A question for some of the more knowledgeable 98 fans. Early mausers were made from a softer low carbon steel and then had locking lug areas and other areas prone to wear hardened with a carburizing paste. When done properly this made a very tough action.Some of the newer 98 actions are made with higher carbon steels and are very strong. In the middle of all this are the highly reguarded commercial FN actions. Are they made with the lower carbon steels and hardened where they need to be ??or are they made of higher carbon steel ?? or are the early ones low carbon steel and the later actions high carbon?? If so when did they change? Thanks for your input.

The post war FNs I've had appeared to be quality steel like other modern actions.

I don't know when the cutoff was, but the high carbon actions, as you put it, can't be discussed outside of the chrome moly part; there are no "high carbon" steels that you would want to make rifle actions out of; no point in it. Let's say that early actions were made from 1020 steel,or equivalent, and then case hardened. Modern actions, from WW2 and after, are made from 4140, or equivalent, and have enough carbon to self harden, but are very tough without being very hard.
Point it, it is not as easy as saying, low carbon, or high. Too high is a bad thing.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
I don't know when the cutoff was, but the high carbon actions, as you put it, can't be discussed outside of the chrome moly part; there are no "high carbon" steels that you would want to make rifle actions out of; no point in it. Let's say that early actions were made from 1020 steel,or equivalent, and then case hardened. Modern actions, from WW2 and after, are made from 4140, or equivalent, and have enough carbon to self harden, but are very tough without being very hard.
Point it, it is not as easy as saying, low carbon, or high. Too high is a bad thing.

dpcd Perhaps I made a poor choice in calling the later actions "high carbon" . If they are made from 4140 or equivalent they will certainly be tough. I'm not 100% certain on the dates but FN made and sold commercial actions from shortly after WWII up until the very early 1950's. These actions still had the military thumb slot on the left side of the action. They also had a very nice swept back bolt handle.The safety was the classic wing or flag type on the bolt shroud. Husqvarna and other companies used this action for years. In the early 1950'5 the FN action was changed. The thumb slot disappeared and at least some of the actions came with a side safety. I believe these are refered to as "53" actions .Does anyone know if the steel in the older actions with the thumb slot is the same as the newer actions without the thumb slot ?? Browning and others used the newer actions to build their rifles in calibres like the 375 H&H and 300 Wby so those actions certainly must have been made from good steel.

As I said, I do not know when, or if, FN went to an alloy steel.
Frank de Haas said that he did not know what steel they were made from, although he thought they were all low carbon, case hardened.

Whatever the truth, those FN actions would seem to have been a benchmark for quality last century. They still seem to be the ones most respected by professional hunters in Zimbabwe.

I take it snowman has read at some stage P. O. Ackley's Vol.2 thoughts on hardness issues.

It seems like back in the day the various types of action steels was geographically relative. Nowadays not so much. I would venture to guess that steel in the FN's of old would have been quite similar to whatever else was being produced in that region at the time. But of course you would want to take their painstaking commitment to quality into account as well, and the fact that most of the old European mausers got their strength from a very well executed case hardening process.

The beauty of a 98 Mauser is soft on the inside and hard on the outside..Paul Mauser knew his business better than anyone I know off..The reasoning behind this was to create an action that tended to swell up as opposed to fragmenting and it does that...One of the reasons Im a Mauser fan, that and another 100 or so reasons he installed in his famous battle rifle, nothing there by mistake, a reason for every hump and bugger in that famous action.

I have two post WWII FN M98 actions - a thumb cut, wing safety Husky 9.3x57 that is now a 9.3x62 with a Timney low profile safety and a FN branded (no thumb cut) 7mm Rem Mag with a low profile safety of unknown make (maybe FN) that is the best low profile safety I've seen.

Both are great actions avd very high quality. The Husky had a bent M98 handle that got replaced with a butterknife handle and the FN branded kept the factory handle, but with it straightened (still sweeps back, but not curved).

7mm Mag FN



9.3x62 Husky/FN