Cummins you and jim In Idaho hit the nail squarely on the head and many of us don't subject a rifle to a lot of field abuse;and we cann hunt a lifetime and not have to operate a bolt fast enough,or depnd on a rifle to keep a Cape Buffalo or Brown Bear off our belt buckle,so lots of systems and actions work just fine for us....but then again,many do hunt frozen, wet,nasty conditions,trudge through sandy desert, drop rifles in dirt or otherwise end up in conditions that can shut a rifle down.
Here in the big woods of Maine I watched an afternoon and evening of trudging through deep snow and freezing temps shut down two rifle so that neither one would fire...at all.They were not Mausers.
Some, being aware of this might figure that the cost is worth it to have the most rugged design they can find;and make no mistake that a lot of experienced traveling trophy hunters world wide depended on fine wood stocked custom rifles in decades past, simply because those rifles represented the best technology available at the time...Warren Page and Bob Hagel hunted far and wide with wood stocked 7 Mashburns,both built on FN Supreme Mauser 98's,Page's built from the ground up by Mashburn Arms...there are many other examples from years past.Even Eleanor O'Connor hunted the world with a little 7x57 on a small ring Mauser stocked by Russ Leonard.So some of these rifle stook a lot of travel and abuse even though they are by todays standarsd high end wood stocked cutoms.
Jim62,others may explain it better than I but the way I understand it the publicized "3 Rings of Steel" of the M700 requires that the head of the cartridge protrude further from the barrel in order to allow enough room for the nose of the bolt to fully encircle the case head,and the extractor to engage the rim of the case.And adequate clearance has to be built in to allow the system to function.
This condition does not exist with the Mauser,and more of the case is supported by the barrel with the Mauser,with the extractor still able to engage the rim of the case for extraction.
I was told this a long time ago by a riflesmith in our area, and have seen the same thing in print several times since.Sorry I cannot supply exact dimensions on this.
Maybe Greydog or another of the Mauser experts on here can explain it better
