I saw a Mauser '98 on Gunbroker the other day,
listed as 300 H&H Magnum.
I wrote the seller, but got nothing back.
The picture was blurry.

I lowballed it, but won it anyway for $258
I figured I would make it into a 404 Jeffery if the action hadn't been too badly butchered.

Well, to my surprise it looks very well made, with a heavy barrel marked "300 H-H", with E.R.Shaw on the bottom surface of the barrel, and with the cryptic initial "KJR 1/80" on the right, inferior surface of the barrel.

The action appears to be a commercial M98 Mauser, but with the thumb cut and stripper clip recess in place, and in the nicest condition I've ever seen a Mauser action in.

The bottom metal has had the box enlarged, welded and filed (and then reblued), with the action screw heads having a triangular shape, and the front screw tensioned by a second, smaller screw that fits against a recess of the action screw head.
(The floor plate release is of the type that is pressed with a bullet tip poked into the recess holding it)

The bluing is of high quality and luster.

The bolt handle is turned down and slightly swept back.
The safety is a bolt shroud (German) wing type.

The only stampings I see are two small ovals on the right side of the receiver that are a "Z" inside an oval, two small ovals on the left side (below the woodline) that have 2 vertical lines inside them, and a clearly seen "S" on the left side (low) on the receiver lug.
There are also two small and seperate markings on the bottom of the receiver that look more like a Byzantine style cross, but might possibly be a weirdly shaped "X".

There is still cosmoline on parts of the bolt and in a few recesses of the receiver.

Clearly this was cobbled together by someone, but whoever they were they sure knew their stuff.

Do the initials I mentioned (KJR 1/80) mean anything?
The seller was a pawn shop.

Thanks,
Garrett

hey bud, the initials don't ring a bell but getting one that fitted for the 300h&h is a find. the 300 H&H cartridge is the same lenght or close to the 8mm Rem mag. it took alot of work to make it fit. i do believe you got a good find there. il'd be tempted to rebarrel to a rem 416 mag with that action. chuld be pretty easy to do. happy days man,. Dave

The Shaw stamping is the barrel maker, the initials the guy at Shaw that fitted it, and of course, the date it was done.
The bottom metal is stock military, the small screws are lock screws for the action screws. The markings on the receiver below the wood and on the lug are probably armorers marks from when it was originally built, possibly the S means it was originally 8 mm mauser with the barrel taking the S or .323 bullet size, but that is just a guess. Sounds like whoever did the work on the bottom metal did good! Enjoy!

Lee,

I had owned a Shaw barrel before (so I knew where this barrel came from), but on the barrel I had owned previously there were no initials from the barrel maker/fitter.

Does Shaw typically add those initials on their work? It was the mid 80's when I had a 308 Win. barrel from them....fairly accurate too.

Yes..I agree about the triggerguard too. It was clearly a K98 type (milled) unit, but someone had really worked it over nicely, and there isn't a pit or scratch on it.

I had just assumed that someone (in the past) resurfaced this action, except that those few markings I described are crisp and clear. If someone went to the trouble of resurfacing it, why leave those few marks behind?

My guess is that it was some sort of guild gun, made prior to 1941 (and this is just my uneducated guess), that was chambered for some longer cartridge like the 8x68S (which explains the longer box and the "S" I described).

All it would take for someone to convert it to 300 H&H would be a new barrel and opening up the bolt face a tiny bit.

I would have loved to find one in caliber 8x68S, but originals are hard to come by.

I don't plan on converting this one any further.
It's well made enough that I need to see how it shoots before doing anything else.
Somehow it strikes me as a rifle that deserves a little respect (which wasn't what I was expecting to purchase).

Garrett