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Same could be said of the 700 and many of its "flaws"..but if its a M70 it gets a pass..

Joe I have picked up M98's packed with cosmoline so heavily that you pulled the trigger and the firing pin would not fall....so yeah I guess you can pack enough crud in the bolt body so that they won't fire, too.

That guides M70 situation might fall into the "proving a negative" category and asking ourselves how much crud before it fails to work vs a Mauser. I sure can't say and that's an unknown.

I am working from memory here,so will stand corrected....but my memory is the Mausers have a large vent in the bolt body(I think it's a gas vent)that would in theory serve to drain any water that might get into the bolt body, as opposed to trapping and holding it.

I just checked a Classic M70; the bolt body has two small vents; the pre 64 has one. Both are smaller than the vent on a Mauser 98.

The other thing is that a M98 has a heavier, slower firing pin fall than a M70 and might be more inclined to light a fire if gunked up. Again we can make any of them "fail" but the Mauser was designed to handle more abuse.

Another nice little touch on the 98 is that the interior of the bolt body is machined with a recess that fits a shoulder on the firing pin; if the firing pin is not aligned with that recess the rifle will not fire (meaning the bolt handle has to be fully down before the rifle will go "boom"). A Rem 700 or a M70 does not have this feature...I know you can get a Rem 700 to drop the pin without enough force to light up a primer if the bolt is partially lifted, and pretty sure a M70 will do the same thing.

Maybe the Mauser will do it too but I doubt it.

One thing about a Mauser is it all looks simple enough but you learn after awhile there is not a part, or a feature, or a machine cut,that did not have an important function,all designed to work in sync. Many of us may have no use for these features because we do not abuse rifles on tough hunts and lesser stuff gets us by. But those whose lives depend on a rifle under harsh conditions may have a different mind set to all this. I understand where they are coming from.

Rosco I won't throw a M70 any slack....if it breaks I am not a happy camper, no matter what it is. Nothing bugs me more than a piece of gear that doesn't work when you need it too.

This is where I differ from the crowd.I dont buy it. Pretty sure more lives depend on 700's than any rifle these days, albeit the conditions might not be as rough as a grueling safari...

THAT is some great info and intel that I was not privi to! Thanks for the education.

I am a big fan of the 1917 rocker safety as well. My big wildcat 338 is built on a 1917 and I am hoping to dig up the scratch to buy one of Hubel458's customized 1917's in 585 Hubel Express to play with.

I replaced the safety on my CZ because the one it came with did not look or feel very robust to me, and at the time all of my other regular use big game rifles were Model 70's. I wanted continuity between them all. In all reality, so long as the safety is forward to fire I doubt that the minor differences in shape will make much difference for most folks.

That forward to fire deal, though, is why I do not have any CZ 527's in my varmint rifle battery, even though they are CUTE little mausers and would otherwise be royally fun little rifles.

Bob, I agree that the M98 is an excellent design. But using the example of an inattentive guides' "failure to fire" as an example of the better M98 is just hooey.
How would the guide feel if he absolutely needed that rifle to fire in the field?
Maintenance on any mechanical device assures that it is available if needed.
We can probably turn this around to an improperly maintained M98 failure vs. a clean M70 going bang.
If the experts here deem the M98 to be a bit better than a M70, that is fine. But do it while comparing them in similar conditions.

Bob,

Model 70's will fail to fire if the bolt is lifted slightly.

There's also a combination where a slightly lifted bolt with the safety in the middle position (where many hunters put it when expecting action any moment) will lock the safety, so it can't be pushed forward. Apparently this can can happen with "Classics," and was part of a well-known Cape buffalo run-in a few years ago where a hunter got severely injured, partly because the safety on one of the other hunters' Model 70 would not go forward. (However, I have not been able to reproduce this condition with a pre-'64, though I've only tried it on three.)

Joe no doubt.....the guide was inattentive


John that middle safety position snafu is one I had not heard of. Interesting. I will play with pre 64's and Classics here to check it.

Possibly this is because I never use the middle position in that situation. Following anything up, it's always in the full back position,including when my first brown bear got into heavy cover....and likely because I know the bolt handle can lift in that position so always practiced with the safety fully back.

In fact I was playing with a new BACO 375 H&H the other day, the Alaskan model that has the barrel lump. It was pretty nice for the money,and like all these BACO M70's I've handled, when you whack that safety with your thumb, it FLIES forward....very fast. Not mushy but a crisp "snap" and it's off. I like that.

