.

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
So in effect the company that gives us a modern Spec Magnum Mauser action will be in the running, make it relatively inexpensive but reliable and that company wins.

This begs the question...what defines relatively inexpensive? Under $1000??? Under $500? I dont think either one will happen however I would be pleasantly surprised if it did.

HartmannWeiss undoubtably produce the finest 98 actions available,I found that from my own inspection,and I asked the three following men independently( Echols,Fisher,Ralf Martini),Who makes the Finest?....they said with a quite confident smile "H&W".
Now for the purists out their take note, H&W have done some things:

1/ they have altered (enlarged) the bolt lug dimensions on their magnum mauser action.
2/ they regularly fit 3pos.m70 type safeties to their new Kurtz & magnum actions.
3/ They have extended the reciever thread.
4/ They offer bottom metal design different to Oberndorf shape( as well as the Oberndorf).
5/ they make in Chromemolly.
6/ they fit type Blackburn triggers(as well as original type)

Does that sound so "pure" mauser anymore?
It does not stop people buying them or having high regard for them at near $6000 an action.
The action is produced on an order basis, I was given an 8 week delivery time, depending on work load.

YOu might call them all improvements,you might not, fact is, people have accepted them. If that is unacceptable to a purist then they are missing out on a superb action.I would have one in a heartbeat, and I would still like one just as much without the 3rd lug or split lug.

If the lugs were increased for strength and the action is chromemolly surely the 3rd lug is just for show, but if it is still considered necessary for strength reasons,then there is good merit to have the left lug unsplit, that would be an improvement also,.... would it not??

quote:

Originally posted by Woodjack: If the lugs were increased for strength and the action is chromemolly surely the 3rd lug is just for show, but if it is still considered necessary for strength reasons,then there is good merit to have the left lug unsplit, that would be an improvement also,.... would it not??

Woodjack, don't inject logic in a thread where it is not welcome.

.

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
I have yet to see or handle an original Sporting Mauser in say a , 350, 404, 505 or 500 Jeffery that does not feed flawlessly and yet there are numerous examples of modern attempts that cannot seem to make any of these catridges work.

Help me here, bud. What is flawless feeding to you? Or maybe, what issues in feeding do you need to experience before it fails the "flawless" standard.

Trying to get a grip on all this.

My take on flawless feeding is this:

Take one hundred, new factory cartridges from their pristine manufacturers' boxes.

Load the appropriate number into the rifle magazine.

Cycle one hundred rounds through the action. The test is to be performed with the rifle in the shoulder and is to be done fast / in an agitated manner (Like your life depends upon it!).

Of those one hundred rounds, NOT ONE IS PERMITTED TO FAIL TO CYCLE THROUGH THE ACTION.

I read, I think it was Kevin Robertson or Mike Le Grange's book, that one in a hundred failures is unacceptable in a DGR or cropping officers' rifle. They are professionals, shotting literally thousands of dangerous animals - elephants, buffaloes etc over the years.

So, if it is good enough for them, like Lilly Langtry and the soap etc, it is good enough for me.

Just make it a thoroughbred 98 with ''c''ring and third lug ,who cares if it needs it or not !!! the model 70 ''set '', can remove these features themselves [you could sell them a file at small extra cost !]a 98 is a 98!!! if you dont like em the way they !!are, buy sompin else !!!!! its like castrating a a perfectly good hunting dog coz he doesnt use his testicles and he only gets used for huntin sheeeeeeeeesh !!!

If you want to make a mauser, make a mauser, but don’t mess with the design.
If you do, it’s going to be another CRF action. There are plenty of them around on the marked. That is why Zastava is so popular around the world despite its pure finish. The top German makers have got it right, if one can afford it.

Your "competition," from my point of view is the $400 J. C. Higgins FN rifle. If you offer no more than that, or an early Deluxe C-ring, why would I buy yours?

I'm not certain about the third-lug "option" route. The difference in price may only be a few hundred dollars from a full production run, but what will the option price be when there's a change, and it has to be supported by only those who buy the option?

Why not price and sell an incomplete action, with triggers and safeties offerred separately as options from which purists and non-purists could cherry-pick to their hearts' content. At least offer more than the used FN actions.

