I have a Husq Mauser 96 - Military that I'd like to add a scope.

I work in a machine shop running everything from oilfield to aerospace parts. I've been told if I can get a drawing they will drill tap for me. Does this exist or is it all tribal knowledge?

Get the appropriate weaver bases (55&46). The rear hole on the front base needs to be ahead of the locking lug seat. The bridge needs to be ground to eliminate the hump on the clip charger guide and the rear base situated flush with the front of the bridge or rear of the clip charger guide. Machinists, although they should certainly be able to drill and tap a hole, often need to be given direction when it comes to firearms. Odds are, they don't have the right tap on hand. Regards, Bill.

Why not have your scope bases fitted by an expert who specializes in just that? Your fellow machinists may do a fine job. But, there is always the learning curve.

If it still has the stripper clip hump you have to modify the 55 base for the hump. Weaver used to make a base like this but dropped it when the old Mausers dried up.

You need to make the fly cutter to make the stripper clip cut and a 3/4 inch slot or end mill is used to make the cut on the base and back ring to clear the bolt handle.

I get busy every spring and make 10 each, of the 45s and 55s at a crack for the season. It only takes a half hour to cut them all out. I hold the bases in a bastardized high Weaver ring held in the mill vise. I color the machined areas with a Zeiss, Bavarian Bluing pencil (magic marker).

The photo should be self explanatory.

My local Gunsmith charges $60 hole, or $180 for this job. I already have the correct bases for the charging hump.

The shop I work in runs over 40 CNC and manual mills and lathes running every type of part for every industry. We have guys here with 40 years of making everything you can imagine. Some here could make a mauser action with a block of steel, calipers and an action to copy. If there isn't a drawing to follow i'll just have to pay.

Thanks

Well there is no such thing as a drawing for it. The barrels and actions on those old Mausers are seldom pointed in the same direction. The holes have to be located on the center of the bore line. Not on the center of the action. If they aren't you will have to shim the bases over to get it to sight in. That means using a Billy Best or Forster jig or the barrel has to be set up on the mill table centered on V blocks that are centered on the X axis.

After that the holes in the bases will provide the location for the holes. The 46 is .860 inch and the 55 is .504 inch hole spacing.

The location of the rear base is any place where it will not interfere with the bolt. The front base is centered on the front receiver ring.

The $180 price is in the ball park. A lot of those actions are hard and require carbide to drill and like to screw up taps. So your gunplumber is not out of line. If in doubt, pay some one who knows how to do it.You can only drill and tap it once. If it's not right you have to start shimming stuff.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by jshoney:
My local Gunsmith charges $60 hole, or $180 for this job. I already have the correct bases for the charging hump.

Thanks[/QUOTE

I need to work on repricing my drilling and tapping!

quote:

Originally posted by speerchucker30x378:
Well there is no such thing as a drawing for it. The barrels and actions on those old Mausers are seldom pointed in the same direction. The holes have to be located on the center of the bore line. Not on the center of the action. If they aren't you will have to shim the bases over to get it to sight in. That means using a Billy Best or Forster jig or the barrel has to be set up on the mill table centered on V blocks that are centered on the X axis.

After that the holes in the bases will provide the location for the holes. The 46 is .860 inch and the 55 is .504 inch hole spacing.

The location of the rear base is any place where it will not interfere with the bolt. The front base is centered on the front receiver ring.

The $180 price is in the ball park. A lot of those actions are hard and require carbide to drill and like to screw up taps. So your gunplumber is not out of line. If in doubt, pay some one who knows how to do it.You can only drill and tap it once. If it's not right you have to start shimming stuff.

Thanks, this is kinda the explanation I needed for why it isn't as simple of a job as it seems. Looks like its Lobster again for my Smith.

It's actually a very easy job to do, if you know how to do it and have the proper tools.

The job doesn't take that long either. Usually 1/2 hour to book the gun in. 3/4 of an hour to disassemble the gun and set it up in the jig and do the job and 1/2 hour to book it out for a total of just under 2 hours if everything goes smooth.

