Help fixing a trashed Mauser

[Rogue Ram]

I recently acquired a few guns from an estate sale, one of which is my $50.00  "bubba-ized" Mauser 98 which is stamped 1937  on the crest. ALL the numbers match up.  I suspect this is a genuine "bring back" from WW2. Someone did a good job with the bolt being swept back, putting an FN style safety on, and making a doggone NICE trigger out of the stock military one.  The metal is great, no pitting.  The action is sooooo   slick!  The stock is an old Bishop with flawless inletting. Here's where the problems start.

Bubba decided to checker it himself   :shock:  (I hope bubba didn't give up his day job.)  Then he went one step further and sanded the hell out of the monte carlo cheekpiece so bad that it is now concave and looks awful. No using the wet cloth and iron on this part.  The grip is also in need of slight reshaping for my hand.

My idea is to have this action rebarrelled, open up the barrel channel getting rid of the military steps, and fill in when bedding the action leaving space between barrel and the bedding..........then raise grain, sand out checkering, etc., but what to do with the cheek piece???  I'm thinking fill in with epoxy, sand it all out, the paint the stock?   Or should I just go get a new Boyd's and be done with it?

The last problem is Bubba's scope mounting job. It had an old Weaver on it with mounts like I have never seen.....they mount with holes drilled side by side, not in line with the bore. The holes need filling in.  Do I fill in with like JB Weld, sand, then paint the gun with like Dura Kote, or does a guy have the holes welded up, stoned off, and park or paint it?

Not trying to create a masterpiece here, just thinking I can make use out of this thing somehow without breaking the bank.  Any ideas are appreciated!

 

RR

[Racepres]

Personally I would simply put those screw in plugs in the scope mounting holes as it sounds as if you do not desire a scope ... keep the basses tho if they can be saved. If you are going to scope it I would try to resurrect the mounts you have. The stock has probably got a bit of value as is ... I would not change the barrel channel cause so many folks are shooting milsurps w/ mil spec barrels. If yer gonna rebarrel then you may as well sell the stock for what ya can get and get a replacement.  Finally if you do intend to "redo" the stock it seems to me that the best thing to do w/ the "cheekpiece" is to remove it and have a more classic style stock... maybe???  good luck and if ya get rid of any wood LMK ... Marty

[gunnut69]

I'd have to agree. Just leave the screw holes there and install plug screws.  Welding on the front ring of any mauser gives me the willies....  I know of no one using the side-by-side format for scope bases today..  Sounds like an old conversion. I'd remove and sell the stock and barrel.  They won't bring a lot but if your going to invest the time and effort to do a good job, it's best to have good material to work with. Then the result will feel better..  The plugs screws won't look that bad..  If the rings assciated with those bases use the weaver style rings perhaps leaving the bases on the receiver and adding new rings would be even better.  There is nothing wrong with the hole spacing on those bases..  If the cheek piece is dished and ssaving the stock a priority perhaps simply remove the cheek pice and leave the monte carlo(of course any rollover would need to go away also). This would leave a look similar to millions of M700 remington rifles. Position of the shooters check would not be significantly altered.  If the checkering panels are troublesome perhaps sanding them off is too drastic.  Just get the stock ready for refinishing and draw new checkering panels on the wood. These should be large enough to completely surround the existing panels. When the stock is finished the new checkering will remove Bubba's misguided efforts.  Even really deep misguided efforts can be 'fixed'.

[Rogue Ram]

Unfortunately the bore is totally shot out and the wood on the cheekpiece is so divited out that it goes into the stock material.  I may just try to make do with this stock.....try my hand at filling and painting it, bedding, etc, then maybe just put on a new k98 barrel from Sarco.  Might be a nice brush gun......?

RR

[gunnut69]

There's no dust on the 8x57! and those military barrels were likely cut rifled...  Perhaps this is that rifle to try and learn some wook checkering skills with. Perhaps even some metal working skills!!

[dangerranger]

I got one real cheep that someone had tryed to put a relif carving into the cheek piece.I put a dark wood end cap, grip cap, and a dark inlay over the cheek piece. My friend thought it was the coolest gun hed ever seen .He still has it in his safe.

[sawfish]

You can fill in the scope mount holes without welding.  Screw in a weaver base mount screw as tight as you can (these are tapered on the bottom.  File down the screw head most of the way, and gently peen the remainder.  Finish up by removing the excess with a fine file and sand cloth.  Then polish (if desired) degrease and cold blue.  I have done a couple of these, and they even withstood a hot bluing.

[varmintmaster]

Here is another thing to do with those screws.  Once you screw them down tight as you can like Sawfish said, heat them up with a torch, being careful to just apply the heat to the head of the screws and right exactly where they go into the holes, but mostly dirrectly on the screw heads.  Once a screw is a bit red, then peen it down with a small hammer, and once cooled, draw file the  head off flush with the surface and polish off and reblue whether using cold or hot.  :grin:

 "If it burns Gunpowder, I'm all for it" Varmintmaster