Scoping 1896 Mauser Actions

Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind… –Margaret Mitchell I have been accused of being mired in the past. I admit I still think Elvis is The King and Frank Sinatra is the Chairman of the Board. I like older movies best and I still open doors for ladies (when I can find one.) I’m fairly optimistic about the future but I think all that will be decided long after I’m gone, so I don’t worry about it too much. I did get a small shock the other day.

I found out B-Square has stopped manufacturing most of its line of gunsmithing tools. I already knew that their nifty little barrel vise and bushings were no longer available. Now it seems their scope mounting jig has went the way of the Dodo. This jig was about perfect for doing the job of drilling and tapping the holes needed in military rifle actions for scope mounting. It not only made it easy to this job well, the jig was inexpensive. Now it’s gone. Oh, the humanity!

Although I have briefly written about this subject in the past I wanted to do a complete article showing how to do this job with this particular tool. Despite the potential change in availability, I’m going to anyway. This jig is available on the used market and other, similar (and more expensive) jigs you can buy operate on the same principles. Plus, I don’t own the other ones, so that will have to be left until I get some discretionary income— money, as some call it.

First, as hinted in the quote above, are there any convertible Mauser actions available anymore? The answer is yes, thought they aren’t as cheap as they used to be. They rest in closets, dusty parts of gun shows and used gun areas at your local shop. Sometimes you find one that has already been to the sporterizer and back. It still has the turned-down, stepped military barrel and trigger, even the original front and rear sight. The stock is pure cut-down military—hardly a candidate for collecting.

I inspected two the other day at my local dealer. Both were as advertised above and, to my surprise, they still retained the military safety despite being scope mounted. On one, the safety was unusable because it wouldn’t clear the scope while the other sported laughably high set of see-through mounts for clearance. The only problem now is price. In years past, I’ve bought bunches of 98 Mausers for $85—not actions, shootable rifles! The most I’ve ever paid for a Model 96 rifle is $135.

I think those days are over but there are still bargains if you hunt hard enough. I will pick one up when I run across it. Mitchell’s Mausers have made a business of supplying milsurp rifles that have been refurbished and are now stating for the umpteenth time that what they have in stock are the last. I just got on their website and, wouldn’t you know it, they found some more. Anyway, I don’t think these rifles are candidates for sporterizing anyway since they are fine shooters as is.

Also, since Mitchell’s has refinished them the collector value is in the toilet. But they are what they are and anybody wanting to purchase a shootable Mauser should consider these. I just got my last issue of Military Surplus magazine. Apparently they think it’s over. Well, there’s always a little left even if it’s not enough to support a magazine. Regardless, I will plow ahead. If you are sporterizing a ‘96 Mauser, the job is not complete without drilling and tapping the action for mounting a scope.

That is not to say there is anything wrong with any sort of iron sights. I learned how to shoot with open sights. Scopes were a luxury when I started and not all that reliable at the time. Most of us hunters felt comfortable using a good iron sight on our deer rifles. Scopes were expensive. Scopes fogged. Scopes lost zero and couldn’t be depended upon during bad weather—which was most of the time we hunted.

Nowadays, these concerns are about as important as the last whitetail flag you saw bounding down the ridge away from you. Scopes have been proven for years, and older guys like me need them. Why do I need a scope if I learned how to hunt with iron sights and am entirely competent using them? Because my eyes are older and I can’t see as well as I used to.

I still use iron sights for the range and enjoy using them, however, kids I’ve taught to shoot have all used scopes before I taught them how to use the older sights. Some people mandate using iron sights to teach children shooting before moving up to scopes. Baloney. Scopes are for amateur shooters and iron sights are for the more experienced. Kids like to hit what they are aiming at and they can by using

scopes, usually right away. Don’t discourage a young person by insisting they learn using the same old tools you did. Save that for when it’s time. After gaining experience shooting optics, many of the kids ask me if they can try the iron sights I’m using when we go to the range. So far, all of them have picked it up right away. It’s not rocket science. When I started to put together some custom rifles for my grandsons I pondered this question.

My personal preference for one of these guns, if I’m ever able to build one for myself, is a nice Lyman receiver sight with an appropriate faux ivory bead up front. It might be something different for you but I just want to have one. I can imagine myself stalking through the steaming jungle on the trail of the wary tiger with just my trusted bearer and my reliable Mauser for company. My kids have been using iron sights for many years but I know they prefer a scope for hunting.

Contrary to my custom rifle preferences stated above, so do I. If using iron sights on my rifle, I have to limit myself to probably no more than big deal in most places out east but where I am hunting the range could be much longer and I can limit myself to shooting within range. I once read a book about a famous safari of Teddy Roosevelt in the early twentieth century. Apparently, in those days they thought nothing of firing ten or twenty rounds at an animal to bring it to bag. I see things differently.

I am using 1896 Swedish Mausers for these two rifles. One is about finished. The other is headspaced and Both are used to make the holes for a Weaver base. rebarreled but not yet stocked. Drilling and tapping for these old military rifles can go easy or the other Some, although I have never encountered any, are supposed to be case hardened and very difficult to drill. I use titanium-tipped drills for this process and have never had a bit of trouble going through these actions.

I wonder sometimes if somebody made this malarkey up and decided to print it. Of course, you can’t just take a hand drill and start whacking away. A jig is necessary to do this job. One of the least expensive is the B-Square scope jig. Unfortunately, I they have discontinued this product. Forster,

the Cadillac of jigs, is still available (Brownells #319-400-000AH) for a hefty $456.99 and Williams Gun Sight Company offers a jig for $149.99 (Brownells 962-368-980AH.) This job needs to be done on a drill press. I prefer to set up on a milling table because it’s easier to move the piece without getting it out of alignment. If you don’t have a milling machine, small milling tables are available from such sources as Enco to fit your drill press.

