Sort of a newby question I suppose, but what is the best way to put double (or single) square bridges on a Mauser action. I've seen them screwed on and welded on, but I'm sure if I welded them on I would need to have the action heat treated again. Which method is most popular?
Thanks,
Blair

Personally, I will not weld on a receiver ring. Bridge OK

This one off the Satterlee thread sure stirs the soul.



I've had custom bases made before but I sure like that!

Terry

Terry-

You are so right!!!

That is amazing to see the line that starts from the safty and follows through the bolt handle and on to the rear base.

Stir the soul is right.

The rear square bridge can be welded on and you should not have to re-heat treat the action.You will however most likley have to re-fit the bolt and lap it in. How much work this will be depends on how much heat was generated when welding. Metal moves and changes shape when it gets hot.
I am of the oppion that you should never weld on the front ring. The heat from welding does funey things to the grain structure of the steel. Even if you have it re-heat treated it will never be the same.

quote:

Originally posted by SGYamagishi:

I am of the oppion that you should never weld on the front ring. The heat from welding does funey things to the grain structure of the steel. Even if you have it re-heat treated it will never be the same.

Steve and others,

What about filling unwanted holes on the receiver ring? Is it ok to weld them up, or....???


- stu

I'm partial to bolt on front bases/bridges and welded on rear.

If I can figure out how to put up pics I too would show you what Stuart aka. Timan did on my 1909 Argy....dbl. sq. bridges screwed down. anyone care to do the pics? will email them over to ya

I will agree that welding is the last thing I would care to do, but i didn't know how acceptable screwing them on would be. I picked up a 1909 Argentine at the Greensboro gunshow a couple of weeks ago and am tossing some things about in my mind.

Stu C

There are two rules that I go buy when it comes to welding on the front ring of a Mauser or Model 70 (the only two bolt actions I like to work on) and they are:

#1 "NEVER DO IT"
#2 "NEVER DO IT"

I hope this answers your question.
Steve

Chisana,
On the front bridge, it looks like the dovetail on the inside was formed by dropping an isert into a pocket in the slot on the bridge and then everything was screwed down to the front ring. Fair assumption? The only other way I see to make the internal dovetail is to EDM it in.

Looks more like an 1/8 end mill in the corners.

quote:

Originally posted by SGYamagishi:
Looks more like an 1/8 end mill in the corners.

I saw that too, but not sure which way the radius is going. I thought there was an insert there that was radiused. I don't think you can get a dovetail cutter into those corners without inserting something. But on "second look" you might be right as the dovetail carries out into the main body of the bridge.

Clowdis,
You do not have to run the dovetail cutter into the main body. Just run it up to it and clean out the corners with an 1/8 end mill.
CAS 11 has a post on this form. Take a look at the mounts I built for him. There is no cut into the body.

quote:

I'm partial to bolt on front bases/bridges and welded on rear.

I'm partial to that action...Thats Sweet!
After the MX Mauser, the Mex Mauser, the Ruger #1, the Win. 94 gets done, I'll start my 1909 in 280.

Someone here had the front base welded too, cant remember, but it looked nice. I would think heat treating after words would make job o.k.. I'm talking about a tig welder and done a little at a time, easy with the heat NOT all at one time.

And people weld up screw holes all the time!

Wow, that is nice!

quote:

Originally posted by srtrax:
[QUOTE]I'm partial to bolt on front bases/bridges and welded on rear.

I'm partial to that action...Thats Sweet!
After the MX Mauser, the Mex Mauser, the Ruger #1, the Win. 94 gets done, I'll start my 1909 in 280.

Someone here had the front base welded too, cant remember, but it looked nice. I would think heat treating after words would make job o.k.. I'm talking about a tig welder and done a little at a time, easy with the heat NOT all at one time.

And people weld up screw holes all the time!


And...it's very poor practice to do so! Forrest B bought a ""clean Brno 21" a while back
Someone had welded up the screw holes (As in "done all the time") Rockwelled at 9! yes 9!

Anecdotal welding on rings comes up continuously...NO! heat treating does nothing to change the badly damaged grain structure

Submit such actions to Euoropean proof houses and I'm told you'll likely get a notice "We destroyed this unsafe action"

We don't have proof houses here in the colonies. If we did, there'd be a lot of disappointed gun makers/hobbyists and owners

I love those! beautiful.

quote:

Originally posted by Chisana:
I'm partial to bolt on front bases/bridges and welded on rear.

screwed on bases look ok

Nice work...I agree

quote:

Originally posted by clowdis:
Chisana,
On the front bridge, it looks like the dovetail on the inside was formed by dropping an isert into a pocket in the slot on the bridge and then everything was screwed down to the front ring. Fair assumption? The only other way I see to make the internal dovetail is to EDM it in.

