mauser's

[jraney]

simply put is it worth it to build or try to build an extremely accurate gun on the 98 action?

 

[FALPhil]

I have built quite a few Mausers,no apostrophe), mostly sporters. I have a couple of heavy barreled ones that are pretty accurate. Two things to consider: you will never get your money's worth out of them when it comes time to sell, and they are very hard to make ultra accurate.

The lock time on a Mauser, with it's monstrous firing pin, is abysmal. There are two barrel shoulders, an inner and an outer, and the shank of the barrel needs to be exactly the right depth to have close to equal pressure on both. Squaring up the bolt face in relation to the bore axis is a PITA.

There are a lot of things to love about the Mauser 98, but extreme accuracy is not one of them, because it is so rare. You can get good accuracy out of them, but it is so much easier to get very good accuracy out of more modern actions.

Just my opinion.