Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Need a mauser gunsmith

I've got an Interarms Mark X that I had IT&D rebarrel to .308 Norma Mag. It shoots great, but doesn't eject reliably. When he had it, Dave told me that the extractor is the likely culprit. I have a replacement extractor that came off a standard bolt face but rather than screw around trying to tweak it to work, I would rather have it done by a smith who REALLY knows how to make a mauser run well.
Any suggestions on who has the ability and the inclination?

Dennis Olsen in Plains, Mt. could do it right.

He did magazine and feed rail work on a 1917 Enfield I had Dave at I.T.& D re-barrel to 338 Lapua Mag. worked perfect.

Ejection and extraction are different issues.

Jim Kobe (jkob here on the campfire) knows Mausers and does good work in a timely manner.

You are correct.

irfubar and mudhen,
Thanks for the input. I'll look into them.

+1

Well a mauser has a fixed ejector.

1. The extractor can be the culprit if it is letting go of the case before the head hits the ejector blade.

2. The blade ejector may be bent or binding from grease, oil, dirt, rust etc. The blade may have been ground on and now too short.

3. A fixed ejector ejects based on bolt travel and velocity.

He knew of the problem and didn't do anything about it???

If Kobe will work on it, he will fix it.

+1 to all those who recommended Jim Kobe.

He worked on a Whitworth Mauser of mine that had a hitch in the feeding. Smoothed it right up. Quick turn-around excellent work and a fair price. I would use him again without reservation.

I still don't know if his rifle is not extracting the shell or not ejecting the empty shell! Both are simple fix's on the Mauser.

+1

DF

I do almost all my own gunsmithing, but it is too hard for me, Kobe is the answer.

Hookset;
Good evening to you sir, I trust that other than having a rifle that doesn't eject always that this finds you well.

We've currently got a couple .308 Normas at our house and have worked on a couple more over the years so I'll offer this.

One of our current rifles was built on a Steyr made 98 action which had the bolt face opened up by the gunsmith who barreled it and then I tuned the extractor and feed rails myself to get it to run properly. We retained the stock ejector and it works perfectly.

If it was me and I had a new ejector, I'd install it and see try it just to see what happens. If you're careful you should not wreck anything and you might well either fix the issue or learn that it isn't the ejector.

Hopefully that was useful information. Good luck with your rifle whichever way you decide and all the best to you this fall.

Dwayne

Jim Kobe or Roger Ferrell.

IT&D is great for most standard work as re-barrels, bluing, filling holes, scope mounting, drilling/tapping and they are very skilled at that. But, I don't think specialty work -such as extractor tip and rail work possibly- is their strong suit and Dave probably hinted at that. If they opened up the bolt face properly then the extractor tip needs to be opened up as well not only at the undercut for the new wide rim) but also at the sharp edge next to the case so the tip has only a slight flex with a case in place. If your action's extractor was machined for a .30-'06 type cartridge as many were, then it needs to be tweaked as above to allow for the new case dimensions. Here are the dimensions for '06 and 308 Norma. Look closely at your tip when you slip a round under the tip with the bolt out of the action. The tip should only flex outward by a tiny amount, just enough to hold the cast rim against the other side of the bolt. You'll learn something. Norma rims are very wide.
Rim .473 to .530.
Rim thickness .049 to .048

Remember on a 98 Mauser the bolt release assembly is the ejector. The ejector is fixed.