how light have you mausers guys got your rifles? i would really love to get mine to around 7lbs or lighter scoped and loaded.

plans are for a new stock and to screw on a 20-22" fluted barrel. then top it with any of the fixed compact 4x or 2-7x scopes

as of right now my rifle sits at 7.5lbs scoped. 22" barrel in 30-06 with wood stock that is trimmed down to remington mountain rifle contour.

Go with a blind mag to cut off 6 or 7 oz.


ddj

already had that thought going through my head

I built one below your target weight (hard to do with a Mauser), by using a Small Ring M98, blind mag w/aluminum Remmy TG, 20" featherweight bbl, and drilling out voids under the barrel channel & buttplate (rubber bumpers are too heavy).

The sides of the action can be fluted under the stockline, and the bolt handle skeletonized.

I used 2-piece Weaver lightweight bases/rings for a 7oz Simmons 4x scope.

If a receiver peep sight is used ILO a scope, even more weight can be saved.

.

Small ring mausers help a bunch toward hitting that goal. As does large holes in the barrel. Mcmillan edge would also be your friend. I've got a large ring that goes 8 on the nose with a 24" 9.3x62 barrel in a standard Mcmillan. Edge would have put it about 8 oz. less and dead on your goal and that was with 1909 bottom metal, 4x Leupold and Talley ultralights. I'm banking I can get to 6.5 with an edge on one in the works, but it's a variation of the small ring and will get a blind mag. Edge.

My French walnut stocked rifle, 22" Fwt barrel, With steel buttplate, grip cap, hinged steel bottom metal, steel mounts and Leupold 4x, mine Oberndorf M98 is 7.5# on the nose.

A 799 Remington could be rebarreled to several big game cartridges.

yea i did alot of drilling to the butt of the stock (behind the pad) and alot of trimming tot he forend of the stock.

it sits with leupold mounts and rings, and a redfield tracker 4x40mm scope.

i would just buy a whole new rifle, which i plan on anyway. but this action is starting to grow on me and it feeds slicker then snot. i just need to get rid of the barrel and stock (they are crap)

bankwalker;
This parts gun was built on a military 98 action with a take off Parker Hale featherweight 22" barrel in .270 installed.

Also added along the way was a modified Husqvarna trigger guard/ floorplate assembly, Wolf spring, Timney trigger, Timney/Beuhler safety and an FN commercial extractor.

The stock is from Wildcat Composites, the lighter model.

Here it is complete with sling and 5 rounds of 130gr GMX inside the magazine.



For interest sake, here are the weights on the HVA steel guard before I spent an hour Swiss cheesing it to lose less than 1 oz. .


And an aluminum alloy guard that Parker Hale installed on their rifles.


Hopefully that was some use to you and good luck on your project.

Regards,
Dwayne

Why not go with a Blaser R8 and be done with it?

Possibly because the Blaser R8 costs $3000+!!!

scoutman;
In case that query was directed to me, I'll toss out my thought process on building that particular rifle.

I'm not a gunsmith by any means, but do like to tinker with rifles as a hobby.

That rifle started life at our house as a $35 action that had a free FN military '06 barrel screwed onto it soon after. It was then bolted into a much modified Model 70 stock that I had $15 into.

One spring day I was doing some pruning for a now deceased friend when he decided my life would be incomplete without shooting something with a .270. He'd traded something for an as new Parker Hale featherweight barrel and insisted we screw it into the 98 action - that I'd bought from him years earlier by the way. So we went into his garage where he had a barrel vice and I had my first .270 in about 10 minutes.

Anyway, as they say - in the fullness of time - after adding some parts and doing most of the work myself, I've ended up with a rifle that works very well for me.

When one buys parts slowly, it does have the illusion of having less of an impact on the family budget, but I fully understand that logically the same amount of money can be put aside over time and spent in a lump sum with the same result.

In this case, I most certainly could have ended up with a tool of equal quality for less money. If I had done so though, I would have missed out on the fun and learning that went into making this rifle.

For me the planning and then the work that goes into building a rifle are the fun part of the process.

Hopefully that made some sense. Good luck on any upcoming builds and hunts.

