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I think I have only ever heard 2 complaints about the model 70 action and that came from target shooters.

1. There are no decent triggers available - well, there are now!

2. The flat bottom action is not as easy to glue into a bench rifle stock as the round bottomed Remington - as a hunter, so what!

I have both, like most people. I have seen more issues meaning jamups, misfires, sloppy bolt movement, bad triggers, poor erganomics relating to the bolt, feeding issues coming from model 98's that every other action combined.

But I own them.

Nothing like a slick push feed I guess. I have a PF .458 that is as slippery as a honeymoon erection. Sold it once and bought it back.

JW

No, no, no,
Don't throw that in the trash.. I'll PM you may address so you can send it to me. I'll pay postage too..

I like Mauser 98 actions built up into magnificent rifles better than any other action.
Using a military action for a rifle build requires a fair amount of money, when compared to a commercial 98; for example the commercial FN and Interarms MkX actions. When adding up the cost of bringing a Military 98 up to equal the commercialy action, the total costs involved far exceed the cost of the commercial 98. So, in the mid 1980's, I bought three Interarms MkX actions new for $165 each. My thinking was, someone could give me free a military 98, and by the time I had a new bolt handle welded on, getting new bottom metal, having it drilled and tapped, buying a new trigger and safety, and sending it out for re-heat treating, then polishing and bluing, I'd have well over $1000 in the finished action.
It didn't trade.
I haven't changed my mind on that subject, as commercial 98's are hard to find, but they still trump the costs involved with upgrading a military 98 when I can find one.
YMMV however.
Don

There are lots of military Mausers in the $200-300 range that someone else has already paid the high cost of converting it to a sporter. Many were done for hardware chain stores, etc, that have a new commercial barrel, bolt handle, and stock, action drilled and tapped, surface ground, low scope safety, etc.

That's where I would start if I wanted a budget Mauser rifle.

Bruce

Hmmmm..... What am I to do? Decisions, decisions!

-Bob F.

So what is this "re-heat treating" I hear about? Re-doing the case hardening, or through hardening? I am rather curious, since I heat treat steel (or at least specify it) for a living.

All that I have been involved with is through hardening. A number of older Mauser military actions tend to be soft--another reason for using a good commercial action.

As I understand it, actions like the 1909 are glasss hard on the surface (.010"-.015"), then fairly soft beneath. According to the Brownell stuff, you only need to reheat treat if you heat an action too much or in the wrong place, thereby annealing it.

Anybody know who does color case hardening. I really like the look of that, especially on a Mauser sporter.

Sorry but I must beg to differ. The original intent of mauser was to make the most goof-proof battle rifle possible for the time frame. I think he succeeded very well. The fact that it also can make a darn good sporting rifle is just icing on the cake.
I've had the vaunted Pre-64 M70s and frankly, I think they suck. One, even the Featherweights were too heavy. I have several rifles based on FN Mauser actions and a couple on milsurp Oberndorfs and DWMs and I would not take a truck load of Pre-64 M70s for a singe one.
Usually I try and find someone's attempt at a custom where most of the work has been done and go from there. My latest is a 1909 Peruvian mauser that someone made a beautiful stock in the style of the latest winchester Featheweight with excellent checkering. The only thing wrong was it still was in 7.65x53 Peruvian. A quick trip to my friendly gunsmith to rebarrel the gun and I now have a very accurate Mauser in .308 Win. Total cost? I got the rifle for $150 and $450 for the rebarrel. I didn't even have to replace the trigger as it already had a Timney installed.
Frankly, and this is just my opinion, yours may not agree, but I think the Pre-64 Winchesters are just a bit too over rated. I've had a few including a Featherweight in .308, a 264 Win. mag. Westerner (26" barrel, not the 22" abortion.) and the .375 H&H which while it was accurate, I needed wheels to haul it around. Not to worry though, I got darn good prices for them when I sold them off.
The only two M70s I like are the latest Featherweights (before Big W moved down south)in .257 Bob and the 7x57. You can add the synthetic stock XTR in .270 that thinks it's a target rifle. Those three rifles shoot and shoot well.
Pesonally, I'll stick with my Mausers. There are three that if I ever have to sell off my guns for any reason will stay. My J.C. Higgins based custom in 7x57 Mauser and my Oberndorf in .35 Whelen. The third is also a J.C. Higgins in 30-06 given to me by a friend just prior to his death from stomach cancer. It's in it's third stock, the original a custom job that was broken in a fal, the second a cobbled up job usng a spare Higgins stock that came frome the one used to build my 7x57 and the Butler Creek stock Ihave on it now. Those three are my pets, period! However, as Elmer Keith once said, "I prefer to let any man scratch his own fleas in whatever manner he chooses."
Paul B.