All this Mauser talk is making me itchy. I don't have one right now.

The guy who had the safety in the middle position was a VERY experienced hunter, and he was astonished when it happened. Afterward a gunsmith I know did considerable experimenting and found it happened more than once in a while with M70 Classics, and also came up with a solution.

I just tried it on the O'Connor Commemorative M70 Featherweight I bought this year, and the safety locked up in the middle position with bolt handle lifted slightly--but only after I pulled the trigger to "test" the safety, as many hunters feel compelled to do. I also got it to happen without pulling the trigger with the Gentry safety on my
.338 Winchester, but it wouldn't happen on my .375 H&H Mark X with Gentry safety.

I'll be very interested to hear what happens with your pre-'64's, because as noted earlier I couldn't get it to happen in a limited number of rifles.

As to the condition Mule Deer mentions, I tried it on 2 Kimbers and 4 pre-64 Fwts..
All six allowed the safety to be pushed fully forward.
All six kept the trigger locked.
All six released the trigger when pushed forward and the bolt still slightly up.
However, the bolt was first "pushed down" (without me touching it) when I pulled the trigger and then the spring released the firing pin.

My standard is to keep the safety ON until its time to fire. My exception would be for an anticipated encounter at close quarters from an animal likely to attack then retreat. Wounded or not.

I just tried it one rifle, my pre 64 FW M70 and got the same results as Joe. I even tried lifting the bolt handle almost horizontal. The safety went off,and the firing pin dropped at each level.

In each case as the firing pin fell, the bolt handle snapped all the way down into the closed position, no matter how high I had the bolt handle.

Whether there was enough force to light up a primer I can't say,but it sounded like it.

On the Kimber 257, the bolt does not have to be lifted very high at all before the safety locks up in the middle position. It feels different from the M70.

However, with the safety off, the firing pin falls and the bolt handle snaps down to the full down position.

bigwhoop,

I hadn't thought to try it with Kimbers, but just did with two and got the same results you did.

As I recall, the gunsmith I mentioned couldn't get it to happen with any pre-'64's either, and in fact analyzed his fix for Classic M70 safeties by comparing them to pre-'64 safeties.

Murphy's Law as applied to rifles

The safety is my least favorite feature of the Mod 70 and amazing to me that so many go to such great lengths and expense to replicate it on other actions. I much prefer the Mod 30 safety and Enfield or even the simple safely on my Sako.

John, I realize that some of the Brownings are "short extractor" but are the long ones true 98s?

As far as the bolt/extraction and gas-blocking system goes, yes. But they don't have the firing-pin-blocking safety on the bolt sleeve, instead using a trigger-blocking safety to the right of the sleeve. But then neither do Mark X's.

There are some people who'd argue the only "real" 98's are military actions, with stripper-clip thumb slots in the receiver wall and simple 2-stage triggers. There are all sorts of degrees of 98-ness!

I must admit to preferring the military trigger, converted to a decent single-stage pull, for truly hard-use rifles. It's just about unbreakable, very weather-resistant, and in the event of a real disaster can easily be replaced in a few minutes by another military trigger that can be purchased for a few bucks. But I also have to admit I've never had any problems with the Timney, Mark X, or other "non-98" triggers on some of my other Mausers. Though I haven't hunted with them in Alaska or northern Canada, as I have with my .338 and its modified military trigger.

John what do you think about the bolt stop/bolt release mechanism of the FN Browning? I like the Mauser style original myself.

Merry Christmas!

The Browning system works OK, but if anything goes wrong it's much easier and cheaper to find 98 parts.

One thing I don't particularly like about the Brownings is they use the same contour barrel for all the magnum rounds. This is fine with bigger-bore cartridges, but it makes the 7mm and .300 magnums pretty heavy. Of course, if you're going to rebarrel the action anyway that doesn't matter, but darn few people buy Brownings just for the action!

I found an old Whitworth bare action stil in the box about 10-12 years ago. I had it barreled and used one of those much hated Great American Gunstock patterns on it. I thought it turned out pretty nice.


I thought it was a lot of rifle for the money I had in it. The sheetmetal modified magazine was a little tacky but it didn't affect the rifles function.

My Africa plans went away and so did the rifle. IMO, it was a little much for Mississippi whitetail . I really liked it though.

TC: I would say that turned out very nice!

That is very nice TC, what cartridge is it chambered for.

.375 H&H