I'm not sure on the specifics of how Ed Lapour built the bases I just know I like them. Now I just need to get off my butt and get this thing sent to Duane along with a blank.

Forrest

quote:

Originally posted by gunmaker:
screwed on bases look ok

Yeah, that'll work!!

quote:

And...it's very poor practice to do so! Forrest B bought a ""clean Brno 21" a while back
Someone had welded up the screw holes (As in "done all the time") Rockwelled at 9! yes 9!

Anecdotal welding on rings comes up continuously...NO! heat treating does nothing to change the badly damaged grain structure

Duane, thanks for the info...Rockwell 9 (dat aint right)
Teacher at gunsmithing school did say leave the heat of any kind off of the front ring, but that the back of the action could be made out of lead as far as that is concerned!

Not really square bridges but a pair of bases I like really well. They are screwed on but you have to look really close to see the screws.

Why put such high square bridges on a Mauser. Screw on some low Weaver style bases and then the front sight and a peep or rear safari style open sights will be able to be kept nice and low. IMO keep with low bases and use ring heights to suit the objective lenses of scopes. Obviously the bolt handle will need altering but no problem in that we are not talking about original Mausers that you want to keep in collectors original condition.

Who wants a scope set up like a damn carry handle!!!

quote:

Originally posted by eagle27:
Why put such high square bridges on a Mauser. Screw on some low Weaver style bases and then the front sight and a peep or rear safari style open sights will be able to be kept nice and low. IMO keep with low bases and use ring heights to suit the objective lenses of scopes. Obviously the bolt handle will need altering but no problem in that we are not talking about original Mausers that you want to keep in collectors original condition.

Who wants a scope set up like a damn carry handle!!!

After the charging slot hump has been ground down on a military action the rear receiver ring is quite a bit lower than the front thus the rear square bridge or scope base will look tall. Trust me these are full blown custom rifle projects and the scopes are not overly high when mounted. They "look right". In the case of my barreled action the rings are modified Talleys and I did not include them in the pictures. There is more going on with these rifles than you can see.

Screwing on some Weaver bases and bending the bolt handle is not what I am looking for in a custom rifle.

This is horrible!
Unnecessarily high bases.
Ridiculous!
Weaver bases screwed onto real square bridges would be lower!

Well,
Here is my welded Double Sq. Bridge. It is a 9.3X62. I also have a Mexican with the same treatment. They were both recased. My Mexican hasn't blown up yet. Jim Kobe is stocking the 9.3. Hopefully he will have photos when he gets it in line and starts on it.

Butch

Very Nice Butch! That's one I look foward to seeing finished.

Terry

quote:

Well,
Here is my welded Double Sq. Bridge. It is a 9.3X62. I also have a Mexican with the same treatment. They were both recased. My Mexican hasn't blown up yet. Jim Kobe is stocking the 9.3. Hopefully he will have photos when he gets it in line and starts on it.

Butch, do you know what the action was after the hardening, Rockwell wise? How was the bases welded up?

I should get some names before I post this. David sent both of mine out to be annealed before the work was done. The welding is a long drawn out affair. You use a micro tig to spot it and then let it air cool before a little more is done. This is done over a couple days. I mentioned to Duane the welders name that a lot of the ACCG members know and respect. He saw no problems in what David was doing. After all the machine work was done it was back to the heat treaters for the recase. The recase was done by a firm that most of the gunsmiths use. They are very familiar with the Mauser receivers. I don't think they would do them without having confidence that the receivers were good when they left their facility. `
I sure have no problem with Duane not wanting to do it. He has his own ideas from a vast amount of time doing this. There are things in my business that I won't do that others will do. Are they wrong? Well I think so, but they don't seem to have problems doing it.
Butch

RIP
You said what I thought of but I tried to be a bit diplomatic.
Now we just plonk a scope on and we have my pet hate of European scoped firearms, bloody carry handles.

Funny when I spent a year in Germany my hunting friend there got me to replace the scope mountings on his hunting rifles with Weaver bases and rings as low as possible as well as replacing the double triggers with single triggers. He had experienced hunting in NZ and noted well the way we get our scopes low and heads down on the stock where it belongs for accurate and quick shooting.

Thank you for your reply Butch. Should I ever decide to try this I'll P.M. you for names and phone #. I do like the looks of them!

On that Satterlee M98 I would bet if you took those mock bridges off and measured them you would find they aren't much if any higher than a set of stock Talley bases. The very well machined recoil shoulders (front&back) and the fact that the custom base comes to the edge of the mounts gives them the apperance of being more substantial than they really are. If you'll look down the center line of the front mount it tells the story. That's going to be a fine rifle.

Terry

This thread proves to me that debates are almost never won on the facts alone.