Regards,
Dwayne

BC30cal

Half of the fun of a build is the anticipation and accumilation of parts. I had a friend (I am all thumbs with machining) put together a 308 target rifle that I took four years to assemble all the parts. Everything was a major sale and the parts cost me about $600.00 but had a Shilen air guaged 30" barrel, Timney target trigger, mauser action and stock blank for a bench rest build. Rifle ready to shoot with scope, rings, mounts new bottom metal etc for a total cost of $1000. My first three groups were .3", .27" and .15". So much for load development.

This rifle did not make the OP parameters obviously, it was 16 lbs.

I am just agreeing with BC30cal that the journey is sometimes the point of the excercise.

BW,

Back in the day when custom building a rifle meant starting with a Mauser, the light weight goal came to be seen as something from the too hard box (meaning too expensive). I always thought of Mausers as the platform for a big game rifle where weight could be a friend to help handle recoil.

Good luck with your project...jim

But it isn't a Mauser.

Bruce

Perhaps Swampy was thinking of the Rem 798 which is already in big game chamberings.

7.36# g33/40 with a blind mag, 24" barrel (which is not a FW contour) and a Lupy VX3 3-10 for glass. Stock goes 1.29# with "pad". Seven pounds is in the cards with a FW 22" provided you get the right blind mag stock to do it with--that's the hard part.

The mauser ring spacing ain't short so do your due diligence on the scope as to its length and ER with your chosen LOP.

The easiest way to a light rifle is the 700 TI...

Bruce, the 799 is a mini-mauser. It can handle some fine close range deer cartridges like the 6.5 Grendel. I believe Brown Precision and MPI make lightweight stocks for it. Following that route you could end up with a 5.5lb rifle (sans scope).

The Brno 21H is a great little rifle - small ring M98 - and mine weighed 6.5lbs as it left the factory -w/o scope.

Nope 799 rifle doesnt use a true mauser action.
It doesn,t have a Mauser pattern full length extractor.
It is not controlled round feed and has a recessed bolt face.
MINI MAUSER well er uh not exactly !

Search for a S&W branded Husqvarna Model B, Swedish small ring mauser that weighs in at 6lb 8oz without scope.

that would be a first

I've got a custom 98 Mauser that goes 7 lbs., 4 ozs. empty, w/o sling. It wears a 24 inch, Pac-Nor #1 barrel (.600 muzzle ) w/ the shank reduced to a minimum. The action has been lightend, but it wears a steel Remington FP & TG, and a M70, two position safety. Steel Leupold QD bases and rings, and a Leupold FX3, 6X42.
The stock is an MPI Kevlar with a 1/2 inch rubber recoil pad and three Micheal's Flush Cups for a CW Sling.
I could probably go to Talley LtWt mounts, and a lighter scope and get it down to 6 3/4's to 7 lbs.
No, it is not a small ring or G33/40 action. E

And it's an ugly POS.

That's the best thing about it.

do you have any pictures of the action?

thanks

I have an old Santa Barbara commercial 98 wearing a 6mm rem tube and a nondescript stock that needs to become a lightweight 7x57 or Bob in a lightweight synthetic stock. I had been wondering how light I could go with a blind mag, FW contour 22 inch barrel, Talleys and a light scope. Is seven doable?

Weigh up all the parts sans stock and bottom metal. Add 2-3oz ounces for the (bottomless) mag box and alloy triggerguard.

Seven minus your total tells you what the finished stock has to go and now all you have to do is find one.

IME, FWIW, stockmakers tend to be a bit optimistic on their lightweight models....

that will work....d'uh

SteveNO;
Steve, regarding the goal of a 7lb Mauser, I'd think it should be feasible if a few conditions were met.

As you can see in the 2nd and 3rd photo I put up, the bottom metal that I weighed went 8oz and 8.3oz respectively, so one should be able to cut 4oz off with a blind magazine.

The sticky wicket will be finding a gunsmith who knows what he's doing with the conversion. From the Mausers I've worked on, I've found that the relationship between the magazine fit and the bottom of the receiver can be critical in making it feed properly.

