I have a nice mauser action that has a bit of pitting on the front ring. I can't find anyone who wants to grind ring for me, so I want to try to stone it. What is a good large stone to use for the job, and how would you then polish it out.

Why grind it, if the pits are not too bad have them TIG welded and then polish them back.

do you do tig welding?

I can grind it for you.

quote:

Originally posted by Kolo-Pan:
do you do tig welding?

No Just my own work now. But there are some who post here that could.

I use 10" X1/2" square stone. Be sure to work in a diagonal direction to front ring as front and back edges of the ring are generally harder than the center. A diagonal motion avoids causing a dip in the softer center. Polish with progressively finer grit wet/dry paper backed by wide file in alternating diagonal directions and finish with lite shoe shine direction with 320 grit wet/dry. Email me if you have questions.

Pits are never as light as they look ... and you will need to recase after. That's why they are called pits ... as in money pits.

Yea but this one is kind of neat and worth it if it doesn't cost too much. I like that rear square bridge. and I like the 8mm mauser caliber. Just right for Minnesota deer hunting.

I wouldn't shoot an 8mm cartridge in this one.
Going by the notch in the ring and the .30 on the bridge. And the Peruvian crest.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
I wouldn't shoot an 8mm cartridge in this one.
Going by the notch in the ring and the .30 on the bridge. And the Peruvian crest.

Would you shoot a 7.62x63 in it ?

30-06 most likely

They were originally 7.65 Argentine/ later rechambered to 30-06. Don't know what a 7.62x63 is other than a 30-06.
But not 8mm as the OP wanted to do. Unless rebarreled.

yes I would rebarrel it

I'd think there are much better choices than that one to be built on. A pile of dollars could be poured into that receiver to make it 'useable'. DPCD has posted that he has a few good examples he'd part with.

"there are much better choices than that one to be built on"

I know. I have three nice g.33/40s here, but I can't decide what I should do with them

This is one of them. That is 1909 Argentine bottom metal. Original barrel. Needs polish and reblue.

spend the $ on one.

Polish it, blue it, stock it. Done deal. What's up with the front base, looks like it's got some "bubba" to it ?

As for the first one. Fill it with the appropriate bondo and duracoat or cerakote it.

bases are fine. they are weaver. I will change them out "someday"

Years and years ago there was a guy in Iowa named John Westrom. photos of his work show how he cleaned up mauser actions to look like they were new. Wish I could find his brochure.

Looks to me like the front base on that G33/40 is not properly positioned. The rear base screw could be into the upper locking abutment, or down the face of the abutment, both of which are no-no. To clean-up the Peruvian, the rusted area would need to be bead blasted to remove as much of the oxidation from the bottom of the pits as possible. Before I'd TIG those pits up I'd anneal. After welding is blending the weld to the rest of the ring and then having the receiver re-carburized. Talk about a money pit!

Interesting you mention John Westrom; those he did were the actions I was trying to sell for his heirs; before some here got upset about the whole thing.
I also have his grinding fixtures; no there are no plans to grind any more Mausers. No brochures were found in any of his stuff.

"No brochures were found in any of his stuff"

'before some here got upset about the whole thing'.

Why should anybody be upset about that?



From the sound of things I might be throwing these two actions away and starting to look for something else.

Kolo are you serious or are you live baiting us?
In case you missed it - http://forums.accuratereloadin...043/m/9971071462/p/1

quote:

From the sound of things I might be throwing these two actions away and starting to look for something else.

Sell them to someone who thinks they are better then sliced bread.

Use the money to buy a Ruger stainless MKII and re-barrel it in the caliber you want.

Add a after market trigger.

You well have a better over all rifle for less money.

Mr Pan, I got some very negative PMs about the actions I was selling for the family; too much drama for me just doing a favor. Most of them were ground as in that picture, which is a large ring 1.1 thread, that was ground down to small ring leaving the scope base pad on top; I got some negative PMs about those too from Mauser "experts". That is what he did; grind and polish Mauser actions. I was in his shop and saw him doing it. He also destroyed many valuable collectable Mausers in the process.

dpcd

Kolo-Pan is my corporate name. Try Kevin!

I think that as we celebrate our Independence today we might remember some of the benefits of that. One would be that for the most part if we own something we can do what we want with it. If somebody wants to have their mauser action ground go for it. If I want to throw my less than perfect actions away and start over I will. That is not to say that other people don't have a right to their opinion about it. We should be mellow and give thanks for those freedoms on this great day in America.
Happy 4th of July everyone.

DCPD More of the brochure

The most I am willing to take off a front ring on a LR action is .025". And I only do that to remove some minor pitting or to clean-up a crest that has been de-faced. My surface grinder is not and never has been set-up with a coolant system. Lots of heat can be generated surface grinding the ring. Those I do grind, which isn't many, get sent off to Blanchard for re-carburizing. Sending more than one is the only way, as the 1st costs $125 to have re-carburized, but every other in the same 'batch' is charged $65. That is the current price I paid as of April of this year. Looks like the pitting on the Peruvian is deeper than .025" to me. That's where de-rust and TIG welding would come in. At minimum, pre-heat before welding. Just for what it's worth. Add it up, the cost become prohibitive. Too bad, too. The Peruvian would make a nice custom. Have a Good 4th!

