Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Re-heat treating mausers?

I have several rifles built on various different mauser 98s. I have never had any re-heat treated any of them and never had any headspace problems develop. What are your thoughts on heat treating mausers? I know some of the big name builders insist on it.

People who build custom rifles from Mausers will normally surface grind the outside and polish the hell out of the inside and those processes can expose soft steel underneath the case that needs to be re-hardened for both safety (inside parts) and to avoid easily scratching the outside surface.

Unless your rifles were built from pretty poor actions that needed alot of fit and finish you should be fine.

On my rifle we heatsinked the reciever and welded up the crest, and most of the markings and just polished the beads down until they were flush with the reciever. I'm only about 200 rounds in, but I see no problems either. Unless you really had to heat grind polish and file the reciever it should be OK.

For a spendy custom job where you are talking some hefty cash then it sure is a safegaurd. 4 or 5 thousand into a Mauser and it incurs lugsetback amounts for a sad time for sure. I have a 1909 Arg. that Stuart Satterlee sent to PacMet for carburizing and is now in the process of completing/finalizing my 9.3x64 Brenneke. I will have some serious monies into the action/rifle-I am content that it is carburized. By the way this will be my only heavy spendy time involving a custom. Think what caught me is ones statement that life is too short to hunt with a ugly gun.:)

A vz24 of mine in a L-W barrel/caliber of 9.3x62 with a cheapo synth. stock is not carburized. In general most good 98's don't need the attention but.........