However, I suggest only using a floor mounted press to have the necessary clearance to support a milling table, vise, jig, etc. Drill presses are not made to be milling machines as they can’t stand up to the sideways stresses involved in some operations but for jobs like these they can be invaluable. To start, your action must be stripped bare of trigger and bolt. The jig itself consists of a solid steel bar (Bore Align Arbor) that fits inside the action and two flat pieces milled from aluminum.

The bottom piece (Base Block) is for holding the jig secure against the receiver. The top pieces (Jig Bars) have holes to fit drill and tap guides and actually locate the scope-mount holes. They are marked "S" and "M" for identification. Also included with the kit are two "V" bushings to hold the bottom and top parts of the jig together along with two Allen cap screws and an appropriate wrench. A #31 drill bushing and #31 drill come with this kit.

The tap, also included, is a 6×48 and, curiously, the instructions do not mention that it comes with its own #27 bushing. 275 inches. Save the 3-In-One oil for other jobs. While on this subject, as I have lamented before, the instructions suck. That is not to say there is not a lot of good information included, just that too many manufacturers don’t bother with more than a minimum number of drawings and/or pictures of how their products are supposed to be set up.

Study the instructions thoroughly, don’t get lost and use your common sense. The instructions tell us that, "All Year Mausers – Bar ‘M’." Well, they are half right. Use the "M" bar to space the two front holes but to install Weaver mounts on the 96s, I found I had to use the "S" bar to space the rear bridge holes. The rear bridge does not have to be altered to install the one piece, one

It only needs one hole drilled in the rear of the receiver instead of two. It works very well but adds weight. Try not to put any flats on the receiver with the grinder and leave enough room to work it by hand. rear hole Redfield JR mounts. For the two-piece Weaver mounts, if you want to use two mounting holes you must grind down the charging holder used for loading the rifle with stripper clips.

Also, the pin on the front of the "S" bar had to be tapped in so as not to interfere in setting up the jig and the rear pin tapped down to locate the jig. These pins are used to stop the jig from going too far forward or backward when mounted in the action. I couldn’t find anything about this in the instructions.

What they do say is, "On Mauser type rifles the Weaver block must be filed or ground on its forward edge to fit the rear bridge and clear the bolt handle." Their answer is to only drill one hole for the rear base and grind the front and back off to fit. Poppycock! I assume they haven’t tried it my way. To be fair, I guess they had trepidations about instructing to grind down the action itself. My pictures will show how this job can be done with this tool much better than I can explain it.

What it amounts to is replacing the "M" bar with the "S" after the two front holes are drilled and tapped. I leave the jig mounted on the milling table and use a Tru-Tapper to hold the tap in the chuck of the mill. This holds the pieces in alignment as well as If you don’t have one and want to make your own, see my article in the May 2010 issue of American Gunsmith, "Building a Mauser Holding Fixture." Notice the rear pin on the "S" jig bar has been tapped down and is resting against the back of the receiver.

This gives the proper clearance for the #55 Weaver bases. possible and lessens the possibility of broken taps. As with any tapping operation, use good cutting oil like Liquid Wrench, not oil like 3-In-One. Although it’s rated for tapping, I think Do-Drill is best left for the drilling operation. Go in a few turns and back off so the chips can come out, continuing this process until the tap

The rear of the action is to the right in this picture. Tighten everything securely. Now, I guess you could run everything by hand but it’s like that story about a gentleman opening a house of ill repute and trying to conduct business before hiring the ladies. It doesn’t work very well. through. I use a # 31 titanium-coated drill bit (Brownells 361-661-031) and their premium 6- 48 3-flute plug tap (748-001-648) to make these holes.

As I have stated these actions need to have the rear bridge altered by grinding down the stripper clip holding piece so the Weaver base will fit. This could be done with a file if you don’t mind waiting forever to get done but I prefer a tablemounted grinder of 6-8 inches. I have several grinders and the one I use in the shop most often has course and medium wheels attached. Use the course wheel to bring the piece down quickly and stop just before you contact the main area of the rear bridge.

Use the medium wheel to smooth it out and then finish up by hand with a good file. What you are doing is simply lengthening the mounting area of the rear bridge following the original contour. As near as I can determine using dial calipers, you will add about 0.275" of extra length to the rear bridge. The two holes on the Weaver 55 base will then have plenty of purchase and the base will not hang off the rear end. This does not weaken the action in any significant way.

This operation has scared a lot of people because if you screw A little bit of touch-up polishing and bluing will finish this job. It looks as though it was custom fitted to the action. It was, except the action was fitted to it. it up the action is pretty well ruined. Also, you must not heat the action too much by the grinding process. There is usually no need to re-heat treat these actions as long as we don’t fire them up unreasonably with jobs like this. Use a good pair of gloves for protection.

Go slow and check your work often. Roll the piece over the grinding wheel. Don’t try to just bore

right in because that is sure to cause a flat that is difficult to remove. I usually have a cloth soaked with water nearby to help cool the hot spots, making it easier to continue working in a reasonable amount of time. Just don’t let this part get red. With the flat started, continue by filing with a bastard file. I prefer using a second cut. Be especially careful filing the sharp edges, making sure they remain sharp. I file from the inside to the outside using two hands to carefully level the cut.

The top of the bridge is joined to the back in the original contour. You can do this job after you drill the front bridge holes but I prefer to do it as a first step. Maybe I’m superstitious but I want to do one job at a time. Grinding and filing is one job and setting up a jig and drilling is another. It’s kind of the same thing as fully setting up the outlines of checkering on both sides of a stock at the same time, before the actual Complete your American Gunsmith collection. Or read up on a special subject!

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