As far as the price. Well, I pay $30,000 per year in rent for my shop, $6,000 per year for insurance, two 40 inch lathes and two can opener lathes, both running carbide. Two mills set up with carbide. Buffers, belt sanders, drill grinder, tool & cutter grinder, drills and all the consumables that go with them. Then there is the computer, phone, accountant, lawyer and all the other nonsense expenses that go with running a shop. Plus I like to take a wage of about $30,000 for myself.

In the end I have to do about $90,000 per year or $400 every day in labor to make the bills. So, from my point of view $150 to $200 for the job is in the ball park and that's right in line with what I charge. I also just do gunsmithing and machining. No sales to offset my income.

What you charge is relative to what your cost of operations are. If you don't charge enough, you go broke. If people won't pay you what you need, you go broke. I'm the last gunsmith in Edmonton and I believe I may be the last fully trained gunsmith in Alberta. (CST grad, full warranty training, apprenticeship and 35 years experience) Everyone else quit or went broke.

I have never seen ANYONE get rich fixing guns. Most of the guys out there make far less than a plumber or electrician and you still need the 2 years trade school and the 4 years apprenticeship if you want to be well rounded.

This action is a Husqvarna commercial 640 in 9.3x62. No thumb cut. Open sights it will put 3 almost touching at 50 yards. Adding a fixed power to lengthen my range a bit for hogs.

Its worth $180 to me. Hell, ZR1 just sold a military husq totally bubba'd for $435. I just thought I might have a free option to add the scope.

dpcd, you have any sweds you want to part with for $180 please let me know!



Thanks for all the replies.

quote:

Originally posted by jshoney:
My local Gunsmith charges $60 hole, or $180 for this job. I already have the correct bases for the charging hump.

The shop I work in runs over 40 CNC and manual mills and lathes running every type of part for every industry. We have guys here with 40 years of making everything you can imagine. Some here could make a mauser action with a block of steel, calipers and an action to copy. If there isn't a drawing to follow i'll just have to pay.

Thanks

If the guys in the shop where you work are so damn talented, they should certainly have no problem measuring the hole spacing on a set of bases and drilling four holes in the appropriate locations on the receiver. Especially since at least two people in this thread have given instructions. Any real machinist will also be able to make his own drawing for future reference. They may or may not have a 6x48 tap but can easily purchase one from a number of sources.
Actually, if you were quoted 180 bucks at 60 per hole, you must have a one piece Leupold or Redfield base which only requires three holes. Either that or the 'smith is a bit challenged in the math department.
Oh, by the way, don't forget to have that bolt handle cut off and a new one welded on so it will clear the scope. Regards, Bill.

In my shop its $60 labor plus the bases. No more than 30 minutes...unless things go wrong, which on occasion they do.

In north Texas drill and tap four holes, mount scope and bore sight is $80.00 plus cost of bases and rings.

You will also need to weld on a new bolt handle $90.00 plus bolt and fit a low scope safety $50.00 to $120.00 plus safety.

$180.00 to drill and tap 4 holes might be fair in Canada but much too high for central Texas.

quote:

Originally posted by jshoney:
This action is a Husqvarna commercial 640 in 9.3x62. No thumb cut. Open sights it will put 3 almost touching at 50 yards. Adding a fixed power to lengthen my range a bit for hogs.

Its worth $180 to me. Hell, ZR1 just sold a military husq totally bubba'd for $435. I just thought I might have a free option to add the scope.

dpcd, you have any sweds you want to part with for $180 please let me know!



Thanks for all the replies.

Sir, I take offense at your mischaracterization of the rifle I sold as a totally Bubba'd Military Husqvarna. That rifle is in fact a Commercial Husqvarna. Nothing Bubba'd about the metal work. The stock, well, bubba definitely had his way with it.

That rifle too will put three shots into a cloverleaf at 50 yds.

