diggerdanh

Filling the barrel channel with expanding foam and then covering it with epoxy is exactly what I'm doing at this moment - the stock is hanging in my garage. I had not thought about filling the grooves in the butt and forearm, that is a pretty good idea. I did not replace the butt pad in my previous build and I probably won't consider doing so for this build either. My first one weighs in at somewhere around 15 pounds (I don't have an exact number because I haven't weighed since adding scope). I built for heavier weight because I new it would be a target shooting rifle. With that kind of weight shooting a .308 it just barely pushes my shoulder back a little, definitely no "kick". It wouldn't matter if the original butt bad was a metal butt plate. Of course 300 win mag might be a little different.

I was thinking the same thing after the ATI stock / duracoat comment. I just finished one of those last fall and working on a second one right now. Of course I don't want to sell either one, but those might actually be something you could make some money on. Probably not $10K each but maybe closer to $2000 especially if you have a nice target to show with a very small grouping. I saw a Rem 700 in a similar style stock (forget what it was, but it wasn't really high end) with the typical blueprinting done on it asking $2000 on GB a couple days ago. I can't remember if it had any bids or not. If a guy had purchased a bunch of the PH sniper barrels from Sarco a couple years ago when they were originally selling for $35/ea he'd be in really good shape to do something like that (unfortunately I only purchased 2). Might be able to get away with around $500 in parts (minus scope) if you stick to inexpensive stuff (bold trigger w/safety, redfield jr one-piece mount, etc.) and you could do all the hand/machine work yourself. If you had 40-60 hours of work into it and could make around $1000 that wouldn't be too bad. Not good enough to do full-time, but pretty nice for a hobby. All that said, I don't know the legalities/technicalities/differences between a guy selling off a couple of his guns that he customized/modified and a "firearm manufacturer" - where you draw that line. The above definitely pushes the limits of the intent of a C&R (buying for your collection). Common sense-wise, I think that once I went beyond selling a couple I'd worry about being perceived as a manufacturer.

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I haven't been around in quite a while. That looks great, FC. I've been thinking about doing the same for quite a while now. My brother and I bought a pair several years ago as well from AIM. He bought a $99 very good condition and I bought a $119 excellent condition. I swear mine looks like it had never been fired - stock even looks brand new without a ding in it. The only reason I haven't put it in a Tapco stock is because it is so nice. I always figured I would just buy another one and customize it, but then the prices started going up. I didn't want to buy one for $150 when my first was only $119, then it went to $199, then $249 and now $249. I've seen them for sale on Armslist and Gunbroker for well over $300 recently (just checked and a couple on GB asking over $400). Century has them right now in good condition for $299.99 and good condition with cracked stock for $279.99. With the prices they are going for I've thought hard about selling mine and gaining a nice profit, but then I wouldn't have one and it would cost me the same to replace it. I really should have bought a couple at the time! Currently I'm thinking that when they get to be the price of an AK then I'll trade it straight up for one. I guess I should just go ahead and do the Tapco stock and larger mag. It requires no alterations, right? So I could keep the original stock to put it back to original later if I wanted?

Beautiful rifle. Nice job.

Thanks. Close up pictures look even better!

Do you have a post on here with the specs for that rifle that you could point me to? If not you should definitely post one. Stainless barrel? Looks like you used some type of spray on finish for the receiver and bottom metal? What about the bolt shroud? I'm curios because I have a pretty nice .30-06 stainless barrel waiting for a build and I wondered what type of finish would look nice on the receiver and all the other parts. And yours looks rather nice. Thanks, Dan

That rifle sure is piling up victims! And she's not bad looking either. Nice job and congratulations.

I have a very similar rifle that I finished recently (well, at least enough to take to the range). I'm using a forged bolt, too, and was thinking that a longer tactical style handle would look and perform great. Thanks for posting your experience - can't wait to try myself.

I'm looking forward to seeing another Carcano project. I'd like to build a pistol-caliber round rifle based on your previous experience and what you discover this time through.

Same here - pipe wrench to remove military or junk barrels. I use a similar setup as Don showed but then put the pipe wrench on the barrel with the handle underneath the vise so it won't turn as I turn the action wrench. A blow with a heavy hammer helps a lot.

Yup - "non matching". Go ahead and have at it then. The sporterizing Gods and the collecting Gods will both approve Hogue stock, Timney trigger are both great in my book. I'm not too hip on the shorter barrels, but it all depends on what you want to do with it - and it's yours so do with it what you want. I've never owned anything in the 18" range - I bet it would make a handy little rifle. With the short barrel and synthetic stock that old 8mm mauser might have a little kick to it

@Jeff H - that describes my outlook exactly. I'm no collector - simply a Mauser sporter enthusiast. Every mauser that I buy is destined to be taken apart and built into a sporter. So like you in most cases I'm only looking for a good action. The barrel can be pitted and look like a sewer pipe. The wood can be dented and broken, etc. All I'm looking for is a good action. I, too, look for the previously sporterized or bubba'd rifles. Those seem to go quite a bit cheaper, at least in online auctions if not at the gun shows.

This is a sporterizing forum and to each his own, but my personal typical "line in the sand" is ... If the numbers all match and there is no obvious damage or defacing (like crest being scrubbed or a Russian capture) and it is in good or better shape then I lean towards leaving it as-is. Condition and the type of Mauser plays a big part, too. If it has a moderately pitted barrel (exterior) or it's a Turk K.Kale it won't normally be much of a collectible piece unless it's some super rare variant. In your case you know it is a VZ24 - not very rare (though getting harder to find). If it is in excellent shape and numbers match then consider trading or selling it to a collector if you don't want to become a collector yourself. You may be able to get enough money to buy two beat up Vz24 or Brazilian 1910 mausers to use as donor rifles. If the VZ24's numbers don't match or it's a little banged up itself then go ahead and use it for your sporter - they make a great platform to build on.

That's a great story and some nice storytelling, too. Thanks for sharing.

The thought of pulling that thing out at the indoor range makes me laugh. That would be awesome.

The two Carcanos turned out really nice. I might have to add something like that to my To-do list, especially if I ever decide to cross the Ohio-Indiana state for deer season.

Same here!

Carl is a beauty. Can't wait to see him all decked out!

Vlad, I agree with rwims. That sounds like an okay price for the barrelled action. It doesn't sound overly too expensive, but I wouldn't be really excited about it either. If I were excited about it then I might not balk at the extra $15. Can't tell you what to do, but if it were me and I already had second thoughts about the purchase and then the seller tried to tag me for extra money for shipping that was supposed to be included then I'd probably walk away.

That's a nice looking rifle. Good job.

I was thinking the same thing after Dr. Hess wrote "AK". A little bit more accuracy than the AK, maybe still half as expensive as an AK, reliable enough.

I just had to post pics of my mockup of my current build. It is a .308 tactical rifle built on a 1908 Brazilian action (DWM manufacture), a Parker Hale bull barrel from Sarco approx 5 years ago, an ATI stock, Burris one-piece mount, Leupold medium rings, cheap bipod, and 4-12x50 AO Simmons ProHunter scope. The bipod will be replaced with a Harris. The scope will be replaced with a Leupold Mark 4 clone. The donor rilfe for the action had a severely beat up stock, a rusty pitted barrel, a lot of dirt and grime and a rock-bottom price to go with it. But the action looked good from the pics and I didn't see any pitting above the woodline and the seller said there was none below so I took a chance. The action cleaned up really nice and the original bluing was still intact without a spot of rust or pitting. The fresh metal look currently on the front ring is me starting to polish it up a little. I got lucky with the fit of the barrel and the headspace. Shank length of the barrel was perfect for the receiver. I screwed the barrel on and headspace was right on. It looks like the ATI stocks were made for these Parker-Hale barrels. All I had to do was open up the channel a tiny bit at the forend and everything dropped right in. With the medium rings the bell of the scope has about 1/8th of an inch of clearance from the barrel. It doesn't look like there is that much in the top pic, but that's because of the Butler Creek front scope cover. With the front scope cover on there is a paper thin clearance. I'm hoping the Leupold scope won't be much bigger in the front bell or else I'll have to go with high rings. I've got everything I need to finish building this one except to have a new bold handle welded and I need to buy a Buehler style safety. I was planning on going with a PME 2 position safety, but the machined shroud that I bought wouldn't even screw on past two threads on this bolt. It would on two other bolts that I had but neither of those bolts headspaced properly on this action. So I decided to stick with the bolt that came with the action (even though it is not numbers matching it fits very well) and forego the shroud already machined for the swing safety. Plus the original bolt had 50% plus contact on the front locking lugs already so it didn't take much work to get up to 90% on each side. I already have a Timney Sportsman trigger from the group buy so the additional cost for the Buehler style safety is minimal. But I might decide to go with a trigger with a side safety and use a commercial style shroud instead. I think it will look much cleaner and appropriate for this build. I'll save the swing safety for the next one. After finishing gathering parts I just need to fit trigger and safety, check feeding, extraction and ejection, prep metal, bed everything, and then all the metal is getting Duracoat flat black. I haven't decided yet if I'll leave the stock flat black or if I'll go with a camo pattern. I'm leaning towards making everything flat black for this one and going with a camo design for the next tactical build. Sorry for the messy workbench. I really had no intentions of taking pics but once I got it all put together I just had to snap a couple with my cell phone and run in here and post them

