollow point bullets.
500 Bateleur

That ought to settle the free-bore issue with the 500 AR as well... on the 500 AR Nyati and its 0.255" parallel-sided free-bore.

Jim,
How about this one, the 750-grain A-Max from Hornady,
with COL of 4.475" it will chamber in the 500 Bateleur, with its throat so like the 500 AR Nyati:



Note also how perfectly it fits the neck, full bearing throughout neck, for excellent neck tension,
only the boat tail intrudes into the powder space.

I'd say that is about as long and heavy a beak as this bird needs, for successful 1000-yard plinking.

Jim,
"10-4" as discussed on the 500 AR Nyati thread.
I am just happy to see the truth prevail.

Hey Ron,

Definitely good to have fact overcome perception...

This scope served well on a 500A2 Ruger No.1, got me on paper at nearly 1000 yards (942 yards in the cow pasture) with a 5-mil holdover.
Life should be easier for it on a 500 Bateleur like Bertha:



Yep, Bertha is big enough for a 4-ring scope for load workup. Little sister Bridget will get a fixed 2.5x or a 1x-5x variable in only 2 rings.

Bridget has been barreled and has fired her first shot, a poof load, same as Bertha fired to check her chamber.
The aluminum magazine well in the B&C Medalist stock's bedding block needs to be milled out to fit the Wiebe bottom metal.

Bridget is an FN Mauser.
Rusty said she has square threads, not V-threads, action/barrel threads.
Apparently they used to make the FN Mauser with square threads to make it easy to fit a surplus Springfield barrel to it.

Maybe I will shoot Bertha the Wby Mk V 500 Bateleur (50-12) tomorrow,
along with a .375/404 Jeffery Saeed of 2012 using CEB ESP Raptors ... weather is looking good ... gotta load some ammo ...

quote:

The aluminum magazine well in the B&C Medalist stock's bedding block needs to be milled out to fit the Wiebe bottom metal.

Bridget is an FN Mauser.
Rusty said she has square threads, not V-threads, action/barrel threads.

Yep - the B&C Medalist stock's magazine well work just fine with the 1909 bottom metal and if I remember correctly the Wiebe' 5M (375/416 Ruger) bottom metal fit just fine as well. The bedding block has to be machined out to fit my Wiebe’ 4MJ bottom metals as well.

Very interesting about the square threads on your commercial FN Mauser action, I’ve not checked with my gunsmith but presumed my threads were they traditional 55º V-threads. I’ll have to ask Steve this week…

Dang, too many birthday parties to go to this weekend. Nice weather. No shooting.
Did get a good start on working over 150 cases for the .375/404 Jeffery Saeed of 2012,
and 130 cases for the 500 Bateleur.
Size, trim, uniform/clean primer pockets, anneal, tumble to polish, prime, ho hum ...

quote:

Very interesting about the square threads on your commercial FN Mauser action, I’ve not checked with my gunsmith but presumed my threads were they traditional 55º V-threads. I’ll have to ask Steve this week…

I read about the Springfield threads years ago. This was to take advantage of the many 1903 surplus barrels after the war. This is the first action with them I have ever seen. No drama, just curious.

Geez I'd almost forgotten about this question. I did talk to Steve this week, actually multiple times and finally phoned him back to ask the question. Both of my commercial FN M98 actions are both standard Mauser 'V' threads. Steve also mentioned he'd never seen the '03 square threads on a commercial FN M98 action so it must be a rare item...

500 Bateleur Mauser 98 started off as a Herter's 30-06 rifle.
My guess is this might have been a special run of FN Mauser actions made for Herter's to screw some re-contoured surplus Springfield 30-06 barrels onto.

I bought the rifle off a buddy in Alaska in the early 1990s. An apprentice gunsmith in Anchorage rebarreled it to .375/.338WinMag (similar to a .375 Taylor).
The barrel used was a take-off Whitworth .375 H&H. Barrel threads were cut off and re-threaded.
The apprentice screwed it up, producing rings in chamber that were more than cosmetic on fired brass.
The apprentice got another chance, to cut the barrel a second time and re-chamber.
Same result.
Master gunsmith took over and cut the barrel a third time and re-chambered: Good, no chamber rings.
But the barrel was now only about 21" long, not 23" as desired from the original 24" Whitworth barrel,
and the barrel threads were awfully close to the cut for the secondary recoil lug on the barrel.

Proof of existence of square-threaded FN Mauser 98 action:



Well, I fired it anyway, loaded it until incipient case head separation started showing up,
but I got nowhere near .375 H&H velocity with that 21" barrel.

Hence this was a very good donor rifle for the 500 Bateleur.
Rusty has the newly re-barreled, square-threaded, M98 FN action in the mill to make the Wiebe bottom metal fit the bottom of the action.
He has already got the bottom metal fitting into the B&C stock.
I will eventually rebuild this stock to fit the bottom metal contours,
or just leave it hanging out like Saeed does on his .375/404 Jeffery Dakota African.

















Work on this rifle is underway at Hilltop Gun Shop, down the road from this historic marker:

If you leave it hanging out, why not have Rusty trim the floor plate to contour match the magazine? It'd be cleaner looking - plus if it looks good you might start a new trend!

quote:

Originally posted by capoward:
If you leave it hanging out, why not have Rusty trim the floor plate to contour match the magazine? It'd be cleaner looking - plus if it looks good you might start a new trend!

No way will I give a Wiebe floorplate a circumcision. Not talking Kosher here, afterall!
Bottom metal hanging out is cool. Just ask Saeed.
If I should decide to make that stock more cosmetic,
I offer as proof of my fiberglass boat building skills, my ability to sort of make an MPI stock fit a Dakota 76 African action: Never again!







I will use JB Weld like Bondo.
Then paint it purty.
The JB Weld on the one below was so purty that I did not need to paint it,
after rebuilding a .308 Winchester stock into a 404 Jeffery accommodator, Brown Precision:




Same principles will be applied, but maybe more attention to sanding and painting.

quote:

Originally posted by RIP:
BTW, the sheetmetal box on a Weatherby Mark V is tempered steel so that the feed lips at the top are like springs.
The front of the box is hardened by the heat treat too.
Any feed lip adjustments will be made by grinding them.
Any front-of-box reinforcement is done by filling the space between the front of the box and the front wall of the magazine well of the stock with steel and epoxy.

I have ground one on a 378,460 and my 510 Wells. It's nice to have a gun this easy to work with for a bigbore. I'm not so sure about the green stock though.

quote:

Originally posted by PoppaW:
... I'm not so sure about the green stock though.

Me neither, but I will see how it grows on me.
If no growth of affection, then Bertha Bateleur gets a new coat of paint.
It is an HS Precision painted stock, "Rapid City Green."

Here is Bridget languishing at the Hilltop Gun Shop and Spa for Wayward Rifles:



Parts is parts:



"Three and a half" rounds in the box, plenty of room to CRF the fourth round off the top of the box with an unaltered Mauser claw extractor: CRF and CRE


Making the trough bigger for the piggies is the next bit of work for Rusty, feed job begins here:



The B&C Medalist M98 stock milled to accept the Wiebe bottom metal:



I love it when a thing comes together like this.

Bridget Mauser is slowly coming along, and will join her sister Bertha Weatherby at the range someday soon ... you cannot rush perfection.



24" barrel without the Vais Brake: