quote:

Originally posted by Duane Wiebe (CG&R):
Occasionally, I'm asked to do those thumb cuts..mostly from DG hunters.

I cut one in my MK X 458 also because when I take the scope off I plan to put the whip to it !

Phil you are so evil

quote:

Originally posted by lindy2:
Mr. Wiebe

Getting back to that extractor issue, I am wondering what the fix is. Do you have to go into the front ring and polish the raceway (or whatever its called) that the extractor is housed in when it enters the bolt in order to provide some clearance for movement? And realistically, how much can be shaved off the outside of the extractor?

I spoke to Reto Beuhler when starting my GMA/.404J project. He assured me that the rifle would feed and eject single rounds that were not loaded from the magazine. Legitimate concern in my opinion.

Lindy2...As you stated..nothing should be removed outside of final polish, nor it it necessary on the original design

Dropping a round in a Mauser DG rifle chamber is not a good idea in the real world, its failure prone IMO, I find it faster and much more reliable to push the round in the magazine and close the bolt. Most of my G33-40s are Brno mod 21 and 22, both square bridge and round top, I have both, The G33-40s and the German Customs Service SR carbines (Also a G33-40 know as mod 35 as I recall) I leave as is...You can cut the extractor tip to close on a dropped in cartridge but that weakens extraction IMO. Unless I missed something here as I skimmed over the posts, sometimes a mistake on my part I have to admit..

Ray..the modification (if needed) involves sightly changing the angle on the top front of the extractor lip, all of the lip still enters the extractor groove on the brass just like before. No change there.

I attended a class taught by Tom Burgess. He flat out said that the 98 was designed to snap over a round in the chamber. He stated that ammo of old had a champfer at the rear of the case to assist this "snap over".

Most modern ammo does not, that's why the slight angle change described above. If the 98 was designed to only feed from the magazine, the 1MM clearance at the ring would not be there.

In my experience, I've found that most 98's will do the snap over without modification.

Somewhere, I have an article in which the author built up the front of the 98 extractor..looking like a M-70. The idea was to give that longer slope for easy single loading. However, it did require a barrel slot to accommodate the now longer extractor nose

quote:

I attended a class taught by Tom Burgess

I still think about Tom, and the two times I visited with him at his shop, and the correspondence I had with him. He was a nice man, and I miss him.

Anyway, couldn't a guy wanting to load his Mauser with one in the chamber just do a little work on his brass so it loaded the way its supposed to? Maybe even some sort of a hand tool to do that chamfering work could be developed by one of the reloading companies like BCBS or Lyman or Redding.

Not really necessary and I don't think there would be much of a special tool market in these days of push feeds

There is a technique for single round loading where the shooter can pinch the extractor with the left hand while rotating the bolt closed. I have a 7x57 and a 338-06 this works on. I also have a 98K in 8x57 this does not work on. Be sure not to get the skin of your digits between the bolt guide rib and the extractor as you rotate the bolt closed or it will give you a pinch you won't soon forget.

Single loaded Rounds can also be 1/2 ramped as I call it. If you take a round and place it 1/2 way up the ramp, push it under the left rail, the rail will hold it there so the shooter can cycle the bolt forward scooping up the round under the extractor easily and chambering it.
This can be done quickly if practiced. Train your muscle memory to do this and you'll be able to do it without looking at the rifle, go purely by feel.

I have used Stuart's way and it works fine. But always wondered if how bad was stressing the extractor

Not all actions have the required side clearance for the extractor to jump the case rim. If you have the clearance to jump the rim then you can do it all day long with no damage to the extractor. The extractor will jump the case rim very easily without excessive force on the bolt handle.

Extractors get broken when there is no side clearance for the extractor to jump the rim and the shooter forces the bolt closed, in which case the nose of the extractor either plows thru the case rim or gets broken off or both. I have seen case rims plowed thru. What happens is the extractor will actually push the rim of the case off in the area, the brass material from the rim gets pushed ahead to where the extractor should grab, but can't because the is gob of brass in the way. Once this has occurred the round has been forced into the chamber so hard that it will usually needs to be bumped back out with a rod.

