Frank46

Try Liberty Tree Collectors for your missing parts after trying Springfield Sporters. They ain't cheap by any means they just may have what you need though. Frank

Bought one 1937 vz-24 action from a gunsmith buddy almost 40 years ago about time I did something with it. I used to buy junker military rifles for their actions. swede mauser, 1895 chilean mauser,1917 enfield (two winchesters) a moisin, and possible others. Usually if the bbl is beyond hope salvaging you sometimes can cut a deal as a parts rifle. Don't throw anything away. I keep all the unused parts in freezer bags and write what parts they came off of. Case in point, siamese mauser no cartridges available so got it for $100. Sold the stock and all metal for $100 so basically the action was free. Bubba'd rifles also sometimes come up for sale relatively cheap so if its an action make a deal with that in mind. I once paid $50 for a cadet martini actioned rifle. bbl was totally trashed ended up paying $75 for that one. Funny thing about that rifle was the action and wood was in perfect condition. just thebore of the bbl was trashed. I could go on but I think you get the idea. Good actions to look for are persian 8mm, 1909 argentine, my personal favorite vz-24, RC mausers and mausers made before 1943-44 as quality control was slipping badly. Frank

Just a thought, I had one of these some years back and was an excellent shooter. Having said that you just may find that your is too and we all know what that means. Back to the search for another rifle for your project. Have fun, Frank

WhenI lived in New york I had just about given up on finding a decent krag that I could afford. Most were in bad shape except for a few really nice ones. Course the nice ones went for big$$$. Went to a small local show out on Long Island. Nothing there that called out to me. Getting ready to call it a day and spotted a chopped up 1898 Krag rifle. Bore looked decent, stock had a 1900 cartouche, and the rear sight was the later 1901 with the sergants peep. Best price was only $180. So she came home with me. I swear the more I cleaned that rifle the deeper the lands became. Must have spent at least a good solid week cleaning and scrubbing. wasn't casting bullets at the time but at another show bought ten boxes rem 180gr round nosed ammo for 14$ a box. Front sight was a commercial job on a ramp. Bead was hard to see. Had a wedler buddy drop a brass drop of brazing wire on the existing bead and i cleaned it up. Krag would keep most shots within 3" at 100yds. When I get to starting again with cast bullets I expect to do better. Frank

Pretty sure it was in the sporterizing section. I carefully looked at his work and concluded that it would be a workable solution. If you look on the russian target rifles, you will notice that the root of the bolt handle is almost dovetailed into the lug on the right side of the bolt body. That and lowering the right sidewall allowed the bolt handle to clear the sight stem on what looked like a lyman 57 which was mounted on the left side of the receiver. Unfortunatly could not figure out which model 57 sight he used. Frank

There is a gent that goes by the handle "Buckshot" that made up a action wrench such as you need. Go over to castboolits@gunloads.com and get on the castboolits site. You could post this in the military rifles section sooner or later he'll answer your post. He's great at making oddball H&I dies for the lyman luber sizer as well. I do know he made up an action wrench for the krag as I have seen photos of it. And action wrenches for these rifles don't just grow on trees. Hope this helps. Frank

There was a photo on surplusrifles.com. Redid the bolt handle like the russian target rifle and slightly lowered the right sidewall at the rear of the receiver. If I remember right he used a lyman 57 and the way he did it the bolt handle cleared the sight stem easily. Frank

does anyone know where I might be able to buy a persian 8mm barrel. I like to shoot cast bullets and bore condition is extremely important. Thanks, Frank

Hornady also makes a .312 diameter bullet also, actually two bullets. One is a 150grain spire point and the other is a 185 grain round nosed bullet. Hope this helps. Frank

Don, this may sound funny but some years back I bought some argentine FM 7.65x54 sporting ammunition. Figured it would chamber in my '91 argie. Nope, nada and zilch. Lotta head scratching going on. Dug out a military cartridge in the same caliber and there is a difference. So dumped the powder after measuring the weight of the powder charge, resized all 75 cases and trimmed to 7.65x53 reduced the powder charge by 5 grains and reseated the soft points that were origionally loaded. I believe that there was an article in guns and ammo some years back where the author had a argentine mauser in the 53mm length and had tried to load and shoot 54mm length ammo. Said he had talked to the company he got the rifle from. They were aware of the problem but couldn't do anything about it. I make my 7.65x53 cases from some old 1955 Israeli 8mm I bought back before the flood. Since I have a form and trim die in this caliber its not much of a problem to make cases in this caliber. I believe that the writer was using a 1909 argentine mauser at the time. Frank

