Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Strange results from The Mauser From Hell

FWIW a me too story. My son had an early version Remington 700 SS Mountain rifle that shot OK at first but after a few months would shoot two rounds tight and close to the bull from a cold barrel and then jump subsequent rounds over a foot high and to the right in a loose group.

It took awhile to figure out. One day I was examining the synthetic stock and noticed a tiny trace of bulge on the right side wall just behind the recoil lug. Bingo. The stock was too flimsy to hold 30-06 recoil with 180 grain hunting loads and was buckling on that side, then flexing back to original shape. When cold it was a little bit stiffer or stronger for one or two shots but repeated recoil blows would soon cause the stock to flex. It took some talking but Remington replaced the stock. No problem thereafter.

You have some factor that is changing after two shots, one factor or possibly a chain of small failures among the multitude of factors that comprise the shot event.

If your scope is good then I'd figure out some way to test the bedding/stock. Do you have one of those cradles that hold a rifle?

Have you checked the rear guard screw spacer yet?? Is it there?

1. Check the length of the front 2 scope base screws. Should be able to remove and look down the front screw hole to see if the scope base screw is contacting the barrel threads. Stick you pinky up into the top recoil lug recess and see if you can feel the hole or screw sticking through the hole for the middle screw. Another easy way to see if the middle screw is contacting the top recoil lug when in battery is to examine the outside face of the lug and look for a drag mark from a long screw.

One could also file the ends of the screws shiny, then sharpie them black, tighten, remove, and look for contact where the screws were sharpied.

2. Fill the front action screw face shiny, sharpie black, tighten, remove, look for shiny spots in the sharpie that would indicate contact where it shouldn't be.

I've recently experienced these troubles on non-mausers. I didn't think there was any way those issues could be MY culprit, until nothing else made sense.

I got down to the secret underground firearms bunker this AM and checked.

Negative. There is no spacer.

In regards to scope base screws: I was unable to make that determination. The Mauser from Hell is a long story. However, suffice it to say that the last smith to work on it knew what he was doing and got the scope mounted properly. For insurance, the base is epoxied to the rifle. There will be no screws removed in that area.

I checked the front action screw this AM. Nothing impinged on the sharpie marks.



I wish to add a correction. This is a stepped barrel. In the past, I was only able to slide a dollar bill down the barrel to the step. This AM I added a shim under the barrel about an inch from its attachment to the receiver. On my next trip out to the range, I want to see if this changes the size of the group. If so, I believe that accuracy may be improved by just going back with re-free-floating the barrel with a bit of sandpaper.

Put your shim where the bottom of the action contacts the stock.
That will float your barrel with minimal torque on barrel and action.
With your shim job, the shim provides a fucrum, the tight screw is the force.
You are bending the barrel and action.

People make bedding hard, it's very simple.

If possible, you want the part of the action that has the screw holes to contact the
stock evenly and firmly.

The recoil lug should bear firmly at the rear, and snug on sides. Front is contested.
Bottom of lug should not touch. Unless, the screw holes are in the lug, then floating it
will induce stress when the screws are tightened.

I will make that correction before shooting. Thanks.

The lack of the spacer, if indeed it was NOT there when bedded, would have allowed the action to be warped, therefore the bedding is warped. Your rifle is not going to shoot like that. Trust me...been there done that. You should be able to get one from Brownells etc. The spacer also acts as a trueing device for the action, in if the rear guard screw contacts the spacer and is hard to screw into the rear of the action, the action is not square to the bottom floor plate.
If you really look at Mausers design, with the rear spacer in, you will realize it is one of the first, if not the first, to be piller bedded. Another reason the stocks of mil.spec k98 are so well machined, and the recoil lug engages the steel insert in the stock. Get a solid square foundation for the action, and the gun will shoot.
Good Luck

I have ordered a spacer.

I've bedded a LOT of Mausers without the spacer/pillar, but the tang does need support, otherwise the action can bend easily, because the tang isn't all that stiff. Epoxy bedding will do the job as well (and often better) than the spacer.

It's difficult to temporarily shim-bed the front end of a 98 Mauser action to test whether free-floating can help, because the front action screw is in the middle of the recoil lug. This was common with many actions back then, including the 1903 Springfield, Arisaka, 1917 Enfield, Winchester Model 54 and others, and is the reason for the common belief that the rear of the barrel has to bedded along with the recoil lug.

The period after WWII, when many "war surplus" bolt action rifles could be purchased cheaply, was also when epoxy bedding originated, and those actions did benefit from epoxy-bedding the rear of the barrel.The need to bed the rear of the barrel disappeared when more bolt-action manufacturers placed the front action screw behind the recoil lug, where tightening it wouldn't bend the front of the action. Most modern actions, including the Model 70 Winchester and Remington 700, have the action screw behind the lug, but a few do not, including the Howa and Nosler 48--the reason both often benefit from bedding the rear of the barrel when bedding the recoil lug.

If you really tighten the front action screw of a 98 without some support of the barrel shank, the front end of the action can bend down, causing erratic contact between the bolt lugs and their recesses. So if you do a temporary shim-test of the action, DON'T tighten the front action lug really hard. It should be firmly tightened, but not enough to bend the action.

