Hi!

Being a newbi in guns and stuff, I came across something here the other day at my friends house!In Boddingtons book"saferirifles" he metion something about which boltactions that are strongest.On page 188 it goes like" Rarely is there a clearcut disadvantage or advantage to either system(control feed/pushfeed), but it must be reconized that modern action actions are are stronger than any mauser-and if an action is going to blow, a Mauser, springfield,Enfield or even a pre-64 Winchester will blow long before a Remington700,Weatherby MarkV, savage 110,or similar modern action. And the older action will probaply with much more disatrous results for the shooter!"

I did some thinking about that statement and started out to wonder why Boddington compare old actions with new? Why not compare a NEW M98 made by Reimer Johanneson with a New Remington m700?. A gunsmith tolled me that the original Oberndorf Mauser m98 were made af softer steel and hardened less around the ring so if any "blowup" were to occure it would have much less "bomb effect" rather of what we have seen with like the Sako 75!. I natually reconize Boddington as an authority but I just had these questionson my mind!

The mistake is assuming Boddington is an expert. Many people have looked at actions and called them strong because they were heavy.One example of this is the M1917. The 98 mausers were designed to stretch not burst. Any action is limited by the brass case. Once the case lets go the pressure has a much larger surface to work against and things happen. The Springfield, and the Winchester mod 70 were copies of the older 93 (small ring) Mauser and would let gas back into your face. He was right in that materials are probablymore consistant today.
Good luck!

quote:

hawkins: The Springfield, and the Winchester mod 70 were copies of the older 93 (small ring) Mauser and would let gas back into your face.

The 03 Springfield will certainly direct gas into your face when a case splits, I can vouch for that! Always wear glasses.

quote:

I did some thinking about that statement and started out to wonder why Boddington compare old actions with new? Why not compare a NEW M98 made by Reimer Johanneson with a New Remington m700?.

B/c a Johanneson actioned gun costs as much as a new searcy double, or 15x as much as a rem 700!

I think the - implied - comparison was based on similar guns at similar price points. I'm sure Craig would agree that a modern johnan. action was as good or better than any modern, mass-produced action costing 1/10th as much. I would think that he would also agree that a 10K bolt actioned gun was in a very unique class of rifles.

quote:

On page 188 it goes like" Rarely is there a clearcut disadvantage or advantage to either system(control feed/pushfeed), but it must be reconized that modern action actions are are stronger than any mauser-and if an action is going to blow, a Mauser, springfield,Enfield or even a pre-64 Winchester will blow long before a Remington700,Weatherby MarkV, savage 110,or similar modern action. And the older action will probaply with much more disatrous results for the shooter!"

I'm not a Boddington fan however on this point he's spot on!!!

CRF actions do not fully support the cartridge case (the weak link in the shooting system) and in a serious overload the brass can flow through this unsupported area and release gas to the inners of the action and the resulting release of pressure results in a very serious "blowup". This has nothing to do with metallurgy. Such issues as "setback" is related to actual strength of materials but the blownup action is almost exclusive of CRF actions.

I would fully support experiments to prove this....possibly Saeed could be talked into this experiment. I'd be willing to "anti up" if we can get enough folks together to support the cost of blowing up actions in controlled experiements. My money says the push feed actions are far safer than CRF actions when subjected to serious overloads.

I am not a fan of "blowups". My wallet doesn`t permit me so !, I just hate to any rifleaction
going caaabooooom!.

Gunwriters have to spread their endorsments around pretty thinly sometimes, and for some very transparent reasons. Sometimes out of ignorance as well, quite candidly.

Every time I hear about a Mauser "failure", it's usually because the action in question was improperly adjusted or modified. As examples, it didn't have the extractor properly altered; the magazine box and follower was wrong for the cartridge; the receiver wasn't properly rehardened; the extractor had been improperly removed once upon a time and had a hairline crack that no one knew about, etc., etc.

If a Mauser is correctly reworked, all the way, 100%, I don't know of another action that is as reliable or trouble-free other than a Model 70. The newer actions such as the Granite Mountain, Johannsen, Hartmann & Weiss, etc. are better yet in many ways. For one thing, the steels are better. The long and short of it is, you don't see David Miller or Holland & Holland building rifles on Savage 110 actions..........

The case support/strength issue is just true enough to be misleading. Strength is required between your ears more than it is in the design of the action. If you use your head and produce or procure and use the right ammunition, you won't have any problems with a well-done Mauser. Period. Jack O'Connor, more than a generation ago, stated that many of the newer, cheaper-to-produce actions were sold to the consumer from the standpoint of "strength" in order to disguise some of their more undersirable mass-production features, and he couldn't have been more right. Heck, even the old pre-64 Model 70 was tested with 70,000 psi proof loads. I think some shooters need to be tested with at least 200,000 proof loads!