Jaywalker

quote:

Originally posted by new_guy:
Karl - the 3rd lug seem to be the hot topic and the one that adds the most expense.

Offer these mauser features as options and the purists can pay for them if they want them. Those that want to save a few bucks can get theirs without them. JMO

And we do appreciate you asking!

If someone wants the 98 Action, he wants the
third lug. If someone doesn`t want the third lug , he doesn`t want the 98 action..period!
If someone wants the 98 action , he gets the it!. If someone doesn`t want the 98 acion, he wants something else.

quote:

Originally posted by Woodjack:
HartmannWeiss undoubtably produce the finest 98 actions available,I found that from my own inspection,and I asked the three following men independently( Echols,Fisher,Ralf Martini),Who makes the Finest?....they said with a quite confident smile "H&W".
Now for the purists out their take note, H&W have done some things:

1/ they have altered (enlarged) the bolt lug dimensions on their magnum mauser action.
2/ they regularly fit 3pos.m70 type safeties to their new Kurtz & magnum actions.
3/ They have extended the reciever thread.
4/ They offer bottom metal design different to Oberndorf shape( as well as the Oberndorf).
5/ they make in Chromemolly.
6/ they fit type Blackburn triggers(as well as original type)

Does that sound so "pure" mauser anymore?
It does not stop people buying them or having high regard for them at near $6000 an action.
The action is produced on an order basis, I was given an 8 week delivery time, depending on work load.

Does H&W actually create the fine action they have their name on??????????

Does Blackburn make a the floormetal you see on ALL the "new" Mausers you see coming from Europe?

Are all the new european 98 receivers coming from the same machine shop and just marketed by others?

Is this why H&W has an 8 week lead time? So they can purchase a fine action and do their magic to it.



Having worked for companies building both M70s and 98s I would have to conclude:

Based on the amount of work involved the 98 should command a much higher price than the M70. They did 75 years ago and they should now. I think the customers interested in a real 98 will understand the higher price that the 98 will bring.

gunmaker

quote:

The real actions of the kind we are talking of and what the target audience seeks sadly costs money, lots of money

I think this is the fundamental crux of the problem. Now somewhere in the back of my head there is the number of machining steps to make a mauser actiion, exact number I can't jostle out of my head this early but its over 275 seperate machine steps (280-290?). No way around it that costs money, its $10 in steel and the rest is labor and machine time.

Every new action I am aware of has been and effort to reduce that number of machine steps and reduce costs. Even a reduction of 15-20 steps in this process saves production dollars, which is a reasonable amount of saving and still maintaining the mauser action, this would be best represented by a post War FN, some steps saved but still a good mauser action. Unfortunately a few steps hasn't really been the price point, so the evolution was really split back in the 1930's. Model 54's then model 70's were one path, and the real mausers went FN-MArk X-Charles Daly. Machining steps and production costs reduced in each evolution. Plain and simple the original 98 actions are expensive actions to produce in this day and age, labor isn't a nickle an hour anymore. A footnote in history is remember when Henry Ford shocked the world, and started paying $5.00 a day in wages, it made headline news in New York/London/Berlin/Paris and the Europeans thought is was unsustainable. Point being that was $.50 an hour, top dollar for machine operators of the day.

This of course was the genius of Bill Ruger how to build a high quality action and reduce those machine steps. And although I admit Rugers aren't my favorite rifles I do credit Ruger with getting pretty damn close, all in all, and I bet his machine steps to produce his actions dropped to way under 100.

But the sad fact is even with the introduction of multi spindle, multi axis CNC machines, the original mauser design is a costly design when viewed from a production aspect, many have tried to improve it by reducing steps, but I haven't seen any real improvments in this basic design since before WWII.

There was reference to the mauser 98 evolution and the a Model "T", which I think was pretty valid. On comment I would make is there were some refinements ( not neccesarrily improvements ) done in the 1950's-60's. Using the the car model this is the era of the hot rod so to speak where excellent aftermarket parts were built for the 98's, more refined bottom metal, two stage triggers like Timney, bent bolt handles for scopes etc. This is one of the last chapters in the tale of the mauser. Hopefully not the last, and the HW actions reflect that, but anybody thinking they will ever be any new production mausers in the $500 price range is just dreaming, it isn't going to happen.