Allow me to post my understanding of Milsurp Mausers.....

I divide them into WWI and WWII mausers....

While there are a large number of them made and a lot of very good ones I'll further divide them into German made, Czech made and the others...

Again...there's a lot of excellent Mausers made in Mexico, Poland, and Yugoslavia.....but the ones I look for are Czech and German large rings.....

There are a few superb small ring mausers too.....

That said, I do not want nor will have anything top do with Mausers of the model prior to 1898.....and a lot of folks will disagree with this too!

WWI Mausers often didn't have the luxury of good heat treating and often none at all.....the result was receivers that allowed the bolt lugs to push against them so hard with high pressure cartridges such as the .270 that the lugs were actually embedded in the metal of the receiver. Mr. Burgess worked a process with a Washington company to heat treat these actions.....the company is Pacific Metallurgical in Kent WA and if you send them your 1909 etc (WWI) actions and merely ask for the "Burgess treatment" you'll get your action heat treated professionally to the specs Mr Burgess worked out with them. This amounts to about .015 deep carburization and harden and draw to roughly 37 Rc.....

37 Rc isn't hard at all....but Burgess discovered it was sufficient to prevent the setback associated with some Mauser receivers.

IMO WWII receivers had the advantage of the heat treating just described and don't really need the "fix"....WWII receivers start IMO 1924 with the VZ-24 in Czechlosvakia.....German made receivers of that era and after should also be good to go!

Many gunsmiths check for hardness but don't have the right equipment to check for superficial hardness...(case hardening) and they misrepresent the action for that reason.....One should only trust hardness testing and heat treating like this to professionals.....simply heating the action and quenching might be a serious error and actually be damaging to the metallurgical structure.

I never allow the bolts to be re-treated as the problem with Mausers is almost exclusively in the receiver and the fewer times the bolt is heated and quenched the better I like it...

I have 13 Mausers so treated and have no problems with any of them.....from 6mm Remington to .375 H&H...

Today I shy away from WWI Mausers....and I must agree with JB when he says to just avoid the entire issue by buying a commercial Mauser.....(post WWII)....mostly by FN and Zastava

I understand many of the Husqvarna Mausers are excekllent too but I have no experience with them.

Since there has been some discussion about the merits and demerits of the Mauser 98 and other actions, let me state my opinion and the reasoning behind it. To set the perspective, I am a shooter, not a hunter, and an admirer of fine design and engineering. Because there are a lot of issues to discuss, this is a very long post, and I will break down the discussion into different design aspects, with selected comments on other bolt actions.

Breeching. The Mauser does not completely surround the cartridge with steel. There are unavoidable gaps due to the extraction and ejection system. In this aspect it is inferior to, say, the Remington 700. However, due to the thinness of the extractor claw, the cartridge does protrude less from the end of the barrel than most other bolt actions, by 0.025� to 0.050�, as pointed out by Stuart Otteson in his book The Bolt Action. Overall, the cartridge is very well supported by the Mauser action.
In terms of gas escape in the event of a pierced primer or cartridge rupture, events more common then than now, the Mauser has multiple design features to protect the shooter. Jack O�Connor relates an incident in The Rifle Book where he was shooting surplus ammo in an Waffenfabrik Mauser action. �I was shooting prone when there was a tremendous flash and an explosion right in my face. I opened the bolt and only the rim of the case came out. The head had completely blown off and a tremendous volume of gas had escaped to the rear. With a Springfield that would have resulted in a bulged magazine that would have shattered the stock, and the rifle would have been in a very sad state of repair. The Mauser, however, took it in its stride and was not harmed in the slightest. I had only to get out the remaining part of the case and go on shooting.�
Jack Lott, in an article on the Mauser 98 in the Guns & Ammo Annual 1990 also reported that a friend of his experienced a pierced primer while shooting a Springfield and �got an eyeful of gas and could have been blinded.� He concluded, �the ability to handle gas from pierced or blown primers is on no other action as thoroughly design-controlled as with the M98.� Note that in some commercial Mausers such as later FN and Zastava, the gas control aspect is significantly compromised by the cost-saving short cut of machining a slot on the left side of the gas control inner receiver ring. Also note that the pre-64 Winchester 70 breech is a copy of the Springfield design.