AD

All bolt actions have good and bad features, I just happen to think the M70 action with modern metalurgy trumps others in the scales (all things considered). The newest version, in particular, finally has a gas block on the bolt shroud opposite the three position safety. While possibly uneccessary, this was a worthwhile upgrade of a grand action.

In the Sako event was it the action or the barrel that let caused the problem?

quote:

Originally posted by Rusty:
In the Sako event was it the action or the barrel that let caused the problem?

Rusty, interesting question and I think until the jury returns the answer will be unknown. Until then I'd believe the Sako issues must remain a separate topic. The very fact that of all the photos I saw the barrel had split is highly suggestive of irresponsible quality control.....but that's yet to be seen.

quote:

Originally posted by jens poulsen:
Hi!

Being a newbi in guns and stuff, I came across something here the other day at my friends house!In Boddingtons book"saferirifles" he metion something about which boltactions that are strongest.On page 188 it goes like" Rarely is there a clearcut disadvantage or advantage to either system(control feed/pushfeed), but it must be reconized that modern action actions are are stronger than any mauser-and if an action is going to blow, a Mauser, springfield,Enfield or even a pre-64 Winchester will blow long before a Remington700,Weatherby MarkV, savage 110,or similar modern action. And the older action will probaply with much more disatrous results for the shooter!"

I did some thinking about that statement and started out to wonder why Boddington compare old actions with new? Why not compare a NEW M98 made by Reimer Johanneson with a New Remington m700?. A gunsmith tolled me that the original Oberndorf Mauser m98 were made af softer steel and hardened less around the ring so if any "blowup" were to occure it would have much less "bomb effect" rather of what we have seen with like the Sako 75!. I natually reconize Boddington as an authority but I just had these questionson my mind!

To be selected for promotion to BG in the Marine Corps, one has to have a certain amount on the ball!

However, when it comes to Mausers (with notable exceptions!!) being less capable than "modern" actions, he has missed the boat!!

You have to remember that many of these opinions are influenced by the fact that the manufacturers of these "current" actions are also the paying advertisers in the magazine where these sentiments are expressed.

It wouldn't do to highlight the fact that a 107 year old design is better than the majority if not all the current offerings on the market.

quote:

Originally posted by z1r:
It wouldn't do to highlight the fact that a 107 year old design is better than the majority if not all the current offerings on the market.

.
I believe that maybe the 1898 Mauser system is one of the few industriel products that haven`t changed much since it first appeared, and I wonder why? . I have enjoyed Jon Speeds book about the Oberndorf Mauser sportingrifle since I also have a few of the originals.

As far as Craig Boddington I think he should have metioned the new wonderfull M98actions and strength that are being made today in his book "safaririfles", that`s all!!. I have no intention question his authority on hunting.....I am a novice compared!

John Speed in his Mauser book mispelled Griffin @ Howe since I have some of them I got PO'd and will not buy anything else he may write. Griffen indeed.

If I ever blow a gun up I pray to the Lord that its a 98 Mauser, not one of the new ones, the fact is the new ones may be a bit stronger and take more pressure, but at a price, the will detonate like a hand granade when they blow, A 98 Mauser of good quality will puff up like a baloon, and on rare ocassion split a little..but no sharpnel....The pre 64 m-70 will come apart like a bomb when they go, but they are tough, and I like them but I don't load them too hot...

I simply don't agree with Boddingtons assesment on this...Its just not that simple...

Biddington is a wordsmith (of sorts) not a gunsmith!

quote:

Originally posted by new_guy:

quote:

I did some thinking about that statement and started out to wonder why Boddington compare old actions with new? Why not compare a NEW M98 made by Reimer Johanneson with a New Remington m700?.

B/c a Johanneson actioned gun costs as much as a new searcy double, or 15x as much as a rem 700!

I think the - implied - comparison was based on similar guns at similar price points. I'm sure Craig would agree that a modern johnan. action was as good or better than any modern, mass-produced action costing 1/10th as much. I would think that he would also agree that a 10K bolt actioned gun was in a very unique class of rifles.

Ditto,

Roland

I have heard just recently that the military performs this very test on many different bolt action rifles...they intentionally try and blow up or otherwise destroy an action with an overcharged shell...there is an technical engineering term for when the action fails...I forget what it is called (the point of refusal or something like that). And what I heard was the Remington's M700 action is one of the strongest bolt actions in the world. I think the military does in fact use M700s. Mr. Boddington probably has some insight into that aspect as well. I did read recently that the CRF's greatest strength is its reliability (which is frequently and loudly stated on AR) and the PF's greatest strength is its accuracy (a comparison I have not heard on AR). This is not to say that CRF are not accurate and that PF aren't reliable, because both are.