An interesting excerise in this would be to get a complete blueprint package on the Mauser 98 and send it out to qoute to several machine shops. Have it bid in quanities of 1000, 2500 and 5000 pieces. My suspicion is even in the big quanities you wouldn't see a number under $1000. I aslo would bet that almost to the last machine shop a reply would be we could lower your production costs if you would accept "X" change (or changes) to the design. A just for curiousity question for the forum:

Does anyone know of a machine shop currently using broaches? Not a mom and pop operation or a gunsmith who has one squirelled away in the back of his shop. I havn't seen any shop with a real broach setup in years.

quote:

Originally posted by robthom:
My take on flawless feeding is this:

Take one hundred, new factory cartridges from their pristine manufacturers' boxes.

Load the appropriate number into the rifle magazine.

Cycle one hundred rounds through the action. The test is to be performed with the rifle in the shoulder and is to be done fast / in an agitated manner (Like your life depends upon it!).

Of those one hundred rounds, NOT ONE IS PERMITTED TO FAIL TO CYCLE THROUGH THE ACTION.

Thanks for replying.

I don't think your standard is too hard to meet. After all, if the standard is that all rounds cycle out of the magazine, into the chamber, and back out of the rifle, any well tuned CRF rifle will do that without the need for C rings, stripper clip slots or thumb cuts, third lugs, or split lugs.

quote:

Originally posted by schromf:
Does anyone know of a machine shop currently using broaches? Not a mom and pop operation or a gunsmith who has one squirelled away in the back of his shop. I havn't seen any shop with a real broach setup in years.

The machine shop at Raytheon Aircraft had some, at least when I used to work there. I bet they are still there today.

Some shops today EDM the raceways. IMPO, just as good a process as broachng.

quote:

The machine shop at Raytheon Aircraft had some, at least when I used to work there. I bet they are still there today.

Is that down at the Tucson facility? I might need to pop in there next time I am down there ( not that anybody except the government could afford Raytheon's shop rate).

You are right about EDM being able to replace most broaching opertions. Bug in that mix is EDM costs a lot more than a broach operation generally, it really gets on the border of cost prohibitive for most firearms applications, not always and its a part by part, application by application determination.

I am not keeping up on all aspects of machines and tooling lately, what is a 5 wire EDM going for these days? Has the price dropped on the cost of these in the last few years? I keep running across pieces parts that are best done on EDM lately and there are only a couple available in my neck of the woods and they cost quite a bit to get any parts made.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by gunmaker:

Does H&W actually create the fine action they have their name on??????????

Are all the new european 98 receivers coming from the same machine shop and just marketed by others?

Is this why H&W has an 8 week lead time? So they can purchase a fine action and do their magic to it."
-----------------------------------------
GunMaker,

Fair Question you have raised.

Well,I can tell you that at SCI last year That MR.Roden from GMA tried to give me the impression that he produced actions for H&W. However,later,Talking to Ralph Martini from the Hagn shop, I asked him if this was true. He was startled/surprised to hear this. He said it was a load of rubbish. He has been to the H&W workshop, and assured me that they do make their own actions, cause he has witnessed the machinery and the production.
When I contacted H&W to quote me on an action,I mentioned that I would like to go over to Germany to discuss the project and see the operation they have.they gave me a warm welcome, and said they are looking forward to meeting, and would gladly show me how the action is made in their shop.

And like I said, the 8wk period was the one given at the time, when I asked for aquote on other occasions (for T/D barreled actions), it was different according to their work load, it varied from 2 to 6 months.

Hope this answers some of your questions.

quote:

Originally posted by schromf:

quote:

The machine shop at Raytheon Aircraft had some, at least when I used to work there. I bet they are still there today.

Is that down at the Tucson facility?

Wichita. It's the former Beech Aircraft Company. Raytheon bought Beech in 1983, but did not change the name until 1994.

I have no idea how much a 5 wire costs.... I was not on the equipment buying side.