I've currently got it torqued down to 60 lbs. Is that too much?

Bedding the action without the spacer is all well and good, as lonk as the action remains nuturalaly held in place...that is, with out the guard screws..this process takes some finess, so if one doesn`t know what there doing, the action will be warped, therefore the bedding, therefor poor results on target.

Shaman, if I were you I would stop now, wait for the spacer, then give the gun to someone that knows how to properly bed it. This will probably result in the removal of the stuff now in the stock.
I have used many comercial wood stocks, none of which were very well machined for the 98..probably because there so many different versions...but I`ll tell you that as a composit, HS is hard to beat,...tho we had to skim bed for a perfect fit. You may want to consider this option.

The plastic bread bag cliPS make a good shim for threaded recoil lug actions. They already have a hole, trim to suit.

shaman,

Yes, I'd say 60 inch-pounds is way too much. I'd try it with no more than 40.

Cool. I'm just going to pull the action out and wait for the spacer to arrive.



CGPaul:

Giving it to a 'smith to bed sounds like an attractive idea. However, I'm not really sure this is even the right deer rifle for me. This is my first flirt with 8X57, and it fell into my hands rather than me going out to seek it. Yes, it's in the same basic niche as my 30-06s and 308 WIN, but it frankly seems to be giving me more recoil with less effective range. At 4MOA, I'm going to have to keep this rifle shooting inside 100 yards on a deer to be sure of where I'm shooting. I'd made a promise to myself to buy one more 30-06 (which I did in 2014) and then start working my way down the ladder from there. As a for-instance, 7X57 would be an ideal next step.

I wanted to make sure the last 'smith that touched it had cured the scope mount issues. My guess is he did. Now I'm trying to decide if the rifle is accurate enough to keep, or if it needs to be sent down the road. In the back of my head I know I can get a nice new Ruger in a 7mm chambering for what I'm probably going to throw into this giving it to a 'smith to fine tune. That last Ruger Hawkeye shot 1 MOA with its first test load.

Yes, I understand....sometimes these rifles can drive one nuts!
Do me a favor and maybe you a favor. I`ve been talking to you about warping the action, or springing it, without the rear spacer. To help you either prove or disprove the action had been warped, place it back into the stock, draw down the guard screws to about 40lbs each, then place a finger so it contacts both wood and metal on the ring in the front of the action, with the other hand loosen and tighten the front guard screw. If the action is warped, you will feel the action pulling away from the stock as you loosen the screw, and back down again as you tighten it. If nothing happens, do the same with the rear screw, with a finger in contact with both tang and wood. Let us know what happened. Best case nothing moves, worse, both move. The spacer should help, but you may have to redrill the hole to fit the spacer.
Someone also mentioned the scope...that action is about 8 3/4 inches long, mounting holes for the bases are about 5 inches c/c. If the action is sprong, then the scope will be too.
Sorry this so long...hope this may be helpfull.

Actually, I've already tried this. As I was taking the rifle out of the stock, I tightened and loosened the screws, observing and feeling what was happening as I did so. The action is going in and coming out of the stock as optimally as I can imagine. I'll try this again after the spacer arrives.

Don't apologize, amigo. I'm looking for help any way I can get it. I'm getting a heck of an education as I'm going too.

I`m glad you did.The goal here is to tighten and loosen the front guard screw, and not have the action move.

[The guys that worked on this rifle were not gunsmiths........

Take a band saw and cut it into little pieces.

Buy a Ruger American

Be Happy



LC

From the way it looks, the guy that built this rifle knew what he was doing. That was probably some time ago. It probably wore the original sights. At some point later, it got drilled for a scope and that was when the fun began.

The two guys preceeding the last one were goons. The first of these is a well-known dastard. He probably munged up the rear scope mount hole. The second fellow was only in business a short time. I figure he's the one that over-tightened the Leupold windage screws and added the larger screw to the mount to catch the remaining threads. I sent two firearms to this fellow for simple fixes. Both required extensive work by other smiths to get them un-F-'d. He went to jail shortly thereafter for selling firearms to known felons.

The last fellow, the guy who got the scope mount fixed, was a retiring gunsmith from here on the 'Fire. Mine was his last job. He seemed to have fixed the problem with the scope mount. I am certain he was competent, but he was not involved with any of the other stuff.

I'm not going to give it up to the bandsaw. If nothing else I'll be able to wangle a trade at the LGS. However, yes. A Ruger American would be good replacement.

Shimming worked. I put a shim around the front bedding screw and headed off to the farm. We had a lot of chores planned, so I didn't get to shoot until late on Sunday.

Great news. The shim got the groups down to 2 inches or roughly thereabouts. That puts into the quit-dicking-around-and-go-hunt range. I'm going to stick with things as they are until after deer season.

I also managed to prove out it was the bullets that caused the problem. I had 10 rounds of the PRVI Partisans. Moose, Angus and I tried a few each. We've got a small pond out beyond one of the 100 yard target frames. All you have to do is fire at where the water meets the muddy far bank and you get a geyser of mud and water-- great for checking function. Sure enough, 4 of the rounds hit nothing discernable. If the pattern stuck, they passed silently into the mud higher up on the bank.

Thanks all for your help.