Actually there is one barrel that you could use that's about 50 to 80 bucks at this time. Try an locate one of the israely 1919a4 308 barrels. The two I have have beautiful bores. they are about 24" long and about 1.250 in diameter. Cut off the chambered section about 2" and this would allow you a steel tube 22" long with a 30 cal bore and make a 300 savage rifle out of your '91. There is aposter on gunboards who is selling swedish rifle barrels in 6.5x55 one is a heavy barrel in the 6.5x55 cartridge cut it down from the muzzle to lets say 24" and away you go. Just a thought. Frank

Jim, thanks for the info. Guess sarco will be getting some phone calls soon, Frank

Dirty jim, where did you get the 7mm madsen bbl, what shape was the bore in and if you do not mind how much did it set you back?. Frank

Seem to remember something like this going on with lee shaver. gent had a rolling block in for work and ended up going through the districk attorney's office or something similar. Had sent registered letters, return receipt requested before he even got a reply. He did have the work completed on his rifle but was still mad because he had to go through all the legal wrangling before he got any results. And this was posted on the graybeard outdoors forums. From what I understand Mr. Shaver no longer does gunsmithing. But I also could be wrong. Frank

On one of the forums I frequent I received a message from a friend in australia. Some of the old timers used to run two screws from the inside of the #4 stock. The ends of the screws would bear upon the buttscokket which would increase pressure against the backside of the trigger housing draws. The amount of tension could be controlled by screwing the screws in or out. Has anyone heard of this and how successful was it? Frank

Gun Parts and Sportmenasguide both carried the norwegian kongburg barrels. Just pulled mine out of the wrapper yesterday. Nice clean bore sharp rifling. Should make a fine project. The bolt will have to get reworked so as to clear the scope. But then everyone else will have to do the same thing. Will glas bed the receiver ring and first 1" of the barrel and some glass bedding on the receiver at the rear. Make up some kind of higher cheekpiece to accomodate the higher line of sight. i have a cherry vz24 stock that I've been sitting on just for a project. Thanks, Frank

Since we are talking about P14's and M1917's and all the great work that has been showcased here I kinda feel like a piker. All I want is for someone to remove a good P14 bbl from a bubba'd P14 receiver and install it oon a stock unmolested receiver. Reason, have been wanting a P14 with good bbl in 303 british for shooting cast bullets. Have most of the parts, blonde stock, missing the two upper hand guard stocks and barrel bands. Leave the ears alone stick in a set of winchester sight ladder and reassemble. The receiver that's to be rebarreled is in nice condition, except for scattered pitting on the wood line and across the receiver ring. Both rifles are marked EY but one receiver is in poor condition and the other is in nice shape.No blueing would be needed because the origional finish matches up pretty good. Should be a fairly simple job. If fact you could cut the receiver itself instead of using a lathe with cutter to make the cut on the circumference of the bbl. The barreled receiver is in poor condition. Oh and set the head space something like .04thousandths instead what its normally set for. So for the above it looks like maybe a one week to do all that and fit a good P14 mag box, one that hasn't been ground down or welded on. Frank

Scott, I was sure I had seen this in some gun magazine or book but couldn't remember (CRS) where. So did the best next thing. Wrote it out as I would have done it. Pretty sure that in essence what I typed should give you a good idea as to how it should go. Lotta guessing, figuring, fitting, filing and probably cussing as well. I had planned to do something like this years ago when these rifles were cheap. But never could find someone who could do the tig welding. So now that these rifles aren't cheap anymore decided that they look better with the full mag. I can't hunt anymore, but love to punch paper. Have two cutdown 91's. Both with iron sights. Have fun, Frank

Forgot one thing, When you tig weld the trigger guard where the lock screw and locking bar and spring were you'll have to file down any weld. You should try to maintain the same contours on the front of the trigger guard and where the locking bar and spring was in the front of the guard itself. This will leave a sharply defined slant where the mag slid up into the mag well. you can leave it this way or choose to round off the curve and thin the width of the trigger guard bow. I'd try and keep the width of the trigger guard bow slightly more than the width of the inletted section of the trigger guard unit. To get really crazy you could install steel or aluminium pillars and pillar bed the action. But since the origional trigger guard screws had a liner in the stock and if you don't remove them then pillar bedding becomes a moot point. Glass the recoil lug and receiver ring andmaybe the rear and underside of the tang. But that should be that. FRank