I'd think that a controlled feed rifle with no floorplate that didn't feed would be nettlesome at best.

Other than that, I'd think it should be possible seeing as I hit 7lbs 3.7oz with steel bottom metal doing pretty much what you've specified.

Hopefully that was some use to you Steve. All the best to you and yours and good luck on your project whichever way you decide to go.

Regards,
Dwayne

FWIW, for the blind mag, I cut the mag box off the bottom metal and swiss cheesed it. Then sent it to the stocker to mold into the magazine area. As long as the follower doesn't hang up on the holes and the stocker follows thru, you are good to go.

Browning(FN)had a lightweight aluminum bottom metal for some of their Highpowers that was a full 4oz lighter than the steel ones. I have a couple. I tried to get a third to cut up for a mag box but no luck. Also have the heavy alloy one that you showed, BC.

well i have all my parts as of today. cant wait to put to get it put together

thanks, Dwayne....I'll probably get Mickey to do it when I finally get around to it.

that is how I did it on a friends 98. I cut off the steel box but rather than swiss-cheese it, I put it on a belt sander and thinned the rather thick walls.

As pointed out previously, the relationship of the box to the receiver is critical. What I did was bed the barreled action first, then I use 5-minute epoxy to fasten the box to the reciever where it was supposed to sit, using some shim material so the box sat 1/32 off the receiver (it's not supposed to touch tightly). Then I degreased the mag box and used bedding compound around it and assembeld the rifle. The 5-minute epoxy breaks away and you clean it up and have the box permanetly in perfect position.

free miner & tomk:
Thank you both for the very thorough explanations, that was indeed good information.

I've got a VZ24 action that was slated to be something or other someday and I just might have to try what you've described. I've never converted a Mauser to a blind magazine yet and it sounds like a challenge I'd like to tackle.

Thanks again, I appreciate you both taking the time.

Regards,
Dwayne

Just a quick note on small ring vs. large ring Mausers - there really isn't that much of a weight savings. I have a copy of the Sports Afield Gun Annual 1970 edition where arms editor Pete Brown measured, photographed and weighed the receivers, bolts and trigger guards/mag boxes of different 45 bolt actions.

Two large ring Mauser receivers and triggers weighed 17.7 oz. A Mexican Mauser receiver (small ring designed for the 7x57, and 1/4" shorter than a standard 98 action) weighed 16.5 oz, a difference of less than 1 1/2 oz. The bolts weighed about 16 oz and the trigger guard/mag box about 10-11 oz, for a total action weight of around 44 oz. For some reason the Mexican Mauser trigger guard/mag box weighed a bit more than either of the two standard length Mauser actions, so overall it wound up weighing only 0.5-1 oz less than the standard Mausers.

The lightest standard length actions listed in that report were the Remington 700, Husqvarna and Savage 110 at 39-40 oz, with the weight savings primarily due to the lighter weight aluminum alloy trigger guard/mag box.

In fact, with the exception of some receivers that weighed more than the average (e.g. the Champlin), most of the standard length action receivers weighed between 16 and 19 oz, and the bolts around 14-16 oz. The steel guard/mag boxes all weighed about 9-11 oz, with the alloy ones 6-7 oz.

So for a lightweight Mauser I would say that the difference between small ring and large ring is relatively negligible, and the big weight savings is using either an aluminum alloy trigger guard/mag box or a blind mag.

This does not address stock or barrel weight which are the other major parts of the equation.

Here's one that I sold to a fellow up here this past fall. He wanted a sheep rifle that weighed less than 7 pounds all up, with five rounds in the magazine....



My old Husqvarna 30-06 with 4X Denver Redfield in Weaver mounts and sling included.

He is very happy,
Ted

Very nice

The small ring v33 and the g33/40 actions are approx 40oz like the Husky--4oz lighter than a large ring 98. Gained from the smaller diameter ring and the lightening cuts along the receiver.

