Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Rebarreling a Mauser - Recomendations

I have a 93 Mauser that I'm rebarreling. I picked up a short chambered, in the white, replacement barrel. My plan is to rent a reamer and a go gauge, and use a cold bluing compound to finish the barrel. Before I get started, I would like to get some recommendations and opinions from the experts here. Any suggestions?

Just go slow with the reamer and flush the chips out of the chamber often.

It's not hard to do but one needs to take the time and do it right.
The first done are the hardest to do.
Just check often.

Good Luck

For bluing the barrel, try this:


Brownells Oxpho-Blue liquid can give a good finish if you remember that
cold bluing is an autocatalyic plating process. It requires chemically clean
steel. This means a fresh polish and a wetting agent helps a great deal. If
you can manage it, wipe down the freshly polished and degreased barrel with a
paper towel dampened with a 50-50 mixture of water and muriatic acid ( hardware
store). Immediatly follow with a soaking wet paper towel pad dipped in
Oxpho-Blue. The steel surface will turn black in a few seconds. Continue
until the entire surface is covered. Wash off in hot water and rub down with
WD-40. You are done. There is no cure time(that is a myth). If you
can't handle the acid solution. A fresh polish with abrasive paper or a bead
blast will do nearly as well if you use a wetting agent. I use 409 household
cleaner. Immediately after polishing or blasting cover the metal with 409 and
then hit it with a 4/0 steel wool pad soaked with Oxpho Blue. Make long strokes
up and down the barrel and apply the solution generously. Do this over a sink
and after a few strokes flush the surface with cold water. Reapply 409 and hit
it with Oxpho Blue again until everthing is black. It shouldn't take more than
2 or 3 min. Wash off and apply WD-40. The acid and steel wool removes
the invisible iron oxide film that forms on freshly polished steel. It is so thin
that it is invisible, but it is there. The film inhibits the blue solution
from contacting bare iron and causes the spotting, streaking, and other problems
most people have. The 409 removes any residual finger print oil and reduces
the surface tension of the liquids involved. The blue contains copper nitrate
which plates out a thin copper film on the iron surface. The copper is
immediately turned black by the selenous acid also contained in the blue. So,
a nice uniform black color requires an uniform coating of copper and that is
only possible with an oxide free iron surface. Once you get the hang of it, the
finish can look very much like a hot blue job except for one thing; you can
smell the copper if you put your nose to it.

RAN

And when blueing warm up the parts.
You want them warm to the touch but not so hot that you can't hold on to them.

The oxpho-blue makes a durable finish.

Buy a copy of Kuhnhausen's Mauser Shop Manual and read it. Then reread the sections that apply to the work you are doing.

Make sure you are re-barreling to a low pressure round!
7x57 (standard pressure)
257 Roberts (not +P)
6.5x55
300 Savage
35 Remington
...

Do NOT try to make a 308 or 7.62 NATO out of this.

Thanks for all the responses. This is exactly the type of information I was hoping for. FWIW, it is a 7x57 barrel from Green Mountain. Hopefully it will shoot better than the 3 foot groups I was getting with the old barrel. Thanks again for your expertise.