Here's some pics of a 98 Mauser I've been working on. It has a Half Moon barrel and is turned down to build a 9# or a little less rifle with big scope mounted.

Wow! Very nice James. I always enjoy your photos.

Man, what a fine piece of metal. It's this kind of work that keeps me addicted.

Terry

Lots of hours there... very nice.

Spectacular work. Well done!

I love the quarter rib.

what are you going to do for the stock?

Ditto. I can't wait to see how its all done up with the stock, etc.

Very nice work, and damn nice pictures also!

Thanks guys. Bill Soverns is building a fine stock for this one. He brought the metal work job to me and I'm happy to do the first half of the complete custom project. The client wanted a clean look to the barrel and decided to not have a banded front sight or banded swivel. After getting all the hardware soldered and polished on the barrel I liked the clean look to the fully loaded barrel without the extra bands.

James

Excellent metal work!

I like the style and the way you made the 1/4 rib, front sight and swivel base gracefully blend.
However, even though the workmanship is excellent I do not like the scope bases. They do not blend in and look out of place. The edges are to square and sharp for my tastes. I do like the way you contoured the rear of the rear base.
Sorry, just my opinion.

James

That's funny, I thought the bases made the rifle.

Terry

Well, if we are going to talk about it, I like the masterful way that GunMaker takes a regular old 1909 Argentine Triggeguard and transforms it into a THING OF BEAUTY with that ultra slim straddle floorplate and the slimming of the guard with those little machine details, the beautiful polishing job,and, of course, the exquisitely checkered button floorplate release.

James,

let me start with saying I think the bases are a good idea, and I DO understand them, talley bases that still look like square bridges when the scope is on .. which will look better with the scope on. I wanted this on a global trading mauser+ruger bases.. but the guy that was asked to cut the ruger bases F'ed it up pretty darn bad.
Great work.. and not a detraction to the rifle, though the scope bases are not exactly to my taste. I am trying to figure out why not, to provide you reasonable feedback.

it's awesome and better than I can do ..

That is some great metal to metal fit you have there. Can't wait to see the finished rifle

It is very nice. But, I don't think that is 1909 bottom metal, is it?

Gentlemen/James

I ment no disrespect by my comments.

I consider Mr.Anderson's workmanship to be of the highest caliber.

I did not mean for my comment to be degrading and be-littling as one poster e-mailed and flamed me for.
This was my personal/taste opinion.I do not know, the customer may have requested it this way. I have done a lot of work that I personally did not like but the customer did. There are a lot of variables to consider that we all are not privy to.
If everyone liked the same thing ___ well you get the picture.
Sorry.

James

James, who's guard is that.

The rear inside cuts in the bow match an 1909, but all the front shape and cuts in the box are wrong for the 1909, plus it is wider now that an 09, if you look at the difference from the pivot pin to the edge of the radius, plus no renforcement for the tang.

James Wisner
Custom Metalsmith

Guys.
It's hard to make a square bridge not look like a square bridge. The real ones by Mauser are pretty blocky and square and the front and back of the front bridge is vertical. On the screw on ones I make for Mausers I use a radius form tool to cut the front and back to blend it to the ring a little bit more than Mauser did. I do lightly chamfer the edges and corners on these so they aren't sharp. Here's a pic of what I would consider an integral blocky base that I remachined to more of blended profile. It doesn't look much like Mauser's square bridge but flows much better.

Here's another pic of some square bridge bases that have the Talley rings installed. Looks better when they're not naked. The biggest problem with building bases for receivers is that you're limited to where the screw holes are like on the M76 here. The base looks a little long but that front screw is so far forward on the ring. On the 9.3 above I drilled and tapped it 8-40 with .750" centers. The hole location on the ring helps balance the base location and length much better than what you get just using the Forrester jig location.

And last but not least, the mystery floormetal is..............................

Sorry guys I couldn't help it.

The floormetal started life in the DWM plant many moons ago. I just extended the magbox length by silver soldering a piece on the front. It's easier to mill off the gusset when doing this. This leaves a little more wood in the stock as well. I use a 2 degree endmill to clean up the shape after soldering. Makes the extension blend well and not look like it was stuck on.

I think the bases look great, and they are only going to look better once the rings and scope are installed.

Once the rifle is finished, stocked and scoped, they won't be the most dominant part of the rifle and will look fantastic.

Great job, James.

As nice as that action looks in pics, you oughtta see it in person. Sweeet!

The bases look great and as someone else pointed out, they'll look completely different once rings and a scope are mounted. They look about 1000 times better than Talley bases.

Nice job as usual.

Where do you get the 2° endmills? Do you have to have them custom ground, or are the a stock item somewhere?

quote:

Originally posted by Marc_Stokeld:
Where do you get the 2° endmills? Do you have to have them custom ground, or are the a stock item somewhere?

I'm pretty sure I ordered them from MSC. The name on the box is www.conicalendmills.com
They only sell through distrubutors. If you look at their online catalog for 2 deg I've got a B609 and B605. Part # for the 605 is 81440968.

It truely is a fine piece of work. While the pictures are good, it looks much better in person. Those of you who are waiting 3 and 4 years to get metal and stock work done by other guild members might want to consider calling James.

His work is as good as Jim Dubell's and Roger Ferell's, both of which I have had the pleasure to stock. I would suggest those of you who want work done of this caliber start getting in line before his wait list gets to 18-14 months. It wont be long.

Gentlemens:

It truly is fine work in both design and execution. It's almost enough to make a guy want a bolt rifle...

Glenn Fewless

Amazing work! Thanks for the photos, it truly makes my day whenever there's a fresh post with pictures of such inspiring workmanship.

Work of the higest quality Gunmaker.

Gunmaker,
Excellent work and the melting of the square bridges makes all the difference in the world..Nice, nice, nice!

That's a nice piece of work James. I'm looking at the safety sleeve. Am I correct in thinking it is a recontoured Dakota sleeve?
Stuart

James,

Great work.

Do you have any tricks for scraping/digging silver solder overflow out of the corners between sight base and barrel?

Thanks,
Steve

Stu
That's right. The safety is the Grisel design that I contoured to a different profile.

Steve
The solder I use is soft solder. Even though it contains silver, I wouldn't consider it "silver solder". I reserve that name for the very high temp stuff. Much higher temp than I would want to put into a barrel. I did use the high temp stuff to glue the mag extension on.

I make a chisel out of brass to dig the excess solder out. I have to sharpen it every few passes. Then for final clean up I use wet/dry paper with a small square hardwood stick about 6" long backing it to polish the rest off. The wet/dry paper folds with a sharp corner and gets to a tighter spot than the cloth backed emery. The front sight and rib were completely polished on the sides before soldering them on. Helps make clean up a little easier. After the solder clean up I machine the dovetails, ramps and top surfaces in one setup.

James,

What bolt handle did you use?

Jim
The bolt handle on the 9.3 is a Talley.

James,

Thanks. I can't wait to try the brass chisel idea.

Steve

I have looked at these pics many times since you first posted then am am more impressed with them each time. i know I siad it above, but that is some great metal to metal fit you have there. Awesome polish job as well.

I can't wait to see it after Bill stocks it. Please be sure to have him post pics before it gets shipped off.

Will it have any engraving?

There will be no engraving per the customer. Yeah and in case your wondering.... I waited to respond so I could BTT.

quote:

Originally posted by gunmaker:
Jim
The bolt handle on the 9.3 is a Talley.

Gunmaker,

That is super nice metalwork.

Tom T.