Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Mauser bolt action shotgun conversion

I was wondering if a mauser bolt action shotgun could be re barreled with a rifled bore? I know there are 12ga barrel blanks out there. was thinking doing a nice deer gun...thanks

Bolt face might be a problem. powdr

Look for a used Browning A Bolt in 12 guage. I have one and they are really nice!

http://www.chuckhawks.com/browning_A-Bolt_slug_gun.htm

If you are talking about one of the 98 mausers modified into a shotgun after WW1, I would NOT use one. The conversion consisted of removing both front locking lugs on the bolt and using the safety lug as the lockup

I was thinking that same thing, but hesitated to post it in case there were other safer conversions out there. I handled a couple of those abominations years ago and marveled at the fact that some people actually stuck their faces behind them and fired them.

With the low pressure 2-1/2" loads of that era they are fine. With today's loads or slug, you'd have to be nut's. I have a couple and don't have an issue shooting them with low power 2 1/2" loads.
Don

I can see your point. The one time I witnessed one being fired was a long time ago at a public range where a yahoo was patterning one, with some sort of magnum steel loads. Everybody gave him a wide berth 'til he was done. I remember the guy going on about using it for ducks and geese.

I suppose that it would be safe to fire if one loaded some blackpowder equivalent low pressure loads, say with PB or somesuch. But still, not every nimrod is savvy about such things.

In a similar vein, my dad had an old Zulu single shot 12 gauge that was his first gun way back when. We both marveled over the fact that as a kid he fired slug loads through it for deer hunting. Not germane to the OP but does illustrate the tomfool things some people do with marginal-at-best guns, out of ignorance.

Most of the converted mausers had a seperate bolt face that could come loose and add to the issue. In todays world I cannot see any reason to even think about shooting one of the things.

Many thousands of bolt action shotguns used only the bolt
root as a lock. The 98 "safety" lug must be as strong.

That's true, but it doesn't necessarily make it right!

Frank DeHaas was a pretty knowledgeable 'smith and he wrote that they were weak, because so much steel was removed to convert them from military rifles after WW1. The 2 brands that he cites are the "Geha" and Remo". IIRC, he advocated silver soldering a 1-piece steel Redfield turn-in style base on these Mausers as a means by which to strengthen them. It seems to me that when you need to silver solder a base onto an action to stiffen/strengthen it, it is probably of marginal strength and not something I'd be fully confident in.

OTOH, I have a Mossberg 942KA that has been reworked as an Iowa slug gun. It isn't an action that I would want to hotrod, but it works fine with Brenneke 1 oz. Classic slugs, 4 MOA+/- at 100 yards with a scope.

Jeff

I have never seen any pressure data on a slug. It seems that the pressure could not be any more than for a shot shell, because there are proof limits on shotguns, regardless of the type shell.

Anyone ever read about pressure tests with slugs in a shotgun?

Not only the converted Mausers use the 3rd lug for lockup but the action was bored oversize to allow the conversion adding to less engagement, but hey if you want to trust that setup to keep a bolt with about 16,000 lup thrust that is pointed square into your brainpan have at it. I think that if you take a better look at most bolt action shotgun actions you will find that there is an opposing lug that locks as well as the root of the bolt handle.

DeHaas also said that a large number of the "blowups" were
due to firing without the bolt head which was missing
from many of them.

thanks for all the input, I was thinking on a full blown custom gun a pretty one like any other well done mauser custom. I have other slug guns 11-87 and a 870 that work fine was just an idea and I have learned much thank you for all the input!

I saw a Martini GP at a gun show last weekend. You could make a very cool custom slugger from one. The M98 conversions are dogs.



YMMV

I never saw a Mauser close up that was converted to a shot gun but I would think that using the third lug would be fine. The trouble would start when you start removing metal to get the shell to feed. Might want to try a 20 gauge. If you think using the third lug to lock up is dangerous, you would dirty your pants if you really looked at most pump lock ups.

I also have an old Mossberg bolt action with a rifled 20 gauge barrel on it. I used a pump barrel left over and it screwed right in. I don't worry about pressure because I can only feed 2 3/4 shells through the clip anyway. Unless you go to black powder, a shell is a shell when it comes to shotguns. If it originally was designed to fire 2 3/4 smokeless powder shells than you will be O.K. Most older bolt action shot guns just used the base of the bolt handle as the lock (As someone already mentioned) and the receiver was just tubing. I don't advocate being dangerous but a lot of what you hear is old hunters tales.