Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Mausers and Military Rifles Mauser bedding--solid front action screw contact

When bedding a Mauser, how do you check to ensure you've got good metal-to-metal contact between the front lug and the front floorplate post? Post-bedding, I find it hard sometimes to confirm that I've got solid metal-to-metal contact.

You'll know when your gun won't shoot a good group.
The front post on the floormetal is NOT supposed to bed firmly against the bottom of the lug. It's only function is to locate the front of the mag box. The mag box should have at least .010" gap and not touch the receiver except for the fin that locates the back of the mag box.

What he said^^^^. I use a lead shaving to gauge clearance and concentricity.

Hmmm.....Jerry Kuhnhausen (his Mauser book pg 108): "....receiver must rest solidly on steel: i.e., on the trigger guard housing receiver mount, at front...."

If you have so much faith in what Jerry says, try it and report back. Jerry says a good many things that others may not agree with.

Guess I'll have to write a book to give advice on this subject.

Then I'll feel like Navin Johnson.

I'm no gunmaker, not even close, but if fifty years with the Mauser means anything...if the front guard screw does not clamp the bottom metal and the stock and the action in a "sandwich", you WILL get flyers. Modern commercial bolt actions, which have been "pillared", with the pillar lengths too long will exhibit the same characteristics, wood or synthetic, the sandwich is what makes the pieces into one rigid unit. All the examples of original Mausers, pretty much have softened, crushed wood, so it's hard to tell how they were bedded...but I suspect they were intended to crush the wood slightly. If both screws were hard bottomed, metal to metal, how difficult would it have been to line up the lock screw notches. Do-able but time consuming.

I have a couple of Mausers that I have been wanting to have bedded but don't have a clue who to have do them.
Have had some pretty sad luck with so called gunsmiths since my trusted go to guys have passed on.
Sure would like to hear suggestions for good Mauser smiths that would do the bedding.
rookie

if you had full contact between bottom metal and action wouldn’t it be more likely that you didn’t have full contact of the action to the stock?

Seems that way, as is also the case for the rear when using a metal ferrule.

Full contact with the stock ferrule.
Full contact with the front action recoil lug post a's recess in the trigger guard post.......
If I want real accuracy.... I shoot Encore.....

Hahahaha!!!

If metal to metal, how you gonna have solid pressure on the bedding? Solid metal to metal may leave looseness, metal to bedding. Makes no sense. I’ve bedded enough sub MOA Mausers to not buy into the metal to metal scenario. Not impressed with that statement.

DF

Dirtfarmer;
Top of the morning and Happy New Year to you sir, I hope the year's been kind to you thus far and this finds you well.

With the continued confession that I'm not a trained 'smith by any stretch, over the past 30 odd years I've bedded a good double handful of Mauser variants. Actually before pecking out this response, I scuttled downstairs and did a quick count in my repair log and it says 27 to date - so for sure not a whole bunch, but enough to form a semi-educated question.

As well as metal to metal having potential looseness in the action, I'd also suggest that it may be prone to not dampening the vibrations as efficiently as if there was some "crush" or compression.

Years ago when I used to shoot semi-formal hunting rifle bulls eye competition there were a couple of brothers from up the valley who used to bring down some state of the art equipment and were always very open to discussion as to where they were at and why.

They'd milled out one of the first aluminum stock inserts I'd ever seen - this a few years before the factories began to do it - but even then they believe that a thin wash of epoxy meant a perfect, skin tight fit and they also believed it led to better control of random vibrations.

Anyway sir, all that to say that Mauser variants running through my hobby shop get a gap between the steel of the receiver and bottom metal. As always, there's a lot of dirt roads leading to Mecca and that's just the one I've trod.

All the best to you folks in 2020.

Dwayne

A couple things:

I'm asking, not telling. And, I'm not defending Kuhnhausen. His writings (across multiple gun platforms) have helped me out of many a jam, so he's got some cred with me, plus a guy like that--or many of you--will forget more about Mausers than I'll ever know.

I've been told before that the metal-to-metal contact that I'm describing is the aluminar pillar analog for a Mauser. So, if that statement holds any truth, what pressure is on the bedding around, say, a Rem 700's pillars....and why would it be different for a Mauser using a lug/post up front and a ferrule in the back?


This helps me out, i.e., focus on the mag box gap vs the front post.

The front aluminum pillar on a M-700 or similar action, is a bit different than the Mauser set up. Steel to steel contact at the front action screw with the Mauser doesn't leave any slack for the action to be sucked down solid against the bedding. Theoretically you could have the front action screw drawn up full tight, locking the floor plate assembly against the receiver and still be able to shake the barreled action up and down if there is a gap between the bedding and the action. That can't happen in a M-700 if the front action screw is full tight, aluminum pillar or no aluminum pillar.

DF

I've got a number of 98s and they all shoot well after careful bedding of both the tang and front ring in a "pillar" setup. Depending on my mood at the time, I make sure the bottom metal/mag box and action are "free" of each other, no touchie, with the front post either active (close fitted) or dead (fitted loose). The loose fit has a big pillar that was fitted to the action (and lug), then bedded in a separate step before coming in from the bottom with a sleeve pillar that separately "sets" the bottom metal a fixed distance from the bottom of the action, with the load mostly in the pillaring sleeve.
The active fit was done with the action post hard-fitted to the action collar thingus. Rifle gets epoxied, then the whole mess is screwed together a half-turn short of "full" and left to set upside down. (I let all my rifles cure upside down, with most of the weight on the front ring base, barrel hanging in air.)
After hardening, I pop out the action, ream the screw hole (if needed to clear the screw shank and threads), then experiment with how much "crank" gives the happy amount of squeeze/torque. Sometimes its "full", sometimes a quarter, or none, but in all cases I want a free-turning screw to a "hard" stop, where the screw torque rises quickly upon head contact, but nothing else is moving, neither the tang nor the barrel. Then there are two more tries with the epoxy, first for "voids" if any, and then a final skim coat, just a dash, if needed.
The goal for me is to have the action "click" in and out, with no springing or preload on either action screw.

Both ways have worked well for me, neither one seems to have much of an advantage as they both involve multiple steps. But Mausers honestly have a lot of "air" instead of metal--good bedding makes Mausers happy.