I've mentioned this before..but My friend (now deceased victim of covid) was a welding engineer at the Hanford Nuclear Facility and a very accomplished metalsmith.

He showed me x rays of welds..some on actions and barrels. The welded places all lost grain flow and looked more like spaghetti bowls and for that reason he was adamantly opposed to receiver ring welding and barrel welding.

Further stated that rehardening doesn't do anything to improve the weld.

No trying to start a fight in a telephone booth, just passing on findings of an expert

quote:

Not trying to start a fight in a telephone booth, j

Duane, some of your stuff is just wonderful. Funny!

I am wondering what you have to say about the folks that used to cut about an inch from Mauser Actions and bolts and then WELD to make .250 Savage length actions. I know that your buddy Jim Carmichael had one that was done by Ron Lampert and Jim spoke highly of it in some of his printed articles.

DPCD

More brochure. Notice the "reasonable prices. $20.00 per hour!!!!

That pitting looks localized and not real close to the lugs ... I think you would be OK tigging it with the threaded bore filled with heat stop. Note that when you blue it you may be able to see the weld repair, depending on what filler rod you use.

My experience w argentines rechambered to 06 is they are not accurate due to the bullet/groove mismatch. If you reload, you can use .311 bullets to get better accuracy.

Ok good; I thought your name was Pan. Like Peter.
Very cool brochure; If you don't mind I am going to copy it and give it to the family; they do not have that document.
As for that Peruvian action, Rich has the right idea; fill the pits with bondo and coat it with alumahyde 2; no danger that way. They are good actions. (actually I would weld it but as stated, that gets to be too expensive)
As for shooting 308 bullets in a 311 barrel, they work fine when you are just trying to hit a deer at 100 yards; back when these were done, that was the clientele. Not target shooters.
Also, true, he charged $20 an hour but since he did much of the work by hand, it took at least 8 hours to do one and usually much longer; that is like $500 today. How many of us would pay $500 for a Mauser action? I've got boxes of the stones he used; he definitely had patience.

Russ

Thank you very much for your recommendations.

Happy 4th of July!!!!!!!!!!!

I've always limited my welding to bolt handles, never have welded pitting up on a receiver but I know others have, many times with acceptable results.

quote:

Also, true, he charged $20 an hour but since he did much of the work by hand, it took at least 8 hours to do one and usually much longer; that is like $500 today. How many of us would pay $500 for a Mauser action? I've got boxes of the stones he used; he definitely had patience.

Back when actions were cheap and labor was cheap.

It made some sense to "redo" military rifles into useable "sporter's."

I have several that are good useable rifles that get the job done.

A couple of them I have less then 50 dollars in.

Brought several more for less then 200.00 hardly can get them drilled and tapped and the bolt handled turned for that now.

Let alone the new stock, after market trigger, safety, scope mounts. Let alone the scope that came on them.


There was a time Military rifles were or could be the way to go.

That time has come to pass unless one has the time and money to play with them.

A relatively long time ago (when I got out of the Navy) I had three treasured possessions. A Volvo car, a Don Allen custom Rifle, and a Rolex submariner watch. I sold all three so I could go to school, and I never replaced them. I don't remember what I paid for the rifle and the car, but I remember the watch was under $1000.

Ive gottem by with other stuff through the years. Now I want to get back to what I had - a nicer car (this time maybe an Audi), a true custom rifle, and a Submariner.

I think I will ditch the Peruvian and sell parts from this particular g.33/40 and look for something already put together. But I want it in 8mm mauser, which might be tough to find.

Thanks for the good discussion on this great Independence Day. Happy 4th of July to everyone, and many many more.

A "name recognized" custom bolt rifle made to your spec today will set you back $7.5K plus with most of that going into the wood.

There are plenty of German customs floating around in the used market for 1/3 of that, engraved guns. Unfortunately, not many of them have highly figured wood, that's rare on a German rifle.

There really isn't much argument between an 8mm and an 06, both of which are too much for a woods/deer rifle in my opinion. The 8mm does fit the 98 action better, though.

The ideal woods (bolt) rifle is a 300 Sav on a (lighter and shorter) small ring action; or maybe a 7x57 if you want something metric.

If you like Rolexes, you will like Sakos. Their intermediate action in a 260 or 7-08 would be just fine as well ... and good for longer ranges.

I'm sure I have a barrel in 8x57 here in my pile O barrels, with a decent bore, that you can have.
If you want a new barrel, we can get those too of course. As I am sure you can too.

This has been an interesting discussion. My first question is does the pitting in anyway affect the structural integrity of the action? Or is it merely cosmetic? If it is only cosmetic then clean out any grit and grime and forget about trying to fix/hide the pitting. When the action is subsequently blued and a scope base is mounted the pitting won't be very noticeable. And Kevin will have a nice deer rifle in the caliber that he wants.

Just cosmetic. Best COA; fill in with most anything and coat. Paint.