There is a way to do a blind magazing conversion. Just depends how much of the work you can do yourself, and how much work has to be farmed out.Take the trigger guard, cut and remove the mag lock screw assemble, remove the mag locking bar and spring. tig weld the holes left by the screw and the holes left by the mag locking bar and spring. Tig these holes as well as the one in the trigger guard. Get a piece of cold rolled steel and cut itto slightly the same dimensions as the opening left by the origional magazing. This in effect becomes the floor plate for your new blind maagazine. Next you will have to remove the follower and its spring, then remove the floor platelifter and curved spring from the floor plate. Cut off the bottom of the magazine it wont be used any more. Then with the magazine firmly in place as if the magazine was still the way cartridges were stored and fed into the chamber. Measure the distance from the inside where you can get a rule even with the fees lips on either side of the magazine. since you have already cut off the bottom of the magazine and managed to get a fairly straight cut. That tells you just how deep your now cut up mag is. remove mag. reinstall reworked trigger guard assembly so that action is now inside the inletting in the stock. Use both screws to hold reworked trigger guard into the bottom of the stock. Measure the distance from the bottom of the trigger guard to approximately where the feed lips on the mag would be. At this poing using this dimension you can cut away some more of the mag. This is going to be a cut until it fits type of deal.as you get close to where the fit approximates where a normal mag would be you may have to resort to the use of files to fine tune your fitting. When you get the fit with the action and trigger guard are snug, take the now reworked mag. fabricate and install a new floor plate and tigweld floorplate onto magazine. Suggest that the piece you cut and weld should be fitted to go inside the magazine only as far as to completely necessary and tig weld the floorplate. For the follower which is basically nothing more than a flat piece of metal make up anew one slightly wider and longer. Take a 98 mauser mag spring and grind one side a little at a time so you get a nice friction fir. Drill two holes through the floorplate and spring set up as a unit. One hole near the front of the floorplate and the second about a 1/2" from the front. tap these holes 8x32 from the bottom and set two 8x32 screws into these holes. Cut off the protruding screw stock thats above the top of the follower. Polish the top of the follower to lessen friction. The screws will hold the top leaf of the 98 spring up against the follower, Its a lot of cutting, welding. I choose tig welding so as to lessen the chances of anything warping as the heat is localized. You might want to make a jig to hold the trigger guard in place because you have two thin rails where the mag passed through. Have a good tig welder make you a nice mannlicher schoenaur bolt handle and welt it out from the stock. This way you won't have to carve a great big slot for it in the stock. Bead blast the action,barrel,blind gag box, follower and spring and whatever else you want, leave the bolt polished or engine turned your choice. D&T for whatever iron sights you will be using, clean up any burrs from the D&T operation then blue the beast. Hopefully you will have a three round mag maybe two. Load one up the spout two in the mag and away you go. Its still a lot of work even to get a blind mag conversion to work. Lotta cutting, grinding, filing not to mention weldingBut you should have a 1891 argentine with a bling mag where there once was a five round mag. easier to carry with your hands around the balance point (action) OK my fingers are tired. Check it out and see what you think. Frank