Free Miner--the belt sander is a better application--wish I had done mine that way.

tomk,

Thanks for the info. I've never laid eyes on a V33 or G33/40 so I accept what you say. But the small ring Husqvarna that Pete Brown measured had a receiver/trigger that weighed 17.4 oz, almost the same as a standard M98 Mauser at 17.7 oz. The difference in the Husqvarna was the trigger guard/mag box weighed 7 oz, vs 10-11 oz for the Mauser. I actually think that a small ring saves 2-3 oz overall, rather than the 0.5-1.5 oz measured difference, because that measurement leaves out the smaller diameter of the barrel thread for the small ring action, so the barrel that is screwed into a small ring action saves an additional oz or so compared to an otherwise identical barrel screwed into a large ring.

Now, the Husqvarna had the solid left receiver wall w/o the thumb notch which is probably a good fraction of an oz, and the V33 and G33/40 have the lightening cuts below the stock line, as well as the cuts at the rear next to the trigger and the thinning of the left receiver wall as well. Whether that accounts for 4 oz of steel I'm not sure. Of course, doing all that on a large ring action costs some money. If nothing else I think the best bang for the buck for lightening is getting an alloy trigger guard/mag box from Brownells for around $80 - that is, assuming you can live with aluminum.

You could start with one of these:

http://www.satterleearms.com/intermediate.htm

Sure. Got a spare $6500 burning a hole in your pocket? I cheaped out and bought a Brno 21H - but it is heavier.

No, I don't have any pics of the action. E

I have a 98 Mauser in .30/06, 24" Parker-Hale barrel, that weighs slightly under 6 3/4 lbs dressed in nothing but a Lyman 48 receiver sight. Slip the re-conditioned Weaver K2.5 onto the Griffin&Howe side mount and it's still under 7 1/2 pounds. Low weight is due mainly to the dainty Euro-style stock, with horn buttplate and grip cap. It's an honest MOA rifle but recoil is a bi*ch with full throttle loads. To put the pleasure back into firing it I load a modest 42gr. H4895 under a Sierra 165 BTHP. My point is be careful what you ask for in a lightweight rifle, if your shoulders are arthritic like mine and sensitive to recoil!

I know what you mean. My elk loads are 200 gr. NP's over 59 grs. of H4831SC. Good thing the stock is pretty straight because it comes back right smart. Glad I didn't do the 9.3X62 was originally planned on doing, or a .338 WM. E

I have a K98, 1915 Erfurt action in .257 Roberts. The stock is a schnabel forend that is very thin. It wears a Nikon Monarch 3-9x40 sitting in Leupold steel rings and one piece base. It has an aluminum alloy hinged triggerguard and Bold trigger. I've never weighed it but by feeling it, it does weigh less than my Marlin XS7 in 7mm-08 with Burris Fullfield 30mm 3-9x40 in steel mounts. The XS7 is supposed to be 6.25# bare, scope is 15 oz and who knows on the mounts.

Just examined one, and it does.

FAIL...from your beloved Remington website:

A modern variant of a timeless classic, the Model 799 Mini-Mauser is available in five traditional short action chamberings (.22 Hornet, .222 Remington, .22-250 Remington, .223 Remington and 7.62x39mm). The Model 799 features many of the same characteristics of the Model 798 including solid steel receivers and trigger guards as well as a single stage trigger with two position safety. The Model 799 forgoes the heavy non-rotating claw extractor for a Sako-style extractor well suited for feeding and extracting smaller cartridges.

Link . Paragraph 4

RH

semantics....the extractor is nothing like a Sako extractor.

It's definitely not a Mauser extractor.

Ted

Another lie from the Swampman.

The true hallmarks of a Mauser action are a full length claw extractor and CRF.

The 799 has neither.

But then Swampy can't tell a CRF from a PF anyway.

They have the claw extractor on the early models.
I have wanted one for years,Daily brought them into this country before Rem did.

The Mini-Mausers have a long, non-rotating guide rib on the side of the bolt where a Mauser claw extractor goes. If you are not looking at it just right, it appears to be a long, non-rotating Mauser claw extractor.

There is a photo half-way down this page, with a Mini-Mauser below a real Mauser, showing how similar they look. Page two of the article has a photo comparing the bolts.

http://www.rifleshootermag.com/featured_rifles/rem798_091406/

Bruce

It has both.