The modern Husqvarna actions are, as I have noted, based on modified and improved �96 Mauser actions. While they have some improved design aspects and greatly improved metallurgy, they lack a number of the gas control design features of the 98 Mauser including the internal receiver gas collar and the venting system. In his book Bolt Action Rifles, Frank de Haas comments that the Husqvarna breeching system is �not so much different from that used in the pre-1964 M70 Winchester,� and further that Husqvarna �regressed in designing the gas-escape system. They would have been better off duplicating the venting system used on the M96 action,� which of course, was further improved in the Mauser 98.

Feeding: The Mauser is, of course, a controlled-feeding design. While there is debate about controlled-feed vs. push feed, it is notable that Mauser went from a push-feed in his earlier designs to a controlled-feed for maximum reliability in a military situation, to prevent double-feeding in a short-stroke situation due to operator error. It is true that modern semi-auto and auto rifles use push-feed design, however cycling in these designs is automatic and not prone to manual manipulation errors as it is in a bolt action.
Incidentally, the controlled feed design allows the magazine to be emptied simply by cycling the bolt back and forth without lowering the bolt handle, because the cartridge is engaged by the extractor as soon as it leaves the magazine and before it is fully chambered. This is perfectly safe even with the safety disengaged because the bolt cam prevents the firing pin from moving forward while the bolt is cycling, and the firing pin also has a safety shoulder which blocks the firing pin from moving forward when the bolt is unlocked. This method of unloading may be quicker and easier than releasing the detachable magazine floorplate found in some Mauser actions.
The feeding action with the cartridge sliding up under the extractor hook also helps clear the bolt face of any dirt or debris that may have lodged there. Here is Jack Lott: �Another problem that the nonrotating Mauser extractor prevents is that dirt of debris can get into a recessed bolt face as on most recent bolt actions, preventing bolt closure. This happened to me when I tried to chamber a .308 Winchester round in such an action and it wouldn�t close. I removed the bolt�and noted an unburned cylindrical powder granule lodged in it. �I couldn�t help think about how this would play in the African bush while I was engaged in a bit of lion, leopard, buffalo or elephant �roulette.�
What is not as well appreciated is the care that Mauser took in every aspect of feeding. Mauser was very proud of his patented magazine design. Not only are the feed lips of the Mauser machined into the receiver (rather than, say, a part of the magazine), but he actually designed the magazine and follower for each individual cartridge. On page 127 of Original Oberndorf Sporting Rifles by Jon Speed, Walter Schmid and Reiner Herrman, there is a table of magazine box dimensions for Mauser rifles by cartridge. For 21 cartridges, there are 14 different magazine boxes, sometimes with dimensions differing by only fractions of a millimeter. This is sometimes neglected by gunsmiths when a Mauser action is rebarreled for a different cartridge, which may have different dimensions from the cartridge the action was originally designed to work with. The result can be problems with reliable feeding. In all fairness, it should be noted that John Barsness had a Mexican Mauser which gave feeding problems after it was rechambered to .257 Roberts, even though this action was designed for the 7x57, the parent cartridge of the Roberts. In theory the two should be perfectly compatible, but Murphy�s Law strikes again.

Extraction. The wide Mauser claw extractor is unsurpassed in reliability. Here is Jack O�Connor from The Rifle Book: �Extraction is probably the most positive of any bolt-action. I cannot remember ever having failed to extract a case that remained in one piece - something I cannot say about most other bolt-actions I have used.� The extractor has a undercut projection just behind the hook which fits into a rotary groove in the bolt, and actually forces the hook harder into the cartridge rim the more difficult the extraction becomes, a design feature exclusive to the Mauser. Note that an earlier Mauser design (1889) used an extractor very similar to that used in modern Sako actions, which was abandoned in favor of the non-rotating claw extractor.