I'm not sure what your point was or why you pulled me into the conversation but I think you owe me and the buyer an apology.

Hell, I'm gonna toss the action out the back door and use the barrel for a tomato stake. I just bought it for the one of a kind stock. Some people just can't appreciate art.

ZR1 I pulled you into the conversation as an example to dcpd that these rifles are worth more than $180. I'll apologize for adding "totally", you already described it as bubba'd.

Nicholosi if you care to sell me your action and tomato stake I'm interested.

I've already modified the bolt and changed the safety. My bases are two piece warne's so the placement isn't set in stone. As many here point out you can mess up so I hoped a drawing would make the process a no brainer. It seems to be not the case so again thanks to everyone for your replies.

I didn't take any offense to your statement but I could see where something like that might queer a deal when money hadn't yet changed hands.

As far as, D&T for scope, maybe I've been lucky or just don't know what I don't know but I've had good luck with the Sun Optics jig and carbide bits. My mill is Chinese and really a glorified drillpress but all the half dozen or so I've done in this manner have shot to my satisfaction without any need to shim. That is the method I'll use on the one I'm buying from Mike while I wait for stock to arrive.

The B Square style jigs that align the holes with the bolt body do work, most of the time. But you do get that one in 15 or 20 that is so far off that it can not be sighted in. It's not really the fault of the jig. The simple fact of the matter is that the threads in the receivers are not in alignment and the barrel and receiver come out cockeyed. Lately I have seen quite a few come in that were drilled crooked many years ago that suddenly are not working. This seems to be due to the large numbers of Asian and Filipino made scopes that have suddenly flooded the market. They just don't have the wide adjustment range of the old, high quality American made scopes. And, I'm Canadian so I'm certainly not pumping the stars and stripes, I'm just giving credit where credit is due.

quote:

But you do get that one in 15 or 20 that is so far off that it can not be sighted in. It's not really the fault of the jig.

I bought the jig. First action I used it on I couldn't get the scope to line up. Think I ended up giving the jig away and left the D&T to others.

quote:

Originally posted by speerchucker30x378:
The holes have to be located on the center of the bore line. Not on the center of the action. If they aren't you will have to shim the bases over to get it to sight in.

I'm curious about this... I get what you are saying, but wouldn't this practice pretty much hose up any future rebarrels of such an action D&Ted in this way? Or is it that the correction assumes that the barrel (and future barrels...) are straight, but that the action threads are cockeyed?

I've only done a couple of these jobs, but I went with the centerline of the action figuring that was what windage was for. It also seems that skewing the holes away from the action's centerline would create issues getting the bases to fit properly and create a lot of work recontouring the bottom side.

What do others do?

P.S. I've done one with the Wheeler jig, and one with a benchtop mini-mill. Both worked just fine. The jig is cheaper, and easily resold. PM me if you have a drill press and want to borrow or buy it.

The barrel threads are generally done on centers with almost all rifles montea6b. So re-barreling is generally not a problem unless you true up the action.

In that case you would be able to get away with welding up the holes in the rear bridge of the action and re-drilling and tapping it to the new barrel on the trued up action.

The front holes are almost always in the same place no matter how you drill and tap them. It's just the rear ones that are kicked over. Trigonometry is not your friend in this case.

Misaligned barrel threads is the exact reason that Billy Best and Forester designed their drill & tap jigs the way they did. Using the barrel itself to align the scope screw holes.

If you do just have a B Square style jig, it's not a big deal. When you take the gun apart just hold the barrel out in front of you by the muzzle and visually check it to ensure that the barrel and receiver appear straight to one another. You can also put a set of V blocks on your mill table and rotate it with an indicator on the sides of the rear bridge. Or, even better still, indicate off the sides of the rear tang. If it is bad then just center the barrel up on the mill table, put a machinists jack under the rear tang, clamp everything down and drill it.

No big deal.

