Crayfish: You're right about the cost of setting up military mausers for a scope. You can buy a decent commercial bolt action and rebarrel for the same price and have a much better barrel. It costs about $300 to get a decent trigger, bend the bolt, drill & tap, new safety, etc. I have a bunch of shot out 8mm mausers. I recently found a used German WWII mauser in a gun shop for $199.00 which had been sportserized with a fiberglass stock, bent bolt, safety, drilled & tapped inluding a Leupold base and rings and a good bore! I snapped it up.
Another scope option is the Extended Eye Relief scope and one of those B-Square mounts that fit into the rear sight base on some m-98 mausers and on some of the Swedish mausers without altering the rifle. Although the Swedish mauser mount was great, the M-98 mauser model was a piece of s**t. It was held in place by opposing screws, but the mount was made of aluminum and the steel screws stripped the threads. It would not hold a zero at all and I spent an entire day trying to get it sighted in. I may try to have this drilled & tapped since the rear sight bases on Mauser barrels have plenty of metal and with the scope mounted in front of the receiver ring, there is no need to bend the bolt and all of that. Also, you can still use stripper clips, which is kind of fun. Not sure how practical it is, but when people see you load up that way they all say "Gee that's cool", most modern shooters never having seen stripper clips or used them.
Old mausers are so much fun and are so cheap. The problem is that the iron sights are increasingly difficult for my 50+ year old eyes and the triggers are ghastly.
That being said, one of my favorite rifles is a stock M-98 mauser (Made in Yugoslavia I think) in 8x57. The only change is that I replaced the front sight with a higher, square blade so that it would not shoot so high. Even though the bore is abominable, with iron sights on the bench and handloads using 170 gr. Speer, 180 Grain Barnes X, and 200 Grain Nosler Partitions, I get 3/4 inch groups at 50 yards. This gun is so rugged, so simple, so reliable, so indestructible that I really like it. Stripper clips work like a charm with it too.
I may add a Timney trigger and Lyman receiver sight. Would rather keep iron sights on it if I can and I have noticed that receiver sights on other rifles are easier on the eyes than the blade type.
You might also want to consider using a ghost ring sight. They make them to fit into a Weaver scope base, just like a scope ring. You would drill & tap the rear bridge for the weaver base and then mount the ghost ring on the Weaver base. It's ligher than the Lyman and you don't have to remove any wood from the stock to make it fit on the right side of the receiver. The ghost ring is really cool. See London Custom Guns and there's another web site that has them. You may need to install a new higher front blade though.
There is a different discipline to using iron sights. It requires greater concentration, developes a higher level of skill and familiarity with one's rifle and the art of rifle shooting. It's hard to put into words, but if you use iron sights you know what I mean.
