I want to get my small-ring Mauser rebarreled in 45ACP. I also want to have a barrel-nut installed, to make future rebarrelings in other calibers easier. I got the above image from the Internet, showing that my future barrels must be threaded in 0.980 inch OD, 12 turns per inch: “12 V T.P.I.â€. What is the meaning of “Vâ€?

I hope to find a barrel-nut in hardened steel from McMasters. I’ve seen discussions on this Forum giving more details of these threads. I’ve seen angles given, and square threads mentioned, I think. Is there a more complete specification of the threads on my Mauser barrel I should be using?

I'm pretty sure the ( V ) is referring to the type of thread, as apposed to a square type thread. and the mausers use a 55 degree whitworth thread, compared to our 60 degree.

Good luck finding a pre-fab nut to fit.

It's pretty easy to make up a barrel with the correct shoulder, unless of course you already have one without a shoulder?

You may want to consider just finding a Savage 110 or 340 to work with.

Can't you just screw the barrel down against the inner shoulder? No nut required.

quote:

You may want to consider just finding a Savage 110 or 340 to work with

Can't you just screw the barrel down against the inner shoulder? No nut required

Yes, you could just thread for the inner shoulder...but each time you tighten the barrel on and off, you change the configerations of the v-threads. Even the Savage is not advertized as a take down rifle, easy enough to change to a diffrent caliber, as long as the feed rails work for said application. I for one would want to have the secondary tork shoulder on a Mauser for the stability, and accuracy. Takedowns or switch barrels are made useing interupted threads or square threads. Take it from someone who has made a mauser in a switch barrel for a Mauser, its not as simple as you explain, and is a PITA if you dont go all out and pay for the perfect set up and that i have not found. Not trying to be a dick about it, just think building your 45 acp would be neat little rifle, and a good reason to build or start another project. There are ways to go about it, and some on this fourm have done it and sure they made it work, but for my money, make mine a solid frame with all shoulders working together and the rifle working as one unit.

Unless you pay someone to machine a nut with the face and threads cut in one setup there's very little chance that the threads will be remotely square to the face.

I would never personally put this kind of loose nut system on a Mauser. Incorrect headspace from someone installing the barrel without adjusting it to proper headspace can be VERY DANGEROUS!!!

Thank you, Gentlemen.

I have a 45 cal barrel blank, and will now forget the barrel-nut idea and have my local rifle-maker commit the Mauser fully to 45ACP.

I’ve never met him, but he comes highly recommended. Maybe now, knowing about the 55 degree Whitworth threading, I’ll have something to ask him about in way of qualifying him to do the work.

Thank you sincerely for your time spent in preparing your responses.

Henry

Something done regularly in 22LR shooting is called “indexing†a new barrel. This involves rotating the barrel in 45 degree steps, resetting the headspace, and test-firing a group in an attempt to find the barrel rotation which corresponds to the tightest group.

I don’t see much discussion of this procedure in larger calibers, and, indeed, the Mauser does not lend itself to this at all. Does the Savage lend itself to this?

Henry22LR,
Have you been listening to Mike Ross?

No, clowdis, I don't know of Mike Ross, but I'm willing to see what he has to say.

Unfortunately I searched the Forum for the past year for "Mike Ross" and got no hits! What is his "handle" on Accurate Reloading?

Thanks, Henry

Henry,
so, let me get this straight..
you want a nut for a takedown barrel, right?

you didn't ask for advice on how to standard mounting of a barrel?

Henry,

Have you considered the 45 Auto Rim for your aplication? Same as the ACP only rimmed, headspacing off the rim rather than the case mouth.

srtrax,
I take barrels off my BR rifles numerous times and the headspace doesn't change. Recent extensive testing has found no benefit to indexing a barrel for accuracy.
Butch

quote:

butchlambert
srtrax,
I take barrels off my BR rifles numerous times and the headspace doesn't change

Hey Butch, I'll bet the BR rifles are not small ring Mausers either... That said, are they being installed with a tork wrench of some kind or a witness mark or a head space gauge. I have at times been able to get a mauser barrel to go back in the same spot, but i do the .002 crush fit on Mausers and have seen it upset the threads. After crush fit to the ring, pull off then a little harder to go back in the next go around or want to turn past line up mark. But then again i havent studied why, It may be posiable the reciever causes it, but dont think so! I dont know bench rest, but its interesting reading...How are the threads set up in relationship with barrel to the reciever?

