I got this action for very little. The previous owner started, as you can see, to modify it for a longer cartridge. My thought was have it barreled and chambered for .375 H&H. I am concerned about how much metal has been removed from the back of the receiver. It doesn't look like there is enough room for a rear scope mount. I would appreciate if anyone can advise if/how this action can be finished. I won't be doing the work myself but want some idea if it is worth taking to a gun smith and how to instruct him. Thanks.
Rik

It will be fine.

Send it to Mark Stratton. He can grind the action, clean up the lines a bit and easily fit one of his bases to the rear bridge.

There are no safety concerns; the rear bridge is there mainly so the bolt won't fall off into the snow.

the "notch" on the rear bridge is where the charger hump was removed. the charger hump facilitated using stripper clips. there are plenty of scope mounts that will work just fine. the "lengthening" is actually the notch at the back of the front ring. and it's not a very severe notch. i've seen worse. it also looks to have been ground to get rid of the crest, so a custom scope mount might be in order. if you take it to a competent smith and tell him you want a .375 on it, let him do what he needs to do. and go for the heat treat!

it looks like NO metal was taken off the back of the reciver. That is just how military Mausers look after removing the charging hump. Just about any rear scope base will fit her as she sits. Just needs a couple of holes drilled and tapped.

Of course there is nothing wrong with having custom bases made, but only do it if you were wanting them. A regular Leupold, Talley, or whatever rear base will fit it.

not being mean here... can you take picture of in the rear bridge, aiming forward, to let us see if the third lugs slot has been cut

why?
no markings, no SN? (yes, i know they could be ground out) is that an FN paper
weight action that someone has done a bit of work on?

jeffe

This may be a Colombian, they had that notch in the back of the front ring. Are there markings tha allow you to identify this as an FN?

When that front ring is cleaned up, you might need to use custum bases, or a shimed small ring front base.

Roger

It would of great help if you could take a close up photo of the left & right sides of the action.

I like it. Many of the Turk Mauser 1903 variants have notches in the front ring like that, although typically deeper. You may be best off comparing it to a standard 98 action, looking at the bottom, to see if he took any off of the feed ramp on the bottom front. I think that is typically the part that people shave too thin when lengthening for 375 H&H.

When you choose a rear scope mount, you may have to have a 2nd screw hole in the mount rebored, as the one towards the front will almost surely fall within the stripper clip cutout. Leupold used to make a rear M98 base that had an angle on the right rear corner, so you could over hang the bolt root area without blocking bolt movement, and also had two closely spaced screw holes toward the rear to avoid that cutout. Don't remember the number of that mount though. Sure would be nice if Talley offered pre-shaped M98 rear mounts WITHOUT screw holes so you could space them wherever you want. Hint, hint.

RE: origin, as you mentioned FN it must have FN siderail markings or an FN stamp / Belgian proof somewhere - in that case, it must be a South American rifle, such as a Colombian or Venezuelan. Some of those were re-worked from 7 x 57 to 30-06 in the 50's, and may have FAMAGE markings somewhere from this rebuild. Some of the oldest FN actions, the 24s, were short M98s - the later 24/30 actions were full length. Might want to measure receiver screw hole spacing to see what it is.

T

Doug Humbarger - check your e-mail - or PM me.

The notch in the front reciever ring was for the 30-06 when used with stripper clips. The notch in an 03 turk reciever was the conversion from 7.65 x 53 to the 8mm mauser.
The stripper clip notch has been opened up and squared.

Rad