For those that do not know. The 2nd bite of a Mauser extractor is a small dovetail projection, it runs functions in that radial groove just back of the bolt face. The radial groove has the corresponding side for that dovetail on the extractor. When properly made the dovetail groove and dovetail extractor have a small amount of end play/tolerance so the extractor moves fore and aft to a small extent. Upon ejection of a case the end play tolerance is opened up just at touch which creates tolerance for the next round coming up to get in under the extractor bite, then of course is fed to the chamber.
In the case where the round is already in the chamber, the extractor engages the case rim, the dovetails of the extractor and bolt are disengaged by forward pressure of the closing cams of the Receiver, this occurs at the rotary event of the bolt, once this occurs two other things must also happen. 1, the front bevel of the extractor should be steeper, more in the neighborhood of 45 degrees vs 30 although I've seen extractors work pretty good with the stock bevel of about 30. Going to the steeper 45 ish degree bevel makes jumping the rim less of a jump it's a fine line and we call it fitting. 2., we need the side clearance between the outside of the extractor inside of the Receiver, but we've already spoke of this. At the end of the day it's the M98 design, it's wonderfully simply yet wonderfully complicated all at the same time. No other bolt action has the number of features that an M98 has. I look at Mausers on the GB for a few hundred bucks and think to remake that takes 10s of thousands of dollars. Mausers are really from a different time, a completely different world, a time where computers did not even exist, microprocessors? Forget about it. It's just an amazing design, timeless in fact.
,

I love $500 LR Mauser actions, FN's in particular.

I have seven Husqvarna Rifles with FN LR M98 Mauser actions in 9.3X57 and 9.3X62 for sale on Gunbroker. Also one action only with scope mount. Look up user Greene Sporting.

Good pointing the Little known and overlooked bit of genius that went into that dovetail, Stuart!

The feature is not found in the later "improvements' to the 98, such as Springfield, Enfield, M-70 etc.

The dovetail is not engaged except upon the bolt body being pushed rearward by extractor cam. Without that, and with pressure on the extractor (as in single loading) the extractor is free to move sideways, further proof the Mauser boys intended that snap over feature.

I'd point out that making a 45 degree angle isn't possible in all cases without sacrificing full extractor groove engagement.

I had a semi uncomfortable experience in Tanzania. We had tracked a couple Dugga Boys for hours, and in thick brush, my PH told me to take the soft out of the chamber and replace with a solid.

"Fumble, fumble and sure enough I dropped the soft back into the chamber. (500 Jeff)

Without that "snap over " feature, not sure what I'd have done.

I've personally seen only two 98 extractor failures, but here's where they break when they do..this is why I'm so against thinning them down.

I have been told, but not verified, that the GMA actions do not have that undercut tongue on the extractor and bolt . Can anybody verify that ?

After watching a lot of machining videos on u-tube, and seeing what some of these new multiple axis machines can do, I would think that making a mauser action wouldn't be all that difficult, or at least not as difficult as back in the days when they made them with hand operated milling machines and lathes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRjm3FsApOg

quote:

Originally posted by lindy2
I would think that making a mauser action wouldn't be all that difficult...

More than one machinist has run with your idea and gone broke in the process.

02 thru 08 I made a couple runs of extractors for GMA. They did have the dovetails then they do now.

Thanks, good to know

quote:

Originally posted by lindy2:
After watching a lot of machining videos on u-tube, and seeing what some of these new multiple axis machines can do, I would think that making a mauser action wouldn't be all that difficult, or at least not as difficult as back in the days when they made them with hand operated milling machines and lathes.

Chuckle chuckle

Just don't feed the trolls

"More than one machinist has run with your idea and gone broke in the process."

I would think more so because of inadequate capitalization or poor business practices rather than a lack of knowledge or machining skill and capability.

quote:

Originally posted by lindy2:
"More than one machinist has run with your idea and gone broke in the process."

I would think more so because of inadequate capitalization or poor business practices rather than a lack of knowledge or machining skill and capability.

You really need to stick with whatever your specialty happens to be.
Maybe you might front the money for a shop with the proper machinery and find a capable machinist to make you rich.

"Not really necessary and I don't think there would be much of a special tool market in these days of push feeds"

And perhaps there just isn't a decent market for Mauser actions, as Mr. Wiebe says, "in these days of push feeds".

There will always be a small but steady dedicated demand for rifles done properly based on M98 actions.
The actions may be from donor military surplus or new production, makes no difference.
Rifles based on the before mentioned actions will always entail more labor cost to produce, this labor cost alone drives the price of this product higher than rifles based on simpler bolt action designs.
There are those who can easily afford numerous fine rifles based on the M98 and there is the guy who scraped and saved so he could have just one example. The point is, regardless of economic power both men made owning a rifle of M98 base rifle priority, because he knows the difference and those differences are significant and important. Take way those differences and simplify the design and you can call it a model 70. Water the model 70 down and you can call it the model 700.