Ejection. The Mauser fixed ejector has been criticized because it requires a slot in the left locking lug, weakening that lug. Many favor the Winchester Model 70 design, which is located in the receiver and does not require a slot in the locking lug. However, here is Jack Lott: �A serious design problem exists in the Model 70 ejector�which folds down inside a slot in the receiver� The blade is so deeply placed in the narrow receiver slot that is is usually surrounded by gummy grease and dirt, which it attracts readily. Unless this slot�[is] kept clean�the ejector blade will rise�too slowly and fail�to eject. This is what happened to professional hunter Campbell Smith of South Africa during a rhino charge�.I subsequently had the same thing happen with a Brno ZKK-602 rifle� [which] has an unslotted left lug and a Model 70-type ejector��
He further comments, �The reason that M-98 ejector is more positive is that its blade is shorter�and is not confined in a narrow slot. The only slot it moves through is through the thin receiver left sidewall. Thus, there is little chance dirt or gummy grease and dirt can prevent its near-instant moving in place� No matter how gummed up, I have never had a problem with the M-98 ejector caused by slowness to move in place or failure to do so.�
Don Heath in an article in African Hunter, also noted problems with ejection with rapid bolt manipulation in the Ruger M77 Mk II, which shares a similar ejector design.

Ignition. One shortcoming of the Mauser compared to contemporary bolt actions is its relatively slow lock time. Stuart Otteson calculates its lock time as 5 milliseconds, compared to 2.5 to 3.0 milliseconds for the Remington M700 and Winchester M70. On the other hand, as Otteson points out, the lock time of the Mauser is still faster than any action with a hammer such as lever, pump or semi-auto rifles. The potential trade-off is reliability. As Finn Aagaard wrote in Rifle Sept. 1988, �While I have very rarely experienced misfires due to light firing pin strikes with modern speed-lock actions, I have never had that happen with a Mauser Model 98. If the primer does not ignite when clouted by a Mauser�s striker, it is dead.�
Another shortcoming of the Mauser is its direct-acting double-stage trigger. Although it is a very simple and reliable system � two parts, two pins and one spring, most nowadays prefer a single stage trigger. Mauser themselves offered a single stage trigger as an option on their sporting rifles. IMHO the old Winchester M70, which is nearly as simple as the Mauser, is as reliable a single stage trigger as has ever been designed. The fact that it has been copied in the Sako L-46 and Dakota 76 actions, among others, is further evidence of its quality.

Thumb notch. The Mauser has been criticized because of the thumb notch in the left receiver sidewall, which was designed to assist in clip loading the magazine, a function of its military origins. This thumb notch weakens the rigidity of the receiver, and in late WW II military actions has been a site of fracture of the action. What is not widely recognized is that the thumb notch is also a part of the gas escape management system. This is because the bolt has gas escape vents in it which allow any gas that enters the bolt from the firing pin hole to escape rather than push the firing pin out the back end of the bolt (the firing pin also has a shoulder to prevent it from blowing out). The bolt vents open into the left lug raceway when the bolt is closed and locked, and the thumb notch provides an escape route for gas from the bolt into the open air and away from the shooter�s face. The shooter is further protected from gas by the front flange on the bolt sleeve. Commercial actions eliminate the thumb notch at the cost of some compromise in gas handling.

Magazine floorplate and release. The original detachable floorplate was designed to be released with the aid of a spitzer bullet nose, and is also found on early post-war FN and Brno commercial actions. The detachable floorplate is very positive and secure but obviously much less convenient than the hinged floorplate.
On their sporting rifles, Mauser offered an optional hinged floorplate with either a lever release or a button release in the forward part of the trigger guard. The button release was also seen on the Argentine 1909 � one reason for its desirability as an action to be modified for sporter use � and has been widely copied not only on commercial Mauser copies such as the Santa Barbara and Zastava/Mark X, but also the Dakota 76 and custom bottom metal for various bolt actions. However, some versions of the hinged floorplate have been reported to be less reliable in heavily recoiling rifles � for example, professional hunter Don Heath reported in African Hunter magazine that the Mark X was �famed for springing the magazine floor plate open and dumping the contents on the firer�s feet.�

Scope mounting. Another acknowledged weakness of the Mauser is with respect to scope mounting. Of course, the Mauser was designed before scopes were in use - Kahles, the oldest firm still manufacturing rifle scopes, was founded in 1898, the same year the Mauser design came out. The main problems here are the bolt handle and the safety. The bolt handle can of course be modified for scope mounting, either by forging or by welding.

