First time out with new FN 98 commercial action Mauser mated to 25-06 Shilen barrel. Bolt hard to close. Not a COL or cartridge length issue . . .chamber too tight. Gunsmith I bought from said as soon as go gauge clears he buttons it up . . . which is usually more accurate. Maybe so, but you should not have to wrestle with the bolt to close it. Can I do anything to make it close more easily. With the chamber or the shells. Can I move back the shoulder a tad by screwing in the die.
The other potential problem this creates is with trying to set the Timney Trigger Low. Afraid that could get slamfire.
Your advice would be appreciated

If your gunsmith says the bolt closes on the go gauge, the headspace should be correct. If you are trying to feed by dropping a round in the chamber, don't. Mausers normally feed only from the magazine. If you are using once fired brass from another rifle, you should be sizing it down more. When sizing in a full length die, make sure your press lever "cams over" at the bottom of the stroke. Just barely touching the die with the shell holder normally may not be enough. If you have not checked the OAL of your cases, they could be too long. You also MAY have loaded you bullets out too far and they may be jamming into the lands. If this is a hunting rifle, the trigger should be set not too much lighter than 3lbs.

http://www.sinclairintl.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=REMTHT&type=store

L.E. Wislon makes this great little case gauge to help set up dies and to check consitency in your resizing.

If the rifle was set up with minimum headspace what would relapping the lugs do?

Try Small Base FL dies.

Hello,
Mr. Kobe made some good points for you. Would further suggest that you take a look at Stoney Point items which offer a series of cylinders to be fit on the leg of your calipers and measures the distance from the base of the fired brass, operative word here is fired case, to the datum line on the sholder of the case. (Takes measurement from half way on the shoulder/angle/slope of the fired case.) Then you will know a numerical value of the length of the case and can set your resizing die to something slightly less than the reading. Say, couple thousands, three, etc.
With an actual caliper reading, you can more accurately set up your die for resizing, would believe the the case resize is your problem. Die makers will tell you to set the die against the case holder, turn back one turn, one and half, etc. and that is really not a very accurate way to resize your brass, yet it works in most cases. If you are doing a lot of shooting as a match shooter, such resizing takes a lot of life out of the brass. Shot for many a year at Perry and can bet that almost all of your rifle shooters know the exact dimension of their brass for their particular rifle. Good Luck

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Kobe:
If your gunsmith says the bolt closes on the go gauge, the headspace should be correct. If you are trying to feed by dropping a round in the chamber, don't. Mausers normally feed only from the magazine. If you are using once fired brass from another rifle, you should be sizing it down more. When sizing in a full length die, make sure your press lever "cams over" at the bottom of the stroke. Just barely touching the die with the shell holder normally may not be enough. If you have not checked the OAL of your cases, they could be too long. You also MAY have loaded you bullets out too far and they may be jamming into the lands. If this is a hunting rifle, the trigger should be set not too much lighter than 3lbs.

Jim: As far as only feeding from the magazine....I strive to make sure every Mauser that leaves my shop will single load. Sopme of the "modern" Mausers do not have enough clearance in the ring for the extractor to snap over a loaded round...big mistake! I haven' seen an older Mauser that didn't have the clearance (about 1mm),,,there is no need to "squeeze" the extractor...a sort of "S" shape modification to the lip is all that is usually needed. I have nightmares of a client that has some hippogator coming full tilt...he drops a round in the chamber and...fooey!...the bolt won't close and now he's got a round stuck in the chamber that he can't extract without a cleaning rod...time out? don't think so...Especially,,,a big game rifle MUST be able to digest a single load... I note that Granite Arms' actions now not only haved the necessary clearance in the ring, but have a slightly longer extractor to give a bit more camming angle...means a slight relief cut in the barrel, but sure makes a pretty foolproof action. This is about the ONLY improvement I've personally seen to the system 98...my hat's off to GMA

Duane
I'm trying to digest what you just said. Are you saying that the bolt could be hard to close because there might be interference between the lip of the extractor and the case head of the cartridge. I understand most of the other reasons such as too long of a shell, shoulder on shell not right, etc. As to what Jim was saying, I was feeding one shell at a time . . . punching paper. . . but I also don't understand why loading one at a time vs loading through the magazine would make a difference. Would the latter somehow alleviate the problem with potential interference between case head and extractor rim?

What I tried to say was, "NORMALLY" a mauser should be fed from the box. I agree with Mr Weibe that they can be made to feed from the chamber. The extractor on your action may or may not have been modified to snap over the cartridge. Normally, the Mausers were not modified originally; they were made to feed from the box with the cartridge feeding out and then sliding under the extractor before fully into the chamber. This is the whole idea behind a controlled round feed. I do agree that they should be done so it will work both ways.

After what Jim Kobe and Duane said, I looked at the extractor on this FNN 98 action/bolt. Should have done that before I shot it 50 times. . . duh! I was loading one at a time and you can't do that with this extractor and controlled feed action. Jim Kobe was 100% correct! Duane had a great idea of modifying the extractor so it could be used both ways.
Thanks to both Jim and Duane. The bolt does close a lot more easily.

quote:

Duane had a great idea of modifying the extractor so it could be used both ways.

This is a good idea, alright! But it is one that seems to have dawned on the very first US gunsmith to redo a military M98. Probably right around 1919 sometime, as it has been in use ever since......

Glad you found the issue and cured it.

I too have some customs that have chambers cut to the go guage (min saami) It pays to check each round in the chamber (firing pin out etc) before going hunting.

Even full length sizing, not touching lands etc etc such bolts can be a bit stiff to shut.

I made a cone shaped breech for better feeding on a .223 barrel for a 98 Mauser.

I headspaced the chamber with no extractor.

Then I put on the welded up extractor and it ran into the cone and got wrecked

That would not have happened if I had X-ray vision.