All that matters to me is that I'm right, and I always am.

There is nothing cheap about a Brno 21.

Mini-Mauser bolt

No it doesn't and no you're not!

Except in your own mind that is.

Swampy, read the article BCP posted and then tell me how right you are.

I'm always right.

A different lwt Mauser (4lbs. 12oz.)

http://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9411043/m/5761055541?r=2701095541#2701095541

I like

I know you enjoy your little games, but some younger guys actually come here to learn. You are an absolute dumbphuck and you know less about firearms than I did at age 12. So pretty please, with sugar on top, shut the [bleep] up.


Travis

I've seen maybe 2-3 people post that offered useful/factual info. The rest are repeating old wives tales, something they read at the news stand on their lunch break, or saw on a commerical on the outdoor channel.

When you grow up, you'll understand what I'm talking about.

With 5 in the belly. Husqvarna 1640 action, 23" tube (.550 at the muzzle) and McMillan Edge stock.

Very nice!!! if only it had some first class walnut.

Like this?




[bleep] a bunch of walnut.

+1

WTF happened to that stock? i loved the way that rifle felt....

And looked pre-plastic.

of course someone missing the point of the firewood picture would trade 'tough' for 'pretty'

I'm building a 7x57 on a Mark X action. The Mark X isn't a light action but I am using a McMillan Edge with a blind mag so losing the bottom metal will save me around 7 oz. All the pieces are at Benchmark barrels and I will post the results in the future.


ddj

That is an interesting build. Post pics when you get her back.

Thanks. I have wanted to try a lightweight mauser for awhile. All the pieces fell into place. Benchmark is doing a 3 groove 23" barrel and they had a new reamer made for a short throat 7x57. I'm not trying to build as light as possible but I'm wanting to make a a rifle that I or my Dad could carry all day. If it ends up around 7.5 lbs I'll be happy.



ddj

I handled a custom Mauser G33/40 with a heavy barrel in
284 Win caliber today. Very interesting gun, probably built
in the late 60s or early 70s.

bcp and nsaqam,

More info. Just a few facts about the mini-Mauser used in the Remington 799, and before that in the Interarms Mark X Mini-Mauser. This is from Frank de Haas chapter on this action in his Bolt Action Rifles book, 3rd Edition, p 261:

"The Mini-Mark X action has a number of Mauser M98 features and it's stretching the point, I suppose, but it can be called a Mini Mauser. But if a M98 Mauser action is placed beside the Mini, it shows there is certainly a lot of difference between the two....

"The receiver...is threaded up front to receive the barrel, but there is no inside collar in the receiver ring as there is in the M98.

"The extractor is in no way similar to the M98 extractor. Instead it is a small and simple claw held in place in the bolt head.... It rotates with the bolt. Unlike that in the M98, the bolt face on the Mini-Mark X recess is not undercut, thus leaving a rim of steel completely surrounding the cartridge head, with the exception of a narrow cut for the extractor. [comment: what this means is that this action is a push feed and not a controlled feed because the cartridge cannot slide up under the extractor claw as it is fed from the magazine, as it does in the M98 and all CRF actions]. A bar on the right side of the bolt serves as a bolt guide.... At first glance this bar or guide may appear to some as an extractor, and I have noticed that some persons have confused it as such."

That matches all I've seen. Comparing the Interarms, Daly, and Remington versions, I see no difference other than lettering.

Bruce

Thanks for the info Jlin.

Even though what several here have been saying has been confirmed by the learned Frank deHaas Swampy is sure to insist he is correct.

He always is, just ask him he'll tell you.

Hey Swampy isn't it about time you tell us how you're always right and how Remington and Frank deHaas are wrong in this instance?

How about telling us all the true hallmarks of a CRF action?

You do realize, of course, that he is sitting back there giggling, because he has sucked everyone in to responding to his inane posts.

Ted

If he gets off playing the idiot and the laughingstock then I'll oblige him.

This is the season for giving after all.

Tis the season to give with grace, not anger..

No anger on my part. Pity perhaps but surely not anger.