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mauser help in a hurry
- Thread starter STEVE M
- Start date
Actually,all Mausers are a little strange in this respect.
The rifles were mass producted in enormous quantities. The design looks to be incredibly simple and straight foreward and it is. The various models look very similar and they are.
But the machining is actually rather complex and the rifles as originally produced were actually hand fitted together with great care and precission. These rifles were made with the eye towards maximum performance, reliability and ruggedness and with almost no concern with economic production.
Thats why these old rifles have so many serial numbered parts. Each serial number represents a part originally hand fitted just for that one rifle. You won't find these serial numbers on any mass produce rifles of today. All except the very highest priced producers make some sort of "simplified" version of Paul Masuer's original design when it comes to bolt actions.
The U.S. built the original '03 Springfields with the same philosophy: nothing too good for the troops.
And that is why no one can produce Mausers and Springfields today execpt at a horrendous cost.
The truth is that Mausers and Springfields don't take aftermarket parts without careful, and relatively expensive hand fitting by someone of competence. So little differences in dimensions among these rifles are no big deal, you have to take some care and have some knowlege to get them to work right in any case.
Sure, you can slap on parts from other rifles or new parts, and they will probably get the job done (not always), but they will not function with the same smoothness and precision that the rifle originally had.
The rifles were mass producted in enormous quantities. The design looks to be incredibly simple and straight foreward and it is. The various models look very similar and they are.
But the machining is actually rather complex and the rifles as originally produced were actually hand fitted together with great care and precission. These rifles were made with the eye towards maximum performance, reliability and ruggedness and with almost no concern with economic production.
Thats why these old rifles have so many serial numbered parts. Each serial number represents a part originally hand fitted just for that one rifle. You won't find these serial numbers on any mass produce rifles of today. All except the very highest priced producers make some sort of "simplified" version of Paul Masuer's original design when it comes to bolt actions.
The U.S. built the original '03 Springfields with the same philosophy: nothing too good for the troops.
And that is why no one can produce Mausers and Springfields today execpt at a horrendous cost.
The truth is that Mausers and Springfields don't take aftermarket parts without careful, and relatively expensive hand fitting by someone of competence. So little differences in dimensions among these rifles are no big deal, you have to take some care and have some knowlege to get them to work right in any case.
Sure, you can slap on parts from other rifles or new parts, and they will probably get the job done (not always), but they will not function with the same smoothness and precision that the rifle originally had.
I don't own any Lee-Enfields and have never studied them, but I would suspect that they had the same general attention to detail put into them: the British could not produce them fast enough to supply their own troops and were desperate for rifles as WWI & WWII settled into their long stalemates.
I guess that the reply to Steve M should emphasize the idea that it's a little too optimistic to expect anyone to know if a Brno 08/34 would accept aftermarket parts when all Mausers in general take some close looking and usually some fine fittling to modify with new parts. About the best one can say is that it should be a very standard large ring Mauser and present no unusual difficulties that could not be solved by a decent gunsmith.
I've been working on a Turk 03/38 Mauser I picked up earlier this month. I bought it because it has a nice fiddle back stock that must be real Turkish Walnut and it seemed O.K. in the other departments as well. This was made at Mauser Obendorf itself and should be about as standard a Mauser as they get, as it was made when Paul Mauser walked the floors of Obendorf himself. The action is very smooth on this rifle, which I attrribute to the Germans, but the Turk reworking is a little on the poor side. The action is inletted into the pretty stock in a very loose manner and maybe it would benifit from rebedding, but I will shoot it first to see about this. The trigger guard must be from another rifle (they ground off the serial numbers) and the floor plate doesn't really fit right (hard to get off and on).
Last night I was working on the steel butt plate, which was oversized and hardly fitted the end of the stock, obviously from yet another rifle. It's a pain to make those things fit right with their multiple curves. Dakota Arms charges $500 for a nice checkered steel butt plate and $600 for a skelletonized one: as much as a whole Remington or Winchester Rifle and quite a bit more than a Savage! So you can see how costs take off like a rocket once you start to get critical of all the little details and start demanding that which requires skilled, careful handwork!
Don't think that I don't appreciate what modern manufacturers are doing for us. Thanks to the appearance of modern CCN machining, arms that every one even twenty years ago would have believed to be impossible to produce at anything resembling an affordable price are now being produced at prices that are more affordable than ever in history: Modle 70's, High and Low Walls, Rolling Blocks, Sharps, Trapdoors: the list goes on and on. They can give us the basic rough actions now, but if you want the fine details you have to get it done yourself.