My two came in today. I had ordered the Mauser 98 Standard ones (http://www.cdnninvestments.com/mauserstocks.html) and I started thinking afterward that I hoped they didn't have military barrel channels. They didn't - they had normal sporter barrel channels. From what I can tell CDNN has them listed under 3 different items and stock numbers (Click Stocks in left hand nav): one for Mauser 98 Standard, one for Charles Daly Mauser 98 and one for Remington 798. They are all Butler Creek stocks and have the same description. As I said I ordered the Mauser 98 Standard, but both mine have "Charles Daly" on the buttpad. My guess is that they are all the same thing. Perhaps the ones listed under Remington 798 say Remington on the buttpad - no idea, maybe someone else can confirm. I cannot say that I'm disappointed because of the price, but I guess I was hoping for a little more. The descriptions say "black soft touch synthetic" and "custom fiberglass resin and smooth surface for comfort". I was hoping for something with a feel more like a Hogue overmolded stock. To me these feel no different than the Ramline or Corelite (now Fajen) stocks that I have. I personally like the feel (texture) of the Choate stock better than any of those three - it feels a little less cheap. I had hoped since these were the same thing as the production stocks that came on the Remingon 798s that they would be a little nicer than what they are. But again for $39.99 each I am still VERY satisfield. These stocks will get the front ends stiffened and filled with foam, they will be bedded and sprayed with textured paint anyway so the end result will be much better than what they are now and they'll end up making a good stock for a hunting rifle. All in all, I think the quality is probably a little better than the Ramline or Corelite stocks that I have (or have seen) and probably around the same as the Choate. The Choate stocks are now going for $90-$100 and the best prices I've seen recently for the Ramline and Corelite/Fajen stocks have been $60-$80. So basically for half the price of the others I'm really happy with it. Just don't expect something on par with McMillan or Hogue Now all 3 items that CDNN has listed include "Will not fit military mausers!" in the description. I guess they're just covering themselves since we all know that nothing is really a drop-in fit. But I dropped a 1908 barreled action that I had sitting on my workbench and it fit fine, though it might need a little bit of material removed under the tang. As others mentioned a slot for the bolt handle has already been cut, they are relieved for a side safety, and they are relieved at the trigger guard with the two notches on each side (for mag release?). So it's not a 100% drop-in fit, but it will definitely work for military mausers if you can live with those things or you don't mind filling them yourself. So don't be afraid to order one if you're looking for a cheap synthetic stock for your next build or just looking to stash one or two away for future builds. I doubt that we'll ever find another stock for this price again. I now have two of these, a Choate and an ATI stock waiting for projects in various phases so I doubt that I'll order any more from CDNN right now. But if they're still around later this summer after I get these builds complete then I might get a couple more to stash away. And speaking of the ATI stocks, I had been planning to use one of the ATI Mauser stocks for a tactical style rifle with one of the Parker Hale bull barrels. I'd been putting the build off while I was finishing some others so I was in no hurry to buy the stock. I figured I would get one when they went on sale somewhere. I decided to go ahead and buy one from Midway last week, but found that it was out of stock and it said "manufacturer discontinued". I checked Brownell's, the ATI site itself and a couple of other places and they all said the same thing and I couldn't find one anywhere. I stumbled across a couple of posts and press releases that said that ATI was discontinuing the stock because of poor sales and mostly because of the issues with it (my guess is the stupid scope mount on the handguard and the stupid screw-in bolt they try to sell with it). I'm hoping that ATI will get rid of the top handguard and maybe redesign the stock a bit, but keep the Steyr Scout Rifle look, and re-release it for 2011, but who knows. I ended up getting lucky and finding one on Auction Arms that someone had used and a very good "Buy it Now" price. Anyway, it you've been thinking of getting one of the ATI stocks but putting it off then you might want to try to hunt one down now - though I have no idea who might still have them in stock. If you do find a store that still has them in stock please let me know as I'd like to buy one more for a future twin to the current tactical rifle build.

I ordered two today. I'll let you know what I think of them when they come in. Sailorman, ken98k - what are your thoughts on they Butler Creek stocks? It seems like every other weekend for the past month or so they've been offering $5.99 shipping for entire order - it is usually $9.99. So you can get two stocks shipped for just under $86.00. I'm wondering if I shouldn't order a couple more. I curse myself for not ordering a couple more of the Parker Hale .308 bull barrels when Sarco had them cheap. Or a couple more of the Swedish Mauser surplus barrels when Sarco had them.

I like it, too. I can't wait to see the main portion of the stock once you've finished it. I'm imagining something bright-colored!