What’s the best method for removing a few pits from a Mauser action? I have a Guatemalan vz-24 with a couple of small pits below the wood line. Right now it’s set up as a sporter with an old 2 groove barrel with irons on it. Thinking of maybe doing a re barrel and maybe installing some new irons and dropping it in a new stock. Problem is I feel compelled to clean it up if I am going to go that far. There’s some light pitting under the wood line, most light enough to stone out, but there’s one pit on the left side of the front ring about 1/32 in diameter and two on the right that are smaller. Could probably be surface ground out but I’d like to keep the crest and have no plans of scoping the rifle. Should I tig weld them and use a heat sink or water bath, or is there a better method? Or should I live with it and call it character?

If it's below the wood line then just leave them. Welding on the front ring is not recommended.

Agreed...A friend of mine is a welding engineer, worked at the (now infamous) Hanford Nuclear Facility.

Had access to every conceivable testing device know to man...He is also a damn fine metalsmith/ gun fancier.

He said here are two rules about welding on a receiver ring. No 1..Don't do it and No 2.. Don 't do it

There is at least two types of welding that will fill pits without changing the parent metals hardness.

TiG is not one of them

Yes, you can weld without it affecting the heat treatment, but in your case, just leave it if it doesn't show.

Leave it as is.
If you really hate the pits buy an action with no pits. Even the price of a Granite Mountain or Satterly action does not go far in a hospital emergency room or a funeral parlor.

M

That is very dramatic.

Thanks for the replies!