Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Parker-Hale receiver castings

Has anyone been successful at turning one of their unfinished castings into a working rifle? I've accumulated about 10 of them at ridiculously low prices, some which use Mauser 98 bolts, others set up for 03 Springfield bolt assemblies. I've built some jigs for turning a good barrel thread, and others for finish machining the bolt lugs, and I bought a ceramic kiln for heat treating. A near-fatal motorcycle accident 5 years ago sort of delayed that project along with about a dozen others- - - - -now it's time to get busy again!
Jerry

You might try to contact Val Forgett III in West Virginia. Those were his grandfather's. He may have some specs or insights.

Another option might be to send them to Blanchards in Salt Lake City; they heat treated receivers for me in the past. I don't know if they are still in business or not.

There also used to be a place in Washington State that specialized in heat treating mauser receivers in quantities. I think it may have been called PacMet (Pacific Metals)

Heat treating isn't alchemy or voodoo- - - - -why would I send work to someone else that I can do myself? The castings are AN-9 alloy, and a quick Google search brings up the proper temperatures and procedures. I was just asking if anyone else has tried and succeeded at building rifles using these parts.
Jerry

Heat treating is not voodoo but heat treating rifle receivers is not as simple as getting a recipe and baking chocolate chip cookies either.

I have had numerous receivers heat treated for various reasons; one was a finished machined Parker Hale (Santa Barbara) that was in the white and un heat treated. Pac metals did that one. I am going off of 20 and 30 years ago memory here. There are a few concerns with heat treating these receivers. The big issue is the large mass of the front receiver ring and then the much lighter rails. Both firms that I listed had heavy jigs that they bolted and clamped the receivers to to mitigate warpage and twisting. Both made no guarantee that they would not warp; too bad charlie if they did. Another concern is the top of the rear bridge being very thin and prone to over hardening, and the ones that take the Springfield bolt are much thinner than the mauser. I had a friend, a member of the ACGMG, (deceased), who annealed and machined a lot of 98 mausers and then heat treated. Some times he would drill and tap and install the bases before heat treating and the screws would shear off during heat treating. He turned Turk Mausers into small ring mausers and also welded on square bridges to mausers.

Another issue is the bolt stop / ejector for the ones that take Springfield bolts. I never saw a nice looking one! The one's that Navy Arms (Val Forgett) used were a big block of aluminum that just didn't look right at all.

I don't claim to be anything close to expert on this but do have the experiences. I do remember that they hardened the cocking cam harder than the rest of the receiver with an induction coil. I can't remember if they did that to the locking lug recesses or not. Hence I thought a cal to Val Forgett III of Navy Arms may have some specs or insights, prints, parts, etc. that he might be willing to share.

Bottom line is I do not know your level of experience and did not mean to insult you in anyway. I have built a few Parker Hales but all were at least finished machined. They all went bang when done. I don't remember if the ones that took Springfield bolts had cone breeches or not; I know that they had mauser thread and I can't remember if large ring or small ring diameter.

Thank you! That's exactly the information I was looking for, and I was particularly concerned with how the heat treat of the receiver ring VS the rest of the action was accomplished. Original Mausers are pretty soft behind the front ring, as opposed to Springfields which are harder than woodpecker lips all over. Anyone who has attempted to scope a Springfield can testify to the difficulty of penetrating that hard surface with a drill bit! The metal whittling isn't much of a stretch for anyone with the unmitigated gall to call himself a "machinist". I'm using a proprietary barrel thread of 1 1/8"-18 to clean up most of the relieved area of the receiver ring ahead of the extractor. A regular Mauser 1.120-12 thread would only give a partial thread depth there. I can understand why the casting was made that way, but the end result doesn't impress me.

I appreciate the input- - - -it's given me some definite food for thought!
Jerry