I haven't bought a gun I intend to blow up yet. IE that selling feature is lost on me.

Chuck

Next Question. . .
Anyone here ever blown up a Mauser action?

Got a hold of a 6 pack of Miller Beer one time when I was a kid and blew one up in campfire - can't afford to do it to rifle actions - but the beer was fun to watch - drank the rest.

I had a bad shell in a Rem 700 once.....a .22-250...It opened the primer pocket .022" and printed the words "22-250 Rem UMC" on the bolt face and quite legibly. It locked the bolt tighter than a bulls ass in fly time and I had to beat the bolt open with a 2X4....but I got it opened and nothing was hurt....IU went back to shooting prairie dogs!!

On another occasion I had a push feed M-70 in .220 Swift extrude the case head into the extrtactor cut and wedge the extractor againest the inner ring of thge receiver so tightly that I had to remove the barrel to relieve the pressure to open the bolt. I installed a new extractor and went back to shooting....all was fine!!

I'm very much convinced that if either of those two incidents taken place with a CRF action the action would hacve been destroyed.

How many failures of the Mauser and pre '64 winchesters were brought about by gunsmithing and handloading?

Dave

quote:

Originally posted by Rusty:
Next Question. . .
Anyone here ever blown up a Mauser action?

YUP!

sure have!

But the rifle handled it well....

Have to replace the bolt body.....

Actually a young kid I was showing how to reload from the scout troop double charged a few cases when I told him not to touch a thing, when my wife poked her nose out in the garage like all women do with the old " oh honey can you please help me out for just a second????" HOw do they know how to time that when you are right in the middle of something and they want you to drop everything for them right at that second??? ( prove you love me honey and come running when I need you!)

It sure made me respect a Mauser tho! Have bought 5 more of them since that time, just because of that time! Like the chevy truck commercials with the old Bob Seger tune " Like a Rock!"....

cheers
seafire

You know, Jim Carmichel pretty much says the same thing as Boddington in the two books he has written. Both make the point that too much hooey is made of the extractor issue.

quote:

Originally posted by Rusty:
Next Question. . .
Anyone here ever blown up a Mauser action?

Also don't know how many people remember Clark on the forum before he got banned because of the political forum and harrassing Don, the moderator....

Clark made a hobby out of blowing up Mausers seeing how far he could push them... I have been to his shop several times... He showed me some of the wreckage of the ones he had exploded.....

Those old gals sure take a beating tho!

seafire

Extractor, what's that? Hell, we don't need no steenkin extractors!

quote:

Written by Boddington:

" Rarely is there a clearcut disadvantage or advantage to either system(control feed/pushfeed), but it must be reconized that modern action actions are are stronger than any mauser-and if an action is going to blow, a Mauser, springfield,Enfield or even a pre-64 Winchester will blow long before a Remington700,Weatherby MarkV, savage 110,or similar modern action. And the older action will probaply with much more disatrous results for the shooter!"

Boddington is neither a gunsmith nor an engineer, and this statement only reinforces that fact. If he had ever tried to blow up a Mauser (pre-war), he would have found that a case full of Bullseye just sets the lugs back and seizes the action with no injury to the shooter.

Try that with a new Model 70, and the hand grenade effect is demonstrated.

AZ, I agree as far as the Remington extractor issue is concerned. Remington's big weaknesses are the trigger/safety system, bolt handle attachment, plus vulnerability to dust and debris contamination. Sometimes feeding is also problematic, but then poorly put together Mausers often don't feed well, either.

Jim C. is quite correct with what he says about the Remington extraction system. Jim has also primarily hunted with four custom rifles for the last thirty-five years -- three of which are based on Mauser 98 actions, and one based on a pre-64 Model 70 action

AD

Well, imagine that, a famous gunwriter who can have his pick of any rifle in the world primarily hunts all over the globe, for about 35 years, with these junky, old Mauser 98 and that bomb of a P-64 !!!! My, My, what next, maybe even using the old, obsolete cartridges like the '.06, .375 H&H or .338 Win? Oh, I forgot, he uses the .458 Win., which everyone just knows is no damn good.............

Yep, was present when a 6MM Husqvarna was destroyed by chambering a primed case and then filling the gun to the barrel crown with 3031.

The bolt was set back and the cartridge case was turned into brass plating. The receiver ring expanded but did not spit the barrel out.

A small piece of primer cup was found imbedded in the stock comb.

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
If I ever blow a gun up I pray to the Lord that its a 98 Mauser, not one of the new ones, the fact is the new ones may be a bit stronger and take more pressure, but at a price, the will detonate like a hand granade when they blow, A 98 Mauser of good quality will puff up like a baloon, and on rare ocassion split a little..but no sharpnel....The pre 64 m-70 will come apart like a bomb when they go, but they are tough, and I like them but I don't load them too hot...