If you want to Prove" these welded up receiver rings, send it to a proof house in...say England or Germany.

I'll bet we have European members who might help out.

What really bothers me, is that the more often these anecdotal examples are shown with such a caption "It ain't blowed up yit" somehow makes the welded ring like "case law" "acceptable"

Believe me, my at heart interest lies with the custom gunmaking industry..lets be careful out there!

quote:

Originally posted by TC1:
On that Satterlee M98 I would bet if you took those mock bridges off and measured them you would find they aren't much if any higher than a set of stock Talley bases. The very well machined recoil shoulders (front&back) and the fact that the custom base comes to the edge of the mounts gives them the apperance of being more substantial than they really are. If you'll look down the center line of the front mount it tells the story. That's going to be a fine rifle.

Terry

I think that the straight sides of the Satterlee action's rear bridge give it the illusion of being much higher than the front bridge which has been radiused near where it joins the receiver ring. Seems like a bit of curvature or radius on the sides of this rear bridge would give it a little more eye appeal.

I've stayed out of this debate so far but now hafta add my opinion as well as a few facts.

Fact 1: I spent most of my professional life in heavy nuclear construction and commercial nuke operation. We weld on nuclear-grade items all the time, steel parts that have to pass X-ray, Rockwell and other NDE (Non-Destructive Examination) tests afterward, valves & piping & other components that HAVE to perform under extremely high pressures in destructive environments. I repeat, we weld them all the time. And yes, my instructors at Trinidad taught us not to weld receiver rings but, with all due respect, they were gunsmiths and not welders.

Fact 2: the Mausers and M70s are two completely different types of steel and can't be treated the same without having problems. Military and early commercial Mausers are all low-carbon steel and are case-hardened while M70s are relatively high-carbon and are hardened clear through. Thus it's no problem to weld a Mauser and re-heat-treat afterwards as long as you use a low-carbon filler rod and the proper welding procedure. OTOH a Win M70 will often actually be too hard & even brittle, see the blowup photo in Ackley's Handbook, and so welding on such a receiver ring might well be too problematical for the relatively-unpracticed welder even if the exact proper alloy high-carbon filler rod could be found.

Those are facts, now for my own opinion. I make every effort to keep my scopes as low as possible and IMO almost all custom rifles shown on this site have had their scopes mounted WAY WAY too high. As an example, if I can use the Butler Creek flip-open lens cover on the scope's eyepiece without hitting the bolt handle or the bolt sleeve then I KNOW the scope can be mounted lower unless the objective lens interferes.

IMO many smiths make their scope mounts too high for two reasons; A)it's a lot easier and B)it doesn't interfere with their idea of a good-looking bolt handle. But if the customer is willing to accept and pay for such a mounting then who am I to quibble...
Regards, Joe

quote:

Originally posted by clowdis:

quote:

Originally posted by TC1:
On that Satterlee M98 I would bet if you took those mock bridges off and measured them you would find they aren't much if any higher than a set of stock Talley bases. The very well machined recoil shoulders (front&back) and the fact that the custom base comes to the edge of the mounts gives them the apperance of being more substantial than they really are. If you'll look down the center line of the front mount it tells the story. That's going to be a fine rifle.

Terry

I think that the straight sides of the Satterlee action's rear bridge give it the illusion of being much higher than the front bridge which has been radiused near where it joins the receiver ring. Seems like a bit of curvature or radius on the sides of this rear bridge would give it a little more eye appeal.

Looks fine to me. I would be proud to have that action as the base of my custom rifle.

Terry

quote:

Originally posted by J.D.Steele:


Those are facts, now for my own opinion. I make every effort to keep my scopes as low as possible and IMO almost all custom rifles shown on this site have had their scopes mounted WAY WAY too high. As an example, if I can use the Butler Creek flip-open lens cover on the scope's eyepiece without hitting the bolt handle or the bolt sleeve then I KNOW the scope can be mounted lower unless the objective lens interferes.

IMO many smiths make their scope mounts too high for two reasons; A)it's a lot easier and B)it doesn't interfere with their idea of a good-looking bolt handle. But if the customer is willing to accept and pay for such a mounting then who am I to quibble...
Regards, Joe

I like you more with each post.

Jason, I've always been a 'Questioner', guess I was born that way. Sometimes I'm the windshield and other times I'm the bug but I always report (and identify) what I see or else what I think, no point in lying or blindly following fashion just because someone else once did it that way.

Since I don't smith for a living I'm free to build what I think will work best, regardless of fashion or legend. I have majorly-different (how's THAT for keeping up with modernity?!) opinions on several cherished sacred cows of the shooting world, as a result of actual experiments.

These opinions are worth every penny they cost you(VBG).
Regards, Joe