Rhineland arms used to sell a kit exactly as you are decribing with the barrel nut. Their barrels were made by er shaw I don't know if they did the nuts too of if rhineland did them themsevles. If I find any old info I'll pass it on.
-Don

Here's a pic of one done, but the link doesn't work anymore
http://www.mausercentral.com/gungallery24.htm

quote:

Originally posted by srtrax:

I'll bet the BR rifles are not small ring Mausers either... That said, are they being installed with a tork wrench of some kind or a witness mark or a head space gauge. I have at times been able to get a mauser barrel to go back in the same spot, but i do the .002 crush fit on Mausers and have seen it upset the threads. After crush fit to the ring, pull off then a little harder to go back in the next go around or want to turn past line up mark. But then again i havent studied why, It may be posiable the reciever causes it, but dont think so!

I'm not Butch and I don't plan to cover BR barrel-fitting in this post. I have, however owned quite a few take-down Mausers, both small and large ring, over the years. Some were well known Scottish makes, others London-made guns, still others from Birmingham, and Germany, and even made here in N.A.

Not one of them had "crush-fit" barrels. Some had interrupted threads, most did not. On virtually all of them, the barrels were screwed both in and out by hand. They were locked in place by a variety of means, but most common was a set screw either on the bottom of the receiver ring or the side of it. A couple were even positioned by the detachable forend. Most had V threads, though some had Whitworth threads and yet others had Metric threads. A very few did have square threads.

I never experienced any headspace variation problems with any of them, and most of them provided good accuracy regardless how many times the barrels had been on or off the actions.

I was given a small ring barrel chambered in 7.62x39 and it has a barrel nut.

I have no idea who the manufacturer was, though.

Rojelio

Thanks for asking, Jeffeosso. Basically I was only asking what the barrel threads are inside my small-ring Mauser, and that I was considering adding a barrel-nut. The early consensus was to forget the barrel nut, and don’t try to make barrel-swapping on the Mauser action easy. And that the threads are 55 degree cut Whitworth.

Actually I did not require much convincing to forget the barrel-nut. I bought this Mauser strictly to convert it to 45ACP. When I decide I simply MUST have another caliber, I’ll just buy another action. And another barrel blank.

How come 45ACP “go†gauges and “no go†gauges are both costing $30.00 EACH now?

quote:

Originally posted by srtrax:

quote:

You may want to consider just finding a Savage 110 or 340 to work with

Can't you just screw the barrel down against the inner shoulder? No nut required

Yes, you could just thread for the inner shoulder...but each time you tighten the barrel on and off, you change the configerations of the v-threads. Even the Savage is not advertized as a take down rifle, easy enough to change to a diffrent caliber, as long as the feed rails work for said application. I for one would want to have the secondary tork shoulder on a Mauser for the stability, and accuracy. Takedowns or switch barrels are made useing interupted threads or square threads. Take it from someone who has made a mauser in a switch barrel for a Mauser, its not as simple as you explain, and is a PITA if you dont go all out and pay for the perfect set up and that i have not found. Not trying to be a dick about it, just think building your 45 acp would be neat little rifle, and a good reason to build or start another project. There are ways to go about it, and some on this fourm have done it and sure they made it work, but for my money, make mine a solid frame with all shoulders working together and the rifle working as one unit.

The samll ring Mauser as no inner torque shoulder. That feature came with the 98.

quote:

The samll ring Mauser as no inner torque shoulder. That feature came with the 98.

Thanks Rem721: I read small ring and got brain dead on large ring.

Correct...Crush fit does NOT work for take downs, not in my experimenting with it.

The other day, I saw a Jeffery in .333 that was a takedown and it had a fully threaded barrel without interrupted threads. Of course it had plates on the buttstock portion of the stock and on the forearm section that mated up. Would this not be a crush fit? It sort of suprised me, but it was made that way. Any ideas? Did Jeffery do this?

quote:

Originally posted by Magnum Hunter1:
The other day, I saw a Jeffery in .333 that was a takedown and it had a fully threaded barrel without interrupted threads. Of course it had plates on the buttstock portion of the stock and on the forearm section that mated up. Would this not be a crush fit? It sort of suprised me, but it was made that way. Any ideas? Did Jeffery do this?

No, that's not a "crush fit"....at least not the way I use and have heard the term used.


A crush fit is one where the barrel is screwed in tight to the receiver, then is turned in even farther...usually enough to "crush" the steel together at least .002" or .003" farther. It takes a lot of force, and there is no way you can unscrew it by hand without using a vice to hold the barreled action and tools which provide good leverage to help you break the barrel loose.

As to the metal plates...that was a common practice by various makers of take-down rifles. They had two main functions as I see it:

1. The plates kept the ends of the wood from being bare, just hanging out there waiting to be chipped, when the rifle was disassembled and either lying around or being transported.

2. They were sometimes used to mount various methods of indexing the barrel into the action when reassembling the rifle...assuring correct headspace and locating the iron sights and other related items correctly. (For instance, indexing made the front sight correctly vertical instead of cast to one side or the other, thus preserving the rifle's iron sight "zero".)

