we've discussed the heat treating issue for Mausers here several times and we all know that some need it and some don't

It's no secret that a heck of a lot of mausers have been turned custom successfully and without the benefit of heat treating.

I decided there has to be a way to decide to do this or not and here's a possible solution:

Just buy a milsurp 8 X 57 and some dies and hand load the ammo to the specs you would as if it was a .270 or such. In other words load the 8 X 57 to the 65,000 PSI and shoot a couple hundred rounds. Go to the quarry or gravel pit and roll bowling pins and other such fun things all over the place.

If, after 200 rounds of this abuse you have not suffered setback (it will be measureable with a calipers and stony point adaptor) you can safely assume the action has no need of heat treating.

If it does show setback then you're out the rifle (as I don't know how to fix it) but had a bunch of fun doing the "bang em up thing" at the range.

I've been quoted $75 by Blanchard's for heat treating and after shipping to and fro one has almost $100 in the heat treating. This is about what you have in the Mauser rifle in the first place.

Since the chances of needing heat treating is small IMO the advantage of this is obvious.

There is my future solution. Testing by fire. The worst thing that can happen is to lose a rifle ($100) and if you heat treat an action that don't need it the loss is the same. At least this way one gets a lot of fun in the decision making.

Opinions please.....

I'm a metallurgist and I'm not cheap so I'll pay the $100.

So you're saying that my 1908 Brazillian with a couple of hundred rounds of .280REM through it is probably okay!?!?

quote:

Originally posted by CDH:
So you're saying that my 1908 Brazillian with a couple of hundred rounds of .280REM through it is probably okay!?!?

It would be my estimate that this gun is OK...if it was going to exhibit setback it would have shown evidence of it by now.

Just one man's opinion here.

The brilliance of the mauser design is that setback can be accomodated by rechambering. At least that is what I have seen done to a soft FN Mauser in 25-06. The owner is a gunsmith friend of mine who shot pretty hot reloads in his. Soon thereafter it started sticking quite badly. He took the barrel off, resurfaced the end of the barrel, remeasured headspace, did something with a reamer, and now the thing is working quite well again with the same hot reloads!

This shows you know nothing about the actual workings of a Mauser. Sure, taking the barrel off and setting it back and rechambering can bring the headspace back into spec. But, it has done nothing to eliminate the setback.

By my calculations ten boxes of 280 rem at a bargain price of $15 ea would come out to $150. Take into account all that you've invested into this to get to the firing stage and you can easily see how it's much better to spend the money up front. I suppose you could argue weakly that if you do all the work yourself why wate the time heat treating?

Vapodog,

The only real way to cost effectively do heat treating is send of a box of them. And that gets to be the rub, getting 5-10 lined up so they don't cost so much per action.

The good old days where a C note bought you 6-7 mauser actions is gone forever.

vapodog

quote:

If it does show setback then you're out the rifle (as I don't know how to fix it) but had a bunch of fun doing the "bang em up thing" at the range.

Recuting the locking lug area is easy IF you have the proper tool. This is one that you can not buy but have to make. Once that is done and the rest of the bolt checked to be sure everything is ok. Then the bolt and reciever is reheat treated.
The barrel most likely can be reused, it has to be set back enough to reheadspace. If it has sights on it or a rib then the HARD WORK starts.

Jim Wisner
Custom Metalsmith

Thanks Jim, Ive been fortunate and never encountered setback and now if I do I'll send the action to you for repair.....I've heard of folks fixing them but it's not one of my bag of tricks.

quote:

Originally posted by Poleax:
This shows you know nothing about the actual workings of a Mauser. Sure, taking the barrel off and setting it back and rechambering can bring the headspace back into spec. But, it has done nothing to eliminate the setback.

By my calculations ten boxes of 280 rem at a bargain price of $15 ea would come out to $150. Take into account all that you've invested into this to get to the firing stage and you can easily see how it's much better to spend the money up front. I suppose you could argue weakly that if you do all the work yourself why wate the time heat treating?

This shows that you don't read very well. Nowhere did I say anything about eliminating setback. I said "accomodate".

The $100 to an professional heat treater that can do the job properly and not warp parts is actually a very reasonable price for a lot of hard earned experience.

Ain't much of a challenge to get the material to the right temperature and then quench it ... getting it through the process with minimum dimensional change takes considerable knowledge of what you're doing.

I heat treat a number of blades with good equipment and get a high quality product repeatably with a variety of alloys and dependably get bainite when I want it ... but I would not touch a rifle action!

Would like some thoughts on re-heat treating a newer FN made Columbian action originally chambered in 30-06 and being built into a 30-06 or .35-06. Do you feel that these actions would also need to be treated or is this for earlier actions only??
Thanks for your input.
BJB

quote:

FN made Columbian action

Year of manufacturer? Any FN after WWII doesn't need it, it was done at the factory. FN had it figured out way before that.

A big general rule is the by the American Depression the large arms houses globaly had heat treating issues resolved, most of the good big ones before that.

Are you saying that Mauser sold military rifles that were only good for 200 firings?.
Remember that only the USA companies loaded the
8mm down. The Turk ammo was as loaded to almost
3000 fps.
Good luck!