I guess that the reply to Steve M should emphasize the idea that it's a little too optimistic to expect anyone to know if a Brno 08/34 would accept aftermarket parts when all Mausers in general take some close looking and usually some fine fittling to modify with new parts. About the best one can say is that it should be a very standard large ring Mauser and present no unusual difficulties that could not be solved by a decent gunsmith.
I've been working on a Turk 03/38 Mauser I picked up earlier this month. I bought it because it has a nice fiddle back stock that must be real Turkish Walnut and it seemed O.K. in the other departments as well. This was made at Mauser Obendorf itself and should be about as standard a Mauser as they get, as it was made when Paul Mauser walked the floors of Obendorf himself. The action is very smooth on this rifle, which I attrribute to the Germans, but the Turk reworking is a little on the poor side. The action is inletted into the pretty stock in a very loose manner and maybe it would benifit from rebedding, but I will shoot it first to see about this. The trigger guard must be from another rifle (they ground off the serial numbers) and the floor plate doesn't really fit right (hard to get off and on).
Last night I was working on the steel butt plate, which was oversized and hardly fitted the end of the stock, obviously from yet another rifle. It's a pain to make those things fit right with their multiple curves. Dakota Arms charges $500 for a nice checkered steel butt plate and $600 for a skelletonized one: as much as a whole Remington or Winchester Rifle and quite a bit more than a Savage! So you can see how costs take off like a rocket once you start to get critical of all the little details and start demanding that which requires skilled, careful handwork!
Don't think that I don't appreciate what modern manufacturers are doing for us. Thanks to the appearance of modern CCN machining, arms that every one even twenty years ago would have believed to be impossible to produce at anything resembling an affordable price are now being produced at prices that are more affordable than ever in history: Modle 70's, High and Low Walls, Rolling Blocks, Sharps, Trapdoors: the list goes on and on. They can give us the basic rough actions now, but if you want the fine details you have to get it done yourself.
Unkel Gilbey
New member
Take a good look at the Rifle that you are thinking of buying, as I've noticed a bunch of 8mm Mausers on the market that are M95's that have been rebarreled in 8x57. The M95 was originally chambered in 7x57, and it's technically a small ring Mauser. Looking through loading manuals - you'll notice that the 7mm Mauser is loaded to lower pressures then the 8mm Mauser. This was probably one of the big reasons why the M98 was made in the Large ring configuration - to handle the higher pressure of the original 8mm Mausers cartridge.
To this day, commercial 8mm Mauser ammunition is 'loaded down' to lower pressures because of the 'weaker' rifles that are out there that are chambered for that round.
Anyway, check that rifle well. Do you know the difference between the two types? Here's a simple way to differentiate. Take your finger and run it from the back toward the front of the action on the left side. Past the thumb cut in the side, you will notice a 'step' at the forward part or ring on a M1898 Mauser. The M93/94/95/96's will be slick straight up to the barrel. There are other features that differentiate one from the other - but for me that is the easiest.
Good luck
To this day, commercial 8mm Mauser ammunition is 'loaded down' to lower pressures because of the 'weaker' rifles that are out there that are chambered for that round.
Anyway, check that rifle well. Do you know the difference between the two types? Here's a simple way to differentiate. Take your finger and run it from the back toward the front of the action on the left side. Past the thumb cut in the side, you will notice a 'step' at the forward part or ring on a M1898 Mauser. The M93/94/95/96's will be slick straight up to the barrel. There are other features that differentiate one from the other - but for me that is the easiest.
Good luck
Unless I am mistaken some how, the 08/34 should be a large ring Mauser. You can see the step Unkel Gilbey is talking about in the picture of it in Ball's "Mauser Military Rifles" (2000).
However, this rifle should be a Brazilian short rifle, made by them at their own plant in Itajuba. It should look a lot like their Modlello 1908 rifle originally made by DWM Berlin and be chambered for 30/06, not 7mm Mauser.
It was not made at Brno, Czechoslovakia, as Mike seems to imply in his post.
However, this rifle should be a Brazilian short rifle, made by them at their own plant in Itajuba. It should look a lot like their Modlello 1908 rifle originally made by DWM Berlin and be chambered for 30/06, not 7mm Mauser.
It was not made at Brno, Czechoslovakia, as Mike seems to imply in his post.