Been giving this some more thought. One way is do a blind magazine conversion similar to what remington does on some of their 700's. The other way is a little more involved. But there is a problem as the 91 mag doesn't use a regular mauser type follower spring. Here is what I think would work. First off cut off the mag locking screw located just next to the front of the trigger guard, tig weld over this screw and finish the area like the front. Next remove the locking bar and spring, tig weld the hole in the trigger guard and where the locking bar was. Add extra weld and file it down even with the slope on the front of the guard bow. Find a piece of metal that will fit inside the opening where the mag was and tig weld and finish. Measure the distance from the inside of the now finished mag well to the inlet in the action where the mag goes. Cut the mag in two horizontally. Trim the bottom until you get the required distance measurement. Do not weld at this time. Get a 98 mauser follower spring and another piece of metal that will become the new follower. Measure and cut or file so that it approximates the origional follower that came with the mag. Grind the 98 mauser spring to just fit freely inside both sections of the mag. Tape them together so you can see how it fits. Then take the new follower you made drill two holes through both the spring and follower. Drill and tap 8x32 through the new follower. screw two 8x32 screws (make sure they are steel.) file or grind whatever part of the screws that protrude through the follower. Then polish the top of the follower. Tig weld the two halves of the mag together. Almost forgot, you'll have to remove the lifter and spring and reshape the mag so it will fit inside the space on the inside of the blanked off trigger guard. I suggested tig welding as you should get little or no warping due to the welding. Stick or oxy all bets are off. Tig is much cleaner and heat is localized. Now after saying all this, I think the blind mag setup should work and be way less labor intensive. Course you'll still have to fabricate a filler plate to fill the space the mag goes through, cut flush and tig weld the mag retention screw, and fill in the holes where the locking bar and spring are in the guard bow. And I think you should be able to use the origional stock. Should have 2-3 round capacity. If you decide to use the blind mag idea don't trash the mag. Thats the liner you'll be making for your stock. You need to make sure that the front of the mag where the feed portion butts up against the feed ramp on the action is a good fit. Otherwise you could end up shaving brass off the cases or getting the bullet stuck. Have seen one or two that didn't quite make a good fit and did shave brass.. Think I got it all. Lots of work, but if you are handy you should be able to get the blind mag fitted and working. Hope this helps. My fingers are tired. Frank

Don't think it can be done. First off the stock is to "thin" not enough meat where the magazine would go. Second id the bottom of the receiver helps align the magazine so that it is in the proper position and then you have the magazine retaining screw with the lug that captures the slot on the front of the magazine. And if you look at a small ringed mauser action the standard magazine comes up from the bottom and the back part of this magazine has to have a space milled out for it. And that brings us back to the wood on the bottom of the stock where the single stack magazine for the '91 mauser is. A lot of folks who shoot these rifles like them just the way they are as even though they have the 5 round single stack mag sticking out still find it easy to carry with the hand being just in front of the mag. I don't think you are going to gain anything useful by converting to the mauser type magazine box versus the 5 round single stack mag. This is not meant as a condemation of your project. It just serves as maybe why it shouldn't be done. Now having said all this watch out, someone will come online and say here is my conversion of a '91 mauser to a standard mauser type box magazine. I'm not saying it can't be done. Just my 2 cents worth. Frank

I've a 1938 vz24 receiver has some minor pitting at the wood line. But there is a couple big ones on the receiver ring. My plans were to get installed a kongsberg 7.62x51 barrel installed. Globe target sight up frong and probably get a lyman steel 57 for the rear sight. Won a bid on ebone for a really nice vz24 stock. no handguard. The stock is cherry. Few dents but nothing some hard work couldn't fix. sand down the stock, glass bed the receiver and about the first inch or so of the barrel. Think I'll leave it at its origional length. If I could figure out some what to get a mount for either a redfield olympic or international I'd be even happier. I can get the receiver bead blasted and that would take care of the worse pitting except whats on the receiver ring. Or just say the heck with it and blast it and get it blued Have had this receiver for years.always could go to plan B and swap out all the action parts and put them on my WWI JP Sauer& Sonn receiver dated 1916. also has the 1920 overstrike. Ah well what to do. Any suggestions??? And who could do the tig welding safe enough so's the entire receiver does not have to go reheatreatment??. Thanks Frank

Since you've already decided on the 6.5x55 (great choice by the way) I'll just stick in my 2 cents worth. 375/06 plenty of bullet weights from 200 to 300 grains to play with. Cast bullets as well. Just like the 375 caliber in just about any flavor. Happy New Year all. Frank

ok here is my .02cents. Have no problem with the 6.5x55 swedish mauser. Great cartridge actually. Don't chortchange your self by getting a slower twist than let's say a standard 1896 barrel. I think they run about 1x7.8 or something similar. That fast twist is for the 160gr round nosed bullet. That bullet is renown for its accuracy, penetration and power. But if you only plan on shooting bullets of less than 140grains and below. Than a slower twist tube should serve you well. I was thinking 1x9 or 1x10 for the lighter bullets. And get a recessed target crown cut while the smith has it in the lathe. Will protect the rifling at the muzzle from dings and dