I was told that by 1940 the science of metallurgy was pretty much common knowledge in the world and any rifles made than would be fine now, in general. I bought what turns out to be a gew 98 turk this week. I find out that those were made between 1898 and 1935. Can I be confident that this is safe and good steel? Could I build anything within reason? It is a large ring but it's the age I am curious about. I saw it was marked 1940 but I know that was when it was assembled from the gew 98 not when it was created to begin with.

Anyone have ideas? Every time I think I understand Mausers another variant throws me off

This also has the hand guard flange, which is bizarre since it started out as a large ring gew98

Turkey took some GEW98's and removed a couple of threads on the inside to form a handguard flange to conform to the 1938 pattern. Don't think I would get too frisky with it.

So I bought a relic I shouldn't build on. Awesome.

Or is this still an OK action?

It's a fine action and the shorter threads mean nothing except a shorter shank.

Post a picture of it, and I will tell you more.

If it is a "turked" G98, then the first thread or two were removed to form a hand guard retainer. Removing the "lip" from the front of the receiver results in a shorter front ring. Perhaps not a big deal if you are custom stocking, but if you plan on using a semi inlet, you are likely to have a pronounced gap.

I prefer not to use those actions 1) because of the alteration and 2) because G98's can more often be "softer" than later model actions. That said, it was not uncommon for Tom Burgess to remove the first thread as well so he didn't have to make a thread relief cut in the barrel. He threaded right up to the shoulder.

The receiver is about the least expensive part of a build. Start with a "good" one.

If the action is one of the K.Kale marked actions, which tend to have dates in the 40's, then the hand guard retainer is an extension on the front ring and they have Small Ring threads. You may have one of these. As I recall, the modified 1903's had dates in the mid to late 30's, the K,Kale's in the early to mid 40's, and the ATF Marked G98's in the late 40's and even early 50's.

Not a k kale. Very fair "gew98" mark in front of the bolt release

So can I have it heat treated and fix this issue

quote:

I bought what turns out to be a gew 98 turk this week. I find out that those were made between 1898 and 1935. Can I be confident that this is safe and good steel?

No nation sends its troops to war with a weapon that is unsafe. It may send them to war with a weapon that is inadequate...the American BAR,and Sherman M4, the British .380 Enfield No2 Mk 1* revolver and Fairey Battle bomber...but not unsafe.

But. And here's the thing. You've no idea what has or hasn't happened to that weapon meantime.

It may have been over-loaded with a handload, burned in a fire, etc., etc..Or presently invisible hairline crack to the receiver.

Here in UK we can have the thing "Proof Tested" by firing a calculated and measured overload in an oiled chamber..and I am guessing there are gun concerns in the USA that can do that too?

So could you do the same in the USA and the know that it's worth the while of then taking the thing to pieces and using the parts for your project?

Not unsafe to their knowledge but possibly unsafe for me to screw a 2506 barrel onto 85 years later when someone apparently has cut into the front ring and exposed the softer innards

We don't have any proof houses here.
Ok, I see that for sure you have a converted Gew. This is one of those gray areas. ZLR gave you the scoop.
If it were mine, I would not be afraid to use it, but not for any cartridge over 50K PSI, which leaves out your 25-06. Not that it wouldn't work for that; but because it was a Gewehr 98. Gray area.
Oh, you could have it heat treated to make sure it is hard/tough enough, but getting a new receiver will be cheaper. Start with a VZ24; those are always good. Sell this one and you will be ahead in all respects.
Cutting into the threads just removes thread metal; that does not affect whatever strength it has or doesn't have. There are enough threads left.
I would not like it due to the stock inlets, all are made for the regular length ring; even the roughing patterns are. So, bottom line, for me, I would not use it. I would get something else.

DPCD...when I was a kid and then some...I used to read in Keith's books "Hell.." and "Sixguns" eyc., reference to H P White Laboratories and them firing a "blue pill" (I'm guessing a cartridge stained with Engineers' Blue to show it as an overload) to "proof test" a gun.

Do such places now not exist still in the US? Where a private individual can send a weapon and ask for it to be test fired with a round, made by this concern, of known certain over-pressure overload?

White labs is still around.

I found their www adress: http://www.hpwhite.com/

Ok. I forgot about them because I never heard of anyone sending them anything to test. Firearms are produced by the millions here, without proof testing.
Most factories do function test them.
When I worked at TACOM, my office bought 120mm Tank Cannon Barrels; they are not proof tested 100%; only sample tested. None ever failed.

You could have Duane Wiebe build you a nice rifle for what it would cost White Labs to test your rifle.

Keep it as a turk'd rifle to shoot.

There are plenty of available 98 actions around.

Save your pennies, consult your local gunsmith, he can help you pick out a nice one.

PacMet will re heat treat action and bolt for about $250.00. They follow Burgess' guidelines

In America typically the firearm design is proof tested at someplace like H.P. White Labratories, much more extensively than just firing a couple of shots. They will start at SAAMI spec loads, then gradually increase the pressure in the fired loads until the firearm is no longer safe to shoot.
Then they will get another firearm and start at that level, increasing until the gun isn't safe to shoot or it explodes. This gives the manufacturer an idea both of the long term durability of the design and the maximum pressure the design can withstand when new. When the manufacturer is satisfied with the durability of the design, they put it into production and test each gun with several shots of standard SAAMI spec ammo to test the guns functioning.
And yet somehow bad designs (the various 17 caliber semi-auto's that were attempted) and bad guns (the "Marlin" lever actions first produced by Remington with sights twisted off vertical) get out into retail sales.

The point is that there is no requirement to do so, and any such testing is purely done at the discretion of each maker. And after any initial proof testing, if any, most makers do not proof test anything. Just function fire. With modern steels, it just isn't necessary.

Yeah, with modern firearms only the design is proof tested. They call it provisional proving and almost all manufacturers do it in-house. I think Remington Arms is the only major company left that I know of that proves every firearm. Some of the smaller boutique outfits like Cooper may proof fire every gun to keep their insurance costs down. As dpcd said, with modern steels and heat treating it just isn't necessary any longer. Europe is a bit different and I think CIP requires actual proving but there are only a handful of countries in the world that recognize CIP. Of the 196 countries and states in the world only Austria, Belgium, Chile, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom work to CIP standards. The rest of the world sort of views CIP as an old boys club or money grab. I think HP Whites pricing got beyond most corporations and they now mostly work with government contracted stuff where firearms are concerned. You actually don't hear much about Whitehead anymore. Last that I heard, most of their work was geared to testing toasters, running shoes, flak jackets, motorcycle helmets, and gerbil wheels.

If we don't proof fire all our tank cannon barrels that fire ammunition going over 5000 fps and operating at upwards of 85000 psi, then we sure don't need to proof fire a rifle barrel.

Personally, I'm not too concerned about a well established Barrel maker. Although a famous barrel maker died, His grandson fired up the old rifling machine. Trouble is, he didn't know how to sharpen the cutters, so went to softer and softer steels..bulges and bulges resulted. Proofing might have nipped that in the bud.

My main concern is the thousands of stumbefucks that work on actions. Yes...there's a good argument in favor of proof houses..even those calibers commonly ASSUMED as less then 50000 PSI.

In the absence of proof houses, I test fire with the heaviest bullet available in commercial ammo.

I will not in any way, entertain or support a national "proof law" wherein the government gets any more into any of our business. It would not solve any problems that may or may not exist.
I just don't think it is an issue. Even with the amateur fitting barrels.

Over the years there has been some quiet talk about regulating gunsmithing here in Canada. As it is, anyone with the desire who can meet the storage requirements can get a license. But for every person who has a license there are probably 50 guys who are ripping apart old guns and rebarreling or customizing them in their basements and garages with no licenses. Oddly enough, the people who are demanding the regulation are actually part time, licensed, under the table (tax wise) gunsmiths. The majority are self trained. No accredited schooling like CST or PGS and no 4 years of apprenticeship afterward. I have actually locked horns with a few of them on this issue over the years. Most of them only want it to keep others from getting into their part time money gig. The simple fact of the mater is that I have no doubt if the government were to get involved with regulating it, the whole thing would soon become such a convoluted mess that you couldn't shorten a barrel or rechamber a gun without a mile of paperwork which would lead into months of waiting and additional costs. And as soon as something like that was put into place then the record keeping of firearms would begin again and in no time flat we would have a whole new registry system. We just finished throwing out the last registry which did (ZERO) good to reduce crime or gun violence. It did however cost the tax payers 4 billion dollars for the 18 years that it ran. $222,222,222 dollars per year down the tubes so some old bunny humper women could sleep at night. Just for giggles, I happen to know that Canada budgets $50,000,000 per year for cancer research. Had we used that additional $172,222,222 per year on research we probably could have cured cancer or at least put us 3 generations ahead on cancer research.

And even if the government did regulate it. Those 50 unlicensed guys who are operating along side of the one licensed guy right now, would still be doing what they are doing without operating to the letter of the governments new and improved regulatory system. In short. The hacks would still be hacking and the licensed people would have a whole new headache and a whole new bureaucracy hammering them in the face. To say nothing of the expense that the tax payers would have to bear.

No, we let the bunny humpers talk the bureaucrats into that crap once and it turned into a horrifically expensive, unholy, convoluted, CLUSTER FUCK ! Never again, if I have any say.

Once again, Rod, you have, correctly of course, said it all.

Well Tom, this is Canada. So I can't say how my thoughts on the issue would affect your situation down there. We are after all in different countries. We might as well be on different worlds. But when a government finally comes out and scraps something that they initiated, because THEY, are willing to admit that it just wasn't working. Well that says something. And just one more tidbit. Bill C-68 (The Firearms Registry) was the first, AND ONLY BILL in Canada that has ever been overturned and thrown out, EVER, in Canadian history.

We just recently escaped more gun control nonsense from the left, but there are plenty of people here who want to do what you guys just repealed; they don't read history.

In a lot of cases it's not just governments that initiate firearms control in countries. Over years of observing and listening to people talk on the subject, the most common way gun control gets started is simple cronyism. The old guys end up in the bar, all self important, discussing how they used to hunt and shoot and don't want to let go and want to keep a certain amount of control over what they once did. Keep their fingers in the pie so to speak. Even though it is something that they have abandoned for the fire place. Most of the time it's their dreams of a perfect situation, that leads to a cascading affect of over regulation. Their first instinct is to turn to politics to stay involved. The intent is good at the start, but they over think it and invariably to create rules, standards and law which they think will help, they have to bring in bureaucrats who simply don't understand the situation at all. Suddenly there is a war of give and take between what the old guys want and what the bureaucrats want and a compromise has to be met. It invariably leads to slightly more regulation than what the old timers originally wanted and with every generation that regulatory system gets larger and more convoluted until you get to a point where you wake up and say: "God Save The Queen" and you head out for your morning tea.

At a certain point when people are still young enough to know better, they have to let go of things to the next generation who are of the same age group that they were when they first got into these activities. Let the young, the people who are actually participating in the game full time initiate rules and change. Getting old makes you smarter in some ways. But getting smarter also leads to arrogance, I know, because I find myself guilty of that some times. Arrogance invariably leads to trying to control what others are doing and that in itself is a breeding ground for the bureaucracy that tends to complicate and destroy things. If you take what you have and turn it into an old boys club, only old boys will play it. At some point the up and coming old boys will all have found games of their own to play and when the old boys in your club all die, the game will be over.

This is largely what has happened in Canada. In our rush to over control our game, the game got so complicated to play that we actually lost a whole generation of up and coming shooters and hunters. This new generation (The Millennials) largely blow their spare time and money on travel and other hobbies just as we blew all of our spare loot on hunting and shooting. Through our own arrogance we nearly destroyed our game. What's worse we lost half the voices which we used to use to fight government control. It's a slippery slope.

Yes, but here is is the liberals who never played in our game, and want all guns banned and or, controlled like they are in some countries, who want to control all phases of your life, and there are plenty of old ones (which makes me retch) to go with the young ones, who don't know any better.

Back to the relative strength of your Turk Mauser: It is the brass cartridge case which is the weak link in any breeching system. It will fail long before the steel of any front-locking turnbolt action. A catastrophic overload which will blow a Turk Mauser will also blow a Remington 700, Weatherby Mark V, Winchester 70, ad infinitem.

However, civilizing a military Mauser is always a money-losing proposition. You can find a donor rifle with a nice FN action for half of what you would put into just the modifications to your Turk -- and have no qualms about its fitness.

My wife's uncle had an 03 Sprinfield that he considered questionable and lashed it to a shooting bench with a string tied to the trigger and with him behind a barrier fired it off and blew it to you know where. Since your action doesn't have a barrel? I think you would be wise to use another action of known quality and don't look back. Why sink the money and time into building a rifle that may never survive it's first shot?

Buy a Ruger 77 MKII add a new trigger and get every thing a custom would cost you a fortune to build.

Yes but buying factory rifles takes all the fun out of it. After all, planning a custom rifle is part of the process. Anyone can just buy a rifle.

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:
Buy a Ruger 77 MKII add a new trigger and get every thing a custom would cost you a fortune to build.

But then how would I feed my family? I would have to get a real job! Why would you recommend such a thing?!

You're safe dude. Lol I am too into mausers