Bolt sleeve and safety. The bolt sleeve has a flange on the front which helps deflect gas from a ruptured primer or case away from the shooter�s face. The bolt sleeve lock, which prevents the sleeve from rotating when the bolt is open, is simple and positive. By comparison, here is Jack Lott: �The Model 70 bolt-sleeve lock is similar to that of the �03 Springfield and it is more exposed, more complicated and less foolproof than that of the M98. I and others I know have had this bolt sleeve lock�s detent fail to engage its slot in the bolt root and allow the cocking piece to rotate 90 degrees, jamming the action and damaging the rear tang. Its weak coil spring and external exposure to dirt makes it even more prone to sticking. The M-98 bolt sleeve lock, on the other hand, is internal and utterly foolproof.�
The original Mauser safety, mounted on the bolt sleeve, is ingenious and positive, using a minimum of parts to directly lock the firing pin (actually the cocking piece) and bolt in the full safe position, while allowing bolt manipulation in the intermediate position. The intermediate position also allows the bolt to be disassembled without any tools for cleaning, an important military consideration. However, because it pivots vertically, it is inconvenient for scope mounting. Commercial Mausers such as the FN originally offered a two-position scope safety which, while pivoting vertically, was limited to either the right or left side to allow scope mounting. The Brno ZG-47 had a unique bolt sleeve safety that pivoted like a hammer and locked the firing pin and bolt. These bolt sleeve mounted safeties were succeeded by a safety button generally located on the right side which locked the sear, a less positive system than the original. Some aftermarket safeties have imitated the Winchester Model 70 system which pivots horizontally on the right or left side, and locks the firing pin. This is a more positive system than the sear locking safeties, and appears to be the most popular in custom Mausers.

Fit. The Mauser has been criticized for rattling with the bolt open. This was not due to sloppy machining � tolerances were deliberately kept loose by design for maximum reliability in dirty/muddy conditions. Mausers do not rattle in the closed, locked position. Most modern bolt actions have closer tolerances that are more impressive in the gunshop. While no hunter would deliberately (I hope!) carry a dirty, muddy gun into the field, stuff happens. As John Barsness wrote in Rifle Sept. 2002, �I�ve hunted with over a dozen different bolt actions, and believe me, none work like a 98 after they�ve been out in the rain or dust for awhile.�

Steel and Heat Treating. Mausers are believed to have been made of forged, low carbon steel, and had local hardening of the receiver ring and rear bridge lug areas on the receiver, and locking lugs on the bolt, while the remainder was left unhardened for toughness. Frank de Haas in Bolt Action Rifles writes that �receivers of the pre-WWI era, especially the small ring type, tend to be somewhat softer than those manufactured in the 1920s, �30s and early �40s. I have observed that receivers made late in the WWII period, or those dated �44� and �45� are sometimes either very soft or hard, mostly the latter�.There seems to be no evidence to indicate that any re-heat-treatment of a soft M98 receiver will improve it or make it stronger. It is inadvisable, therefore, to have this done.�
Jack Lott has also written, �M-98 actions are not supposed to be hardened throughout. I have shown various critics how a tungsten-carbide scribe or a Swiss needle file only glances off when one tries to scratch inside receiver lug recesses. Some actions are insufficiently hard and have �set back� � meaning that the locking lugs have indented the locking surfaces in this recess�.I�d junk that action and obtain another , rather than re-heat-treat it as some do.�

Conclusion. As may be evident by now, I am something of a Mauser fan, but this is not based on blind faith or esthetics, but rather on solid engineering reasons, as I hope the above discussion has demonstrated. Yes, it has shortcomings, but its virtues are numerous, and the shortcomings are easily correctible. In the discussion above, note the overall emphasis on reliability. Anecdotes have been cited, but of course, anecdotes don�t prove anything. However, the point of them is not that other rifles fail, because any mechanical object can fail, including a Mauser, or to pick on any other action, but to illustrate how the Mauser was designed to minimize as many potential failures as possible. This is not to say that other bolt actions are not reliable, but rather to say that the Mauser was designed to be as reliable as humanly possible, given the technology of its time, and those basic design elements in large part have yet to be improved upon.
An unmodified Mauser is not cost-effective these days, unless one is willing to do his own gunsmithing work, but it is still one of the best, if not the best, sporting bolt actions around on a pure design basis. Because of its popularity, there are abundant aftermarket parts which allow it to be customized to taste � albeit at a cost. For the cost-conscious looking for a Mauser, a commercial action is obviously the way to go, with a Yugoslavian (Zastava, Interarms Mk X) or Spanish (Santa Barbara) less expensive than a Belgian FN/Browning as a general rule. Another option is that many military Mausers were modified in the past with scope-adaptable bolt handles, single stage triggers, etc. Often these �sporterized Mausers�, done by amateurs or local gunsmiths, are available at bargain prices.

