A few more notes on heat treating and warpage.......it's an extremely rare gunsmith that has a "correct for this task" rockwell tester or any rockwell tester for that matter.

On some actions.....specifically 1917 eddystones, the case is left extremely hard and anyone with a file can detect the hardness....it's "glass" hard and seems to work fine for the .30-06 task.....The heat treat that has been recommended for the '98 mausers is .035 deep case and hardness of 36-40 Rc and while a "practiced" machinist can detect that with a file, not everyone can. Mild steel will often have readings in the 20s.....Rc 38 can be machined with minimum trouble with hi-speed steels at about 75 surface feet.

Personally I don't think the soft actions represent a danger to persons other than your pocket book. It's not cheap to remachine all the action recesses and reinstall the barrel and rechamber the few thou needed to correct the head space.....

It's best to have the action checked by a competent person with the right equipment before you spend the first dollar on it.....if you already have a '98 mauser that's in service just continue shooting it....it's quite likely that if you're going to encounter set back you'll already have done so. I personally believe we've made way too much of this issue here.....it's not as serious as it's been made out to be.

There's been talk about "annealing" prior to heat treating. Personally I doubt that this adds anything at all to the product nor do I believe it lessens risk of warpage. I've inspected thousands of parts before and after heat treating and have seen as much or more warpage from annealing as heat treating......

If one decides to heat treat the action I suggest that the drilling and tapping for scope mounts be done beforehand and that squaring, lapping lugs to seats, and all other machining be done afterwards. Then only send the action to a place that does that work.....Not someone that does case hardening.....It's likely that people like Blanchards in SLC fixtures them in the furnace or has a prescribed method of hanging them that lessens the chance of warpage.......and warpage is not likely to be warranteed by the heat treater except for his charge only for the service.

If I was going to spend several thousand dollars to have a custom mauser built for me I'd insist that the action be heat treated and that a certificate of rockwell accompany the finished product.....but lets face it here.....many, many, thousands of Mausers have been sporterized and rechambered, rebarreled, hot loaded, and who knows what all "as-is".....and with very little trouble.

I have had Argentine that definately was too soft and had a very sticky bolt and setback issues in less than 5 rounds. As a matter of fact the bolt was locked up so tight I had the smith get the bolt out.

It was a major pain to repair, my smith warrantied out the whole thing cause he figured it was his fault for not heat treating but the rifle needed to be rebuild, heat treated, action retrued, lugs lapped, barrel set back.

Both my smith and I were very concerned that the action would warp, as if it did there was a lot of work already done to this action, and it would have been start all over.

Luck and or skill was on my side on this one, and all worked out well.

The cartridge was a 30-338, and the reloads were not atomic, no pressure signs at all in my other 30-338's, which were cut with the same chamber reamer.

I have a Mexican small ring I have had for a several years if I don't sell it I am going to heat treat it before use, beautiful little action, but known soft, the small amount of dollars it costs to heat treat is nothing compared to the above scenario if stuff goes wrong. Further if a smith tells you he feels it needs treating and you disregard his advice all the fixing is going to be on your dime if he will even take the job.

Vapodog is right on the testing proceedure, but not everyone has access to a tester, and I think he has talked before of improper use of the tool and false readings.

A good start is read " The Mauser bolt actions: A Shop Manual" by Jerry Kuhnhausen. Most of the mauser actions are ID'ed and have what chamberings the actions are suitable for. IE: the above Mexican is good for 7x57 and 257 Rob, but not a 243 Win or a 308.

If you are really gun shy about this, use post WWII actions. Any of the quality manufacturers were using good heat treating methods by then and although blanket statements bug me generally, you are going to have to look to find a soft post war. I am sure somebody slogged together something after this period, but your odds are real slim on getting a soft action from this period on.

If you ask David Miller or D'Arcy Echols about this matter, they'll tell you under no uncertain terms that they uniformly get Mauser actions recarburized by specialists with the sophisticated equipment, skills, and understanding to do the job properly and scientifically without relying on guesswork. Period.

In fact, I asked Miller about this once, and his emphatic answer was, "ALWAYS!" These guys have forgotten more about correctly working with Mausers than any third-rate riflesmith from the past (such as Ackley) or present has known or ever will ever know about this subject.

Many of the best Mauser actions, such as the fine 1909 Argentine, exhibit locking lug setback that occurred during proof-testing at the factory, and these guns are still in new condition, and still in the factory grease!

I'm amazed at how many idots get ahold of a Mauser, rely on assumption, ignorance, and related hocus-pocus, then preceed to ruin same. There was a gunsmith who lived near our farm when I was a boy who was a true jackleg. I remember going in his place with my dad to buy .22 cartridges one time, and this cowboy was just getting ready to work on a Mauser. His way of testing that action was to run a file over it, and if it somehow felt "right", he'd go ahead and put a barrel on it. Even my dad, who was an excellent mechanic but no gunsmith and would never claim to be one, commented on the way home, "I don't know what in the heck that file test is going to tell old So & So about the actual hardness of that action!" That was a pretty astute observation. You can't assume and guess about these things, you have to KNOW exactly what you're dealing with in terms of action hardness. In fact, some actions are TOO hard, such as certain pre-64 MOdel 70s that need to be properly annealed and then reheat-treated.

All I can say is science and true know-how beats ignorance and guesswork every time.

AD

Gentlemen: Thanks for all the replys and info, I agree that this problem is probably overblown but since it is not very expensive to re-heat treat and it gets cheaper by the number of actions you send, Why not? When i talked to Blanchards, They quoted the first action at 75.00 and each additional action at 25.00 each. Now that sounds very reasonable but i would hate to ruin an action if it is not really necessary. Still, Building a gun on a questionable reciever is not the way to go. Anybody use Blanchards or another firm and how would you rate the work? Thanks, Swede96