I thought at first this tool-mark might be the antique factory method of “setting†the barrel once it had been screwed into the receiver. But it does not appear to have affected the obvious small space between receiver and barrel, so maybe not.

Maybe the mark was caused by dropping the rifle as the Gringos charged up San Juan Hill.

On a BR rifle the barrel shoulder fits to the face of the receiver. You need to tighten the barrel enough to upset the threads. The shoulder of the barrel will not crush the face of the receiver or cut into it. I can put my barrels on a little more than hand tight and check headspace and then I tighten to 130 ft. lbs. The headspace is exactly the same. You may stretch the threads, but you are not shortening the headspace.
Butch

quote:

Originally posted by butchlambert:
On a BR rifle the barrel shoulder fits to the receiver. You need to tighten the barrel enough to upset the threads. The shoulder of the barrel will not crush the face of the receiver or cut into it. I can put my barrels on a little more than hand tight and check headspace and then I tighten to 130 ft. lbs. The headspace is exactly the same. You may stretch the threads, but you are not shortening the headspace.
Butch

Butch - Let me start this reply by assuring you I am not trying to disagree or argue with you. I AM surprised by your post.

Why do you feel BR barrels need to be tightened to 130 ft-pounds of torque, and the threads stretched?

Locally we tighten barrels to about 30-40 ft.-lbs on initial installation, never tighten any more, and the rifles seem to shoot as well as anyone's.

(We know that to be true as, for just one example, one of us has five rifles built for him by Jim Borden, and although they are very nicely finished and shoot very well, they don't shoot any better than the ones we have built ourselves.)

We do that so we can drive to a match several hundred miles away, shoot there (and frequently win) and then change to another barrel right there at the bench, drive that night to another match closer to home, and often win there the next day too.

By "we" I am referring to four of us local shooters who have shot together in various matches ranging from Seattle, Wash., to KC, Mo. and Phoenix, AZ for the last 18 years. I no longer am shooting with the group since some major health problems have arisen, but did so for about 8 years. We all share reamers, lathes, etc. as required, and have never "leaned on" our action wrenches to install/remove/switch barrels.

Hopefully, you know something we don't and I can pass your info on to them.

The one poster was talking about constantly removing and replacing the barrel on that small ring Mauser that it would change the V in the threads. On the Savage system the barrel screws into the receiver very very easily by hand and then you torque the barrel nut after headspacing. What I've heard on the 98 Mauser is some smith mismatch the V in threads between the receiver and barrel to have a real tight fit. Why couldn't the fellow that wants the switch barrel small ring Mauser just have the barrel cut to screw easily into the receiver threads and have a pretty close copy of the Savage system which doesn't matter how many times you remove an replace the barrel?

Henery22:

I've put three of the rhineland arms 45 mauser kits together, two on small rings and one on a large ring. The barrel and nut system was ok at best. The best part of the kit was the mag. adapter for the mauser trigger guard. The ejector was crude looking but worked ok. With hand loads I've been able to shoot clover leafs at 50 yards, but still can not get anything I'll call a group at 100 yards, that was my gole. I think I need to use heavyer bullets and start over.

AC,
I will not say that you are wrong, but I do it my way from advice from people that I believe in. I certainly think that a lot of people are also capable of building a competitive BR rifle. It takes good tools and and being very careful in your setup. Try this link: www.benchrest.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54270&highlight=barrel+torque
Follow this thread.
Butch

Jack, join us over at

Subsonic 45ACP rifle shooters

We are stumbling around with similar problems there.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for your sharing of information with a pedestrian shooter like me. I will never be a machinist, although I own a fairly large manual vertical mill and a small lathe, neither of which I have ever run. I have great respect for the Guild which has produced our great modern rifles and rounds. And I have learned so much from listening to your back-and-forth over “crush†mounting, barrel torques (up to 150 ft-lbs won’t kill the headspace but will seat the barrel), etc.

This is the sort of information which enables pedestrians like me to maybe not appear so foolish as I approach a gunsmith with a barrel-blank in one hand and an old (though not worn) small-ring Mauser (still with original barrel attached) in the other. You have seen me before, probably countless times.

Open discussions like these I would never normally be privy to. I would be embarrassed as hell to ask a hard-working smith to leave his 85.00/hr bench to answer my stupid questions.

So I really appreciate your SERVICE here, in taking the time to prepare your responses. I will not pay you back directly, but others like me are listening. And maybe they will be easier to deal with when they next turn up at your shop door hauling little more than a dream and a couple pieces of steel.

P.S. If, for any reason you are crazy enough to accept my Mauser and my barrel-blank from my FFL, install the barrel and ream the 45ACP chamber and set the headspace (Period. No test firing. No “feeding†issues.) for a small fee I’d be happy to hear from you!

