2 rifles to 1

[oneb]

I have this wild hair that begins with two rifles trying to be one. They are...

A Swede 6.5 96 customized military rifle.  It has been  buggered up by a succession of inspired but poor choices by me and some very ham-handed gunsmithing by alleged pros. It does have an almost new Douglas air gauged barrel in a heavier, but not a Varmint-syle bull,  profle with a 1 in 8 twist. The rest is trash heap stuff that I would not sell to the French.

A smooth Interams Whitworth/ Manchester in .30-06 that has a nicely figured wood stock and a so-so barrel.

I am thinking over the pros and cons of making them into
either a 6.5-06 or a .264 Magnum as a recoil manageable, long range, deer rifle.

Two questions.  

Would the douglas barrel from the Swede smoothely mate with the Interarms Mauser?

Would .264 Mag rounds feed OK in the Interarms action? It appears to be long enough..

Thanks for your inputs in advance,
1B

[John Traveler]

I belive your Interarms Withworth/Manchester is a large-ring Mauser action.  The 6.5 M96 Swede is a small-ring Mauser action.  The barrels are not interchangeable.

The Interarms action needs to be reworked to handle 6.5 Magnum cartridges.  Both the action rails and bolt face need to be opened up.  It should be long enough with little to no work on the magazine box.

[gunnut69]

The Interarms Mannlicher(?) can be made to use either the 6.5 Mag or the 264 mag.  The 264 is my personal favorite but has but little over the 6.5 mag.  In the short barrel dictated by the mannlicher either would be a mistake..  Such heavily overbore rounds need plenty of barrel to burn those large doses of powder..  The 6.5X57 or the 6.5/06 would be better but I would lean toward more efficient rounds like the 35 Whelan.   The swede is a great little round and unless dangerously damaged should be left pretty much alone..  What was done to the swede that was sooooo bad?

[oneb]

It kind of looks like the Interams rifle will became a 338-06 dwon the road sonmetime.  That was my original intention.

The Swede (heavy sigh) will just sit there as the queen of the ugly rack. Unless I can find a small ring mauser receiver...  

Among other problems, it has a bolt handle that only allows for high-mouinted scopes, (Fixable, but it was already replaced and bent for scope use once and the smith just made a joke out of it.)

The high mounts on it do not allow the scope to be centered w/o lots of shimming.

The floor plate/trigger guard is epoxied into the stock.

The stock is a Richardson that is gaudy and way too heavy -- my chice, my mistake.

The follower clanks like stones in a tin can when you touch off a round.

The sliding side mounted safety was inlet into the stock with a chain saw.

And along the way in barrel work, the receiver got torqued so that it is no longer the smooth action I first owned.

God just hates that rifle! Im sorry I ever toook it out of its military stock. My bad!

oneb



1B

[springer222]

For a reasonable SR Mauser action, check into a Turk '38. Many (maybe all) are LR actions with SR threads. A few months back, I saw some selling for <50$. I am assuming your are planning to save the barrel, the reason for wanting a SR action?