I simply don't agree with Boddingtons assesment on this...Its just not that simple...

A-men! A couple of comments:

The M98 Mauser did not spring full-grown from the forhead of Zeuss (Paul Mauser). It is the product of at least two decades of evolution, during which all the bad features of earlier versions were discarded, and/or altered to perform their functions better. By 1898, there was not much left that needed to be changed.

IMO, ALL alterations that have been made since 1898 to Mauser's final action design have been steps in the wrong direction. A perfect example of this "retrograde" movement is the much-vaunted M1903 Springfield. The Springfield has a detachable striker nose that some author recently described as an "improvement" because it made replacement of broken pins much easier vs the Mauser! BULL! Mauser striker tips rarely break, and as anyone who has ever field - stripped a Mauser knows, the entire sriker and spring disassemble from the bolt plug and cocking piece very easily! The geniuses at Springfield also removed the gas protection flange from the bolt plug in the M1903 design! In view of the fact that we had to pay Mauser a royalty for patent infringement on every M1903 we built, why the hell didn' we just use the Mauser '98 unaltered, like every other country of that era did?? (N.I.H. !! Not invented here!!)

It is true that some modern actions "surround the case head with a ring (or more!) of steel", which the Mauser does not, but these rings of steel do not prevent case-head rupture at excessive pressures. As Ackley discovered in his blowup testing of various actions, what this so-called "safety breeching" really does is merely increase the velocity of escaping gasses after a casehead rupture due to having smaller cracks for the gas to have to exit through. This effect actually makes escaping gas more destructive inside the receiver than is the case with such actions as the Mauser where there are more open spaces for it to get out.

I'll stick with the Mauser or Winchester design myself.

While the "3 rings of steel" make for good magazine publications, they also allow another .030-.040" case protrusion. When hot loads go bad, the case is the weakest link and letting it sit out an excessive amount from the chamber tends to allow the case to rupture easier, increasing the chances of getting hot gases in your face, with no allowances to prevent them from getting to your face, as in no gas shield.

Craig is definitely an accomplished hunter, but like all gunwriters I've heard of, lacking in the engineering aspects of firearms. Those that do have that knowledge are too busy using their skills to build firearms, rather than writing about them.....that's just the cold hard facts.

triggerguard 1
Your second paragraph expands my comment on wordsmith - gunsmith..
The major difficulty I have with Boddingtons work is the use of every day languge to make a story out of a technical point. It can be done but Boddington just ain't up to the task.
If I want to know about hunting I read John Hunter there are many others not least Jim Corbett. If I want to read about guns I read Dunlap.
An example from Boddingtons pen which set me off is
"Poachers in Africa have litterally decimated the continents game with AK-47's".

This is just bad.
To decimate is to take or destroy the tenth part of; to punish by killing evey tenth man.
I understand the common misuse of the word to mean to kill or destroy every thing but I just cannot accept the word litteraly in front of it when the use is not literal. As I said he ain't up to it.

Griffin & Howe, not Griffin @ Howe

Whos Boddington? I thought he was a flash light salesman?

tiggertate:
Why would someone deliberately fill a primed, open case and barrel with powder and touch it off? The only result can be destruction of the gun and possibly a serious injury to the toucher-offer. I have an affinity and love for machines and especially guns. Such an act seems just plain reckless and stupid to me.

Root Beer. maybe the idiot was trying to win a darwin Award.
Paul B.

I find it rather interesting that such a discussion can come from a couple of paragraphs plucked from the middle of a 411pg book. One ignorant ningcompoop has even gone so far as to attach those sentences to a magazine article full of aparent advertising. I'll also wager a guess that 80% of the "experts" contributing to this thread haven't read the book in question. Yet they feel compelled to attack the author.

Ah, the internet.

Chuck

Chuck,

Boddington was quacking out his butt when he wrote that. The man has hunted a lot, but unfortunately in the area of rifles and rifle engineering he seems to repeat things that other people have told him, but he repeats them inaccurately.

For example, it is true that a pre-64 Win. can blow like a hand grenade with disastrous effect on the shooter. It has happened. But a Mauser will not. Yet Bod made a blanket statement which is untrue.

Now for the M700, it is a strong action that will resist falure well. But exceed its threshold and the "3 rings of steel" will cut 3 parallel paths through your forehead. But Boddington doesn't understand that either.

He committed a faux paus by writing on a technical subject which he does not understand, and getting his facts wrong. And it's not the first time.

And yes, I would say this to his face.

By the way, did he get his promotion yet?