Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Finishing Gew98 Project; Scope Base Question

Finishing stock work project for my Gew98 barreled action that I bought from fellow forum member here. (6.5x284 Norma). There is some sap wood on forend of this west coast English walnut, but not too bad for $50 piece of wood off Ebay that included shipping. Took me long time with hand tools � Wish I had room for scroll saw and power sander in my small apartment on Jersey shore. Will be installing Voere trigger into this action. Head and shoulder above Timney.
I have old Redfield one piece scope base which says M98, but holes of the base do not match the holes on the action. If anyone can help to identify correct base, would be greatly appreciated.

Looks like the holes are for Weaver 2 -piece bases.
Weaver Mount 46 for the front - holes .860 C-t-C
Weaver Mount 45 for the rear - holes .504 C-t-C

More specs:
http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/lid=11214/GunTechdetail/W-R-Weaver-Company-Mount-Base-Specifications

That gun was drilled for two-piece bases. For what it is worth, you need to look carefully at the rear hole in the front ring. It is definitely located too far back and could be into the face of the recoil lug recess.

Clemson

I would also check the depth of the front hole in the receiver ring. bwt- a beautiful project! Congrats, Mel

Way back when and probably even today, there was no standardization on mauser scope bases between manufacturers.

That half in hole spacing on the rear can accomodate many different manufacturers bases, BUT....it is drilled too far rearward. Some bases are going to interfere with the bolt handle.

Weaver would be the simple solution as you can grind a corner off of the base.

FN/Mark X bases from Leupold will match that hole spacing as well, but you will have to grind off the charger hump.

Gotta be for a two-piece base, probably Weaver, as stated above. (First thing that tipped me off was the stripper clip guide left standing which would preclude use of a one-piece base.)

Are you really done removing wood from that stock? Looks good so far, but I daresay there's about a pound of wood left to come off of it. JMO.

Man take that hump off the top of the butt stock and clean up a few lines and you will have a nice looking rig. I've got a couple of recoil pads that would look good on that thing. You can bevel the front bottom of the rear Weaver base and file the corner off the same on the bolt side. powdr

Here's a couple of picts showing modifications to a Leupold FN rear base. I like the look of the hump so I had the gunsmith remove some metal from the underside of the base to accomodate the hump.

Thanks guys. There are remnants of loctite in the holes and impressions from bases, so I think it had a base and scope on it. I just was not sure if it was one or two piece base.

Put the trigger for first time and the safety does not work. Swapped the cocking piece, safety and the sleeve from another rifle with properly working safety and tried different (military) trigger, still does not work. I can not move it upwards, something is holding it. It cocks and fires just fine, I just can't put the safety on. Wonder what is can be.

The Safety issue can be 2 things.

1. The bolt handle may not be seating fully down. Take the shroud off and check that the bolt is closing with the half moon cut out straight at the top. This can be excess wood or the bolt handle not matching the notch in the receiver.

2. The forward edge of the cocking piece may need a bit of a bevel or perhaps just a little polishing.

Leupold makes an M98 two piece base with a cutout for the clip charging slot, but it has approx 3/8" hole spacing on the rear base. They also make a one piece base with that feature, but it is highly unlikely to match a one piece base to a mauser that has already been drilled.

As was posted earlier Weavers would be simplest. I did fail to mention that the front bottom of the Weaver may need grinding a bevel as well as grinding the right rear corner for clearance.

I like what the smith did w/the 1 piece Leupold on the rear. Sometimes it's the lesser of two evils on a gun w/bastard holes. I would check the depth of the front holes and if OK just find a front Leupold base to match the rear and call it good. powdr

Your safety needs fitting, preferably by a good gunsmith.

An experienced smith did mine in the 1970's and it worked well without a cartridge but actually would fire when the safety was released, so make sure that you test it with an empty case in the chamber before loading live rounds.

Experienced?

That is NOT an FN base. The FN does not have the charger hump on the rear bridge.That is a standrd 98 base with an accomodation to fit over the charger hump.

Here is what you really need for a safety:

It doesn't look to me like you have inletted the stock for the turned down bolt handle. I would guess that the bolt handle is touching the stock preventing the bolt from closing fully. The bolt handle should not touch the stock.

And that is an important point.

Another trick is to grind a fair amount off of the top of the tang to allow a shallower angle for the top of the wrist. (I see the tang is standing proud of the wood anyway.) Makes for a more svelte look. Also, re: powdr's remark, drop down 1/2-3/4" from the top of the heel and from there a straight line forward to the front top point of the comb and see if it isn't more pleasing to the eye. Of course that would necessitate reworking the cheek piece...

I'll bet too that a couple of inches removed from the fore arm tip, and a spokeshave taken to it to slim it down would do wonders for the aesthetics also.

Sorry. Truly not meant to be critical because you really have done a bang-up job so far, but when one bares his soul (project) on a heavily viewed forum on the all-seeing omniscient internet, one needs to expect friendly criticism/advice. Just my 2�.

Thanks guys! I feel far more confident now after all these inputs.This is my first stock project entirely from a billet; I 've done restockings with Microfit and other rough blanks, which was pretty much inletting and sanding. This was much more complicated and I was nervous not to screw up by taking off too much wood. I found it is crucial to keep edges of cutting and scraping tools sharp. A salesman from Rockler's woodworking store suggested to use wood scrapers and taught me how to burnish them. I cut several round and oval shapes from rectangular blanks I bought there. These turned to be very useful for working on barrel channel and concave surfaces. Saved me ton of sanding paper too! I think this is last time I used pure tung oil for seaing. Although I added dryer and cut heavily with turpentine, it still took forever to polymerize completely. I think I will be using quick drying sanding sealer and water based poliacrylic as a finish, instead of urethane that I used on this project. I refinished maple table top with poliacrilyc and came out very nice. Clear and hard as a glass.

If one is not confident with the safety/trigger interface workings, take it to a smith. There are about 3 potential fixes for the same issue.