A good 5 axis machine programmed and set up to produce Mausers would be awesome. Several machines of that nature, even better. Hell, if a guys going to dream, may as well dream big, doesn't cost any more than a small boring insignificant dream.

When everything is going well I can make an M98 receiver in 12 hours. That's just the receiver no bolt or magazine and that's in steel, titanium around 22 hours.

Interior broaching, cams, 3rd lug, giude rib broaching represent 1/3 of those hours respectively.
It's a time and labor intensive job.

Reducing the 2/3 worth of hours, those in the 8 range down to say 2 to maybe 3 would be interesting.

Well said!

And that ends the lesson for today on why the Rem 700 became so popular.

Tomorrow we will learn about the Ruger American.

I wonder what the raw material (steel etc.) cost is for a Mauser action.

quote:

Originally posted by lindy2:
I wonder what the raw material (steel etc.) cost is for a Mauser action.

Depends on the alloy and quantity.

Thanks Duane, the ones Ive seen modified was my changing the angle of the extractor or gringing it to a different contour, and removing metal in such small areas has been informed to me by some top rated smiths as weakening extraction with breakage, not desired on DGRs...I only repeat what was told to me, and it made since..

But no matter as I believe I can push a round in the magazine and close the bolt about as fast as I can drop one in the barrel..Ive seen the drop in the barrel rifle jam time and time again and in the field..gun failure or human error, I don't know, but they mostly fell out on the ground during the closing operation as I recall...as the gun was pointed down, and the feeding by hand was awkward...no argument on my part just passing on what Ive been told and witnessed in the field under tension. I can describe some of these failure in detail but see no reason to confuse the issue as to why it happened as I saw it, except by request.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by 458Win:
And that ends the lesson for today on why the Rem 700 became so popular.

Tomorrow we will learn about the Ruger American.[/QUOTE

Stuart won't be conducting that class...like asking Rembrandt to draw cartoons

In that case , considering all the talent on this thread, I guess that only leaves me

HAR...to do what?...cartoons?

A guy has to do what he is good at Duane.

I do know one of America's top gunbuilders who also shoots a lot, which is surprisingly uncommon among so many craftsmen, so he completely understands the capabilities of the Ruger American and has even considered building stocks for them .

quote:

Originally posted by lindy2:
I wonder what the raw material (steel etc.) cost is for a Mauser action.

go figure:

https://www.onlinemetals.com/

I agree with Ray Atkinson on the extractor etc ,I don't know why people insist they have to be able to throw one into the chamber and have the extractor close over it ,when its just as easy to push one straight into the magazine ,why weaken the best feature of the 98 by beveling the extractor etc ? Brevex maker was asked to modify the actions so they could close on a round thrown into the chamber ,he said NO .People who want the the bolt to be able to close on a round in a 98 are like people who insist every bolt action Has to have a Model 70 safety ,if you want it to close on a round they should buy a Model 700

Well...to backtrack...the 98 system allows for 1MM extra room at the R hand rail for the extractor to move sideways..coincidentally, this is adequate or most extractor grooves in just about any cartridge I know of.

Tom Burgess pointed out that this was done on purpose for a "snap over" clearance.

It befuddles me that this should be a controversial point!

Anyway, if the "new and improved" design does not have that clearance, there are two ways to provide it. Open up the action or thin down the extractor.

The latter is completely unacceptable in my opinion and making the clearance in the action is a real giant PIA.

If there is the clearance, MOST 98's will snap over..If they will not , there is a simple fix without removing material from the innermost hook.

A close look will show a bevel..modifying that bev el near the top of the hook will allow the extractor to easily snap over the rim...I'll try and post a photo

quote:

Originally posted by 458Win:
A guy has to do what he is good at Duane.

I do know one of America's top gunbuilders who also shoots a lot, which is surprisingly uncommon among so many craftsmen, so he completely understands the capabilities of the Ruger American and has even considered building stocks for them .

Ruger....pretty good value right off the rack..and I have on many occasions recommended them... as a Base for a custom...you gotta be kidding!

quote:

Originally posted by Robertcat:
I agree with Ray Atkinson on the extractor etc ,I don't know why people insist they have to be able to throw one into the chamber and have the extractor close over it ,when its just as easy to push one straight into the magazine ,why weaken the best feature of the 98 by beveling the extractor etc ? Brevex maker was asked to modify the actions so they could close on a round thrown into the chamber ,he said NO .People who want the the bolt to be able to close on a round in a 98 are like people who insist every bolt action Has to have a Model 70 safety ,if you want it to close on a round they should buy a Model 700

Well..as I've said before...any improvement to a 98 is a step backward