I have a commercial Mauser action made buy FN in the early to mid 50s. I have done all the action work, polishing lapping ect and am looking for sombody to do the heat treating. I was wondering who is considered to be the best at doing Mausers. Any names and address and phone numbers would be a great help Thanks

I wouldn't heat treat it.....It don't need it IMO.....it's a post war gun and probably properly done up front.

Have someone that has a superficial rockwell tester for the 15N scale check the hardness and convert the reading to the Rc scale....it should be 36-40

Do Not allow anyone to test it directly on the Rc scale

It is extremely unlikely that the polishing and lapping you have done has worn off the case on the receiver.

If you have not taken the temper out of the metal, then there is no need to heat treat the action.
FN's were all made commercially and properly heat treated.

-Spencer

I was wondering if I might get called over using the word 'all' in my statement.
If it is a JC Higgens then it is done well but if it is an early 50's gun then I would not be afraid.
It might be that the guns you mention as not being treated properly were some of the last to come in which means quality control could have suffered.

-Spencer

No I think all the post war FN's were properly heat treated. They had that all worked out way before the war, so on any commercial postwar FN its not needed unless something has altered that.

The flag is and I just checked the ad and there were some 95% finished FN actions being sold lately and these are definately not heat treated by the factory, and being sold as such. ( wish I knew where to find some bolts ). These definatly need to be treated.

vapodog, I'm always willing to learn something new. what grievious thing can happen if some klutz uses the "c" scale to check receivers ability to handle the dynamics of Normal cartridge pressures (+)? Long as you have the tester capability what is wrong with the "A" scale? Is this based on a contention that a carburized skin .008" to .012" thick
is the whole measure of the receiver's ability to handle the dynamics of the pressure so called "curve" during the powder burning when the ctg. is fired? A histogram made in a proof testing using a pressure test gun shows a series of steps that can get downright scarry, even though the simultaneuosly derived Copper Unit of Pressure cylinder shows 58,500 PSI as checked against the tare tables.

Just curious.

For what it's worth. I barreled a comercial FN (circa 1950)that came to me in the white and had never had a barrel on it (ie new in the box). I chambered it to 300 Win and sent it one it's way. It began to seperate cases inside 50 rounds. When it returned I checked the hardness on the "c" scale and found it dead soft. The lug set back and head space was corrected and the action was sent off to correct the limp noodle situation. Hasn't moved at all now in 14 years. I now rockwell even my dry flies before I head to the river.

If you have a post-WWII commercial FN action (the one without the thumb cut in the sidewall) that came from a rifle, leave it alone. It is a fine action as-is! It seems that some ACTIONS ONLY left FN in-the-white, unhardened. Perhaps these receivers were meant to be engraved, etc., then hardened. One might wish to test an in-the-white action that obviously has never been blued.

Well I must thank reddeer for posting this as I was about to pose an extremely similar question.

I recently acquired an FN Action of the JC Higgins variety, and was concerned about the possibility of it needing to be re-heat treated after any action work, truing, lapping, etc. After reading (and saving) the excellent thread on mauser heat treating earlier this year (lets talk heat treating), it was made very clear by D'Arcy and and Systeme98 that at the very least the old military mausers should be re-treated after even minimal action work is performed.

So...I guess I had two questions/thoughts pertaining to the later commercial FNs that I would like to get more specific comments on.

1. Were they case hardened in the same manner (as the older german ones) , so that there is a risk of excessively thinning and/or completely removing the case during certain machining operations. Or are they "thrrough-hardened" as I understand the later Zastava (i.e. Interarms and kin) are and thus there is no real concern about re-heat treating?

2. The other question would be whether or not any action work would be needed in an otherwise excellent commercial FN action. I think think this may have been Eldeuello's point? That is to say, for a hunting rifle where you do not need nor desire to meet benchrest accuracy are the pretty much good to go as they left Belgium?

Any comments would be very much appreciated.

Regards,

Bob

Bart. In view of the fact that the J.C. Higgins rifles built on the commercial FN actions are still considered excellent hunting rifles and a lot of people consider themselves lucky to have found one, I see no reason why anything at all need be done to an action from one of these rifles, if you are building a hunting rifle for a standard Mauser-size rimless case. I would leave the actionm strictly unaltered for such use.

Thanks for the input guys, I truly appreciate it!

--Bob