A final anecdote - in his article in African Hunter, Don Heath reported on the Zimbabwe professional hunter proficiency exam in which candidates used their own bolt action rifles on the range and in the field, including Weatherby, Ruger M77, Winchester 70, Remington 700, Browning A-bolt, CZ/Brno, Interarms Mark X (Zastava), FN Mauser, and original Oberndorf Mauser. The FN and Oberndorf Mausers came out the best - �worked great as expected�. He also described the early Brno rifles, which were essentially sporterized Mausers, as �absolutely tops.� All the other actions had one functional shortcoming or another. Somehow I don�t think that was an accident.

Now, that's funny! You went from the 1889 .308 to the 1952 version. I have an original Argentine 1909, as you say, in 7.65x53mm. The .308 is just the 7.62x51mm, or .003" smaller bore diameter, and a case that's .118" shorter. My Argentine shoots Sierra's 150gr SPT at 3003FPS into 1.25" at 100 yards, 5 shots, with open sights. You could have saved yourself $450 on your rebarrel job by just reloading the Peruvian to it's full potential. There's no moss on Peter Paul Mauser's first smokeless cartridge design. He got it right 60 years before NATO adopted it.

JB, Vapodog, thanks...

I specify a few hot work tools with case hardening and yes it requires a specialized tester to get readings. Usually when a tool comes in I check it with a knife blade - if the knife won't cut it I figure they did what they were supposed to do



Okay, since some of us are not of the Mauser cognoscenti which model is that one ? An original sporting rifle?

vapodog,

Thanks for that posting. I'm learning a lot more here from you and others.

Jlin, that is an awesome post.

Thanks for taking the time to share that.

Yes, it's an original Oberndorf Mauser Type B sporter. Made in 1930-31 going by Speed's book and the serial number.

I found it on the Internet for $350 in a small gun shop in Florida. The rifle was in sad shape. (The seller did not misrepresent the rifle. I knew what I was getting.)

The barrel was completely gone. Full of rust and pits. The bottom metal was military and the bolt was also military. The bolt serial numbers did not match the action. The original stock had been replaced with something that resembled a 2x4 more than a rifle stock.

So, with all of the collector value gone, I was hoping to use the action as the basis for a custom rifle. And, as Mule Deer stated earlier, I realized this was not about being economical. It's merely for the heck of it and to see if we could bring the old girl back to life once more. I discussed the project with my gunsmith (Todd Johnson) and turned the rifle over to him.

The original chambering was for the 8x60 (.318") cartridge. The rifle was sent to Dan Pedersen's shop and he installed a new barrel, matching the profile of the original barrel exactly. He also installed the original sights and barrel band sling stud on the new barrel. The new barrel is chambered for the 8x60S Mauser (.323"). (Surprisingly, Grafs sells Prvi 8x60S brass!) Dan also installed a new custom bolt handle from the Fred Wells shop on the bolt (that's the bolt handle in the pics above). Dan also inspected/checked the action and found it to be very straight and true and in surprisingly good condition.

The rifle isn't finished yet but it's come a long way from when the photos were taken. The stock is now fully inletted and shaped. All it needs is to have the oil finish applied and hand checkered. The metal work is done and it just needs to be rust blued. The rifle will have new sporter-style bottom metal (also with a straddle floor plate). The bolt has been fitted with a 3-position, side swing safety.

When my gunsmith finishes the rifle, I'll be sure to post some pics on the Fire.











Cheers!
-Bob F.

BFaucett is a classy guy....he not only recognizes classic Mausers and appreciates them but he seems to have the where-with-all to resurrect them.....and then humbly presents them for eye candy for the rest of us to appreciate...

It's costs me nothing and I get to see very fine rifles...now that's a bargain...

Thanks BFaucett!

Thanks, Jlin. I let my rifle maker talk me into a 98 Mauser action for my last custom rifle. He said they work when other actions fail, especially from dirt and crud in the action. I appreciate that as I've been known to hunt for long periods under dusty and cruddy conditions.
I've seen bolts lock up on a few rifles, especially when a primer is blown from a really hot load. Yet, I've ejected w/o much extra effort two cases with such blown primers in a Mauser and a Ruger Tang Safety action. I was impressed to say the least.
Thank you for your very detailed and informative post. E

I'll do a huge amen on that.
From time to time I see such Model 98's for sale, but by the time I see them, they are LOOOONG gone..

Nice piece in the works..I'm having an 8x62 built right now!