Well, two guys on the same thread that have experienced the problem. I have seen it a lot in the last 35 years of gunsmithing. It's not really common, but it's common enough to be a nuisance.

That's what I like about the internet. The world is your oyster. You're are not anchored to one persons experience or opinions.

In a lot of cases 100 people can come up with 100 DIFFERENT answers for the same question and all of them can be correct. The next 100 people would give 100 answers to the same question and all of them would be wrong. It's ultimately up to the the guy that asked the questions to sort through the information weigh all the pros and cons decide what he should do.

But as said, this is no big deal and I am sure the OP is really confused now.

But he asked the question and he shouldn't expect that everyone has had the same experiences or that there really is one right answer.

I wouldnt say that i am an ekspert on Mauser m96, as i have only rebuild about 14.000 of them
I dont recall anny of the Swedish m96 to be crocked. And they are beautifully equipped with paralell sides, lined up perfectly to the bore.

Just put them in a decent vice on a cnc milling mashine. Punch in 4 positions with the right distance. Lokate the center of the boreline or reciever, simply bu using a 3d measure.

The only problem is that your action is made by Husquarna, and they are pretty hard on the surface (pretty mutch like glass) The versions produced by Mauser and the manny produced by Carl Gustaf were mutch softer. And could be drilled and tapped without point-anealing.
The point-anealing could easily be done with an ace/oxygen torch, where you just heat up the 4 points for drilling and tapping.

I doubt that it is ever the action which is at fault in any way. I suspect that those who are using a Forster-type jig, wherein the barrel is located in "V" blocks for alignment, are running into the problem because the outside of the barrel is not straight. If it seems like the rear holes are going to be offset in relation to the bore of the action, I will drill and tap in some other way.
One can do a rough and ready check on barrel alignment by simply looking through a hollow mandrel which has been turned on centers to fit into the receiver. You can see pretty minor misalignment this way. Doesn't tell you anything about the outside though.
The spot annealing is a good way to do it. While you can drill a hard receiver with carbide, you still have to tap it and if it is too hard to drill with HSS, it is probably too hard to tap as well.
It is very common to see the front holes drilled in the wrong place (too far to the rear). The rear hole should be ahead of the locking lug seat. After all, you don't want to spot-anneal the locking lug seat! I have seen this on quite a few Swedish sporters where the receiver ring has been annealed behing the seat. Regards, Bill.

Bill
Why do you think that the hole should not be drilled in the rear of the front bridge.
To my limited knowledge the hole would be positionet behind the split part of the left lug, therfor not reducing strength or bearingsurface:
As written i have never seen anny problems with the hole placed in the thick part og the rear of the frontring. But i must admit that my expierince is limitted to only 14.000 rebuild rifles of that model.
They were during the 80th and 90th sold as standard huntingrifles in Scandinavia, and was used with normally loaded factory loads, and not reduced Kragh loads.

I simply do not like to hole behind the locking lug seat. Especially when the drilling is accompanied by spot annealing. I know this is common practice in Sweden but it is also a practice which, I think, should be discouraged.
Stock removal is stock removal and although it may not weaken the receiver to any significant extent, it sure does not make it stronger! I was taught that ahead of the seat is the right place for the hole and to me, it is the right place. Leupold and Redfield bases were/are manufactured so as to accomodate holes placed that way and virtually every commercial action has them drilled that way; with the exception of modified Mausers from Sweden! I never knew who to blame when I got one of those in the shop but now I know; I can blame you.

Bill
From a strength point of vue isnt it better to drill in a plase where the is a lot of material, with no load, compared to weaken the thin webb that carries all the load from trying to hold the barrel and lugseats together.

If you try to blow up an old M96 it will always shear in the area where you suggest to drill a hole.

But as i said, i ame only a naive farmboy with only limmited knowledge

When I went to school the instructors were divided on where to put the holes. I think Old Gus poo pooed drilling into the thin area and preferred having the rear front bridge hole smack dab in the center of the lug area. He claimed having the hole in the thin area promoted a sheer area on the front ring and made it more prone to splitting.

To date the only guns that I have seen split down the front receiver ring have been Springfields, the pre 64 model 70s with the matte serrations on the front receiver rings and a few Savage 110s, Tikkas and Sakos. With the Springfield and Pre 64s I have always been told it was bad heat treatment. The Tikkas and Sakos give out along the dovetail cut for the scope. The Savages are probably just mindless hand loaders.

I have never seen a Remington 700, Post 64 70, Mauser (of any description) or Ruger 77 fail in that way.

Like most American gun plumbers I generally locate the rear hole in the front bridge about 1/64th ahead of the lug seat. But I have put them in the center of the lug on occasion when circumstance warrants it. I don't think it really maters much in modern firearms. If a guy double charges a case or uses the wrong bullet or powder it's going to get ugly no matter where the fool holes are located.

quote:

Originally posted by Duane Wiebe (CG&R):
Boy...I';d be the first to disagree with drilling into the lug area. NEVER heard anyone even suggest that before....But this makes great material for my book "Bullshit in the Gun Business"

I want to buy the first copy. Make it two.

I have a photo for you to put on the cover:

quote:

Originally posted by Duane Wiebe (CG&R):
Boy...I';d be the first to disagree with drilling into the lug area. NEVER heard anyone even suggest that before....But this makes great material for my book "Bullshit in the Gun Business"

I'm struggling with my own book and had kind of settled on that title for a chapter but I can change it if necessary.
My objection to drilling behind the locking lug seat is not necessarily because it weakens the action but because it is, quite simply, wrong! Regards, Bill

I suppose a team of engineers could plug the data into a putor and spit out an answer. It would probably say: "ham sandwich and a beer."

Personally I don't think it matters much. A lot of manufacturers chew half the lower lug out making the feed ramp. No one ever gets to excited about that trick. A lot of manufacturers also chew a great big slot through the left lug for the ejector to pass through. Well, big hairy dog-knockers! Still other makers drill a big hole almost completely through the right lug for the extractor spring and ball. No one seems to mind that either.

If anyone happens to be so bothered by the location of the holes, they should go back to Griffin & Howe side mounts so they can sleep at night!

So many armchair engineers, so little room left at the bottom of the ocean ! ! !

quote:

Originally posted by Duane Wiebe (CG&R):
Wood Hunter: I feel compelled to warn about shipping charges..this is gonna be a BIG book!

No problem, I am 2-1/2 hours away, I will drive down and pick the books up. Should I drive the F150 or the F450 Farm Hauler? Being a farm truck,the F450 has hauled a lot of manure.

Once Again i am amased to read comments from "Socalled" gunsmiths about somthing they clearly dont know a shit about.
It is Ok to have an opinion based on personal preferences (Bill ) . But when someone (Duane) start claming somthing to be unsafe or less safe without EVER having calculated strength of a design, or having located its weakest points. I find them plain and simple a shame for their trade. And it makes me Wonder what other crasy stuf they can come up with when they start writing their book.

A M96 is designed so that the strength of the upper "lugseat" area is atleast 200% stronger than the upper split boltlug. Opposit the lower lugseat that is no stronger than the lower boltlug.
That is when The same "BUBBAS" has not started to reduce the strength of the lower lugseat area, by grinding, filing or milling to accept longer cartridges or "making them feed"

Several practical test performed by hydraulical destructionstest, and also real World intentional blowuptest clearly shows that the failure always starts by the lower lugseat starts flowing, followed by chracking of the upper split lug continued by shearing of the rather thin webb in front and to the low left side of the lugseat.

dpcp
I agre that ther is really nothing wrong with your way, and it probably will not make anny major difference. And i fully accept your personal preference

What really pisses me of is when other tries to lecture me or other on what is wrong or unsafe. When they clearly dont know shit about what they are talking about. Or even worse is planing to write books about.

I hear ya.