Albeta Canuck,
What you replied is what I thought also. What I am wondering is how do the screw in take down models get tight enough to stay together, especially after they wear somewhat? Granted you should not continually take them apart, but if a crush fit is that tight, how does this one I saw get tight enough, even initially?

Butch -

I used to participate at BR.com and am still a member of that site. I thank you for the specfic thread reference and when I get a chance will go take a look at it.

From your comment, though, and what I have seen there in the past, I have already half way reached a conclusion.

One thing I have noticed in a long lifetime devoted primarily to shooting, handloading, and rifle building, (in that order) is that there are a lot of distinct "cultures" in shooting. By that, I mean there is always a body of shooters who believe in one way of doing a certain thing, then there are also always two or three other distinct bodies of shooters who believe just as firmly in two or three other ways of accomplishing the same thing. Probably each of the approaches works just fine for the people who are dedicated to and use them skillfully.

That is true not only for answering the question of how much torque to apply to a barrel, but for how to best hold a rifle for sitting position rapid-fire competition, how to best bed an action, how many ports an action should ideally have, how best to find an optimal load, and darned near any other shooting question a person would like to ask.

As you may have noticed here on AR, I do not tend to quickly accept answers which are based on how many people chose to do something one way, over how many choose to do it another way. Performance facts are not popularity contests to me, but matters of both logical and empirical scientific investigation.

I believe from having watched your posts and having found them pretty much always very soundly based, that you believe the same way.

So, in this instance, I asked the question looking for a clear and concise scientific answer. I know our 30-40 ft. lb torque approach works. I have experienced that it does. I do not know that extra tight barrels work any better, because for us they haven't (though they often work just as well).

I thought maybe I was missing something fundamental & simple. Apparently not. But, I will go back to BR.com and look again from time to time over the relatively near future.

Thanks for your response, and best wishes to you & yours. Your voice is one of the ones I respect & look forward to hearing.

quote:

Originally posted by Magnum Hunter1:
Albeta Canuck,
What you replied is what I thought also. What I am wondering is how do the screw in take down models get tight enough to stay together, especially after they wear somewhat? Granted you should not continually take them apart, but if a crush fit is that tight, how does this one I saw get tight enough, even initially?

Often they are not exceptionally tight, or very tight, or anything like that. Maybe not even tight at all. What appears to be of primary importance for hunting accuracy is not tightness per se, but correct positioning of the barrel in the receiver.

That's why it is common to use some mechanical way of not only determining when the barrel is screwed in "far enough" to correctly establish headspace (and iron sight zero), but also to keep it from either unscrewing or screwing in still farther.

Most commonly on bolt action take-downs, that seems to be by using a cone-pointed lock screw which fits through the front receiver ring into a cone-shaped depression in the barrel threads. Less frequently it is done by having a lug machined onto or welded onto the exterior of the barrel, and a detachable forend which has a metal-lined hole in it to accept the lug. Then the forend can't be put on the rifle untill the barrel is already turned into the action just exactly the right amount so that the lug of the barrel will fit into the hole in the forend. Savage, on it's TD lever rifles uses yet another way, with a verysmall square "lug" which slides into a mitered slot in the front of the receiver (and sometimes the rear of the barrel too) when things are correctly fit together.

With right hand twist barrels, they are not going to shoot loose anyway. When the bullet first hits the rifling, it is going straight, with no spin. The rifling forces the bullet to begin to spin to the right. At the same time, the bullet is expending some of its kinetic energy by converting it into a radial twisting force which is trying to make the barrel turn to the left (the equal and opposite force to that required to spin the bullet to the right). That means that every time the barrel spins a bullet to the right, each bullet tightens the barrel a bit in the action. Or it would, if it wasn't for the different "locking" device(s) used by most all makers of take down rifles.

Butch,
Sorry to be so slow in getting back and responding. I was out of town for a few days.

I do not shoot bench rests, nor do I build take down rifles. I had one customer I built several rifles for, and the first thing he would do was go home and unscrew them and then tell me if they were tight or lose. I built one switch bbl. for him. Usuing the cone plug in the reciever, and complained about the threads moving on him and so forth. This customer got out of the gun business and now into RC Model cars, thank God.

Anyways, the crush fit I was talking about does not damage shoulder or the ring on a Mauser, and that is the way I was taught to do a fixed set up.

Wasn't trying to take anything away from Henry22LR. I didn't think the nut ideas was a good way to go on a Mauser. What do I know...I've never put one on a Mauser. Any PROPER set up for a switch bbl. would work. But like you replied knowledge and measurements and good tooling is key.

My experience with the switch bbl. with a customer that wasn't very bright and it was just the one. Hardly makes me a Guru on switch bbls. But it left a bad enough taste in my mouth, that I won't do anymore.

P.S. This was an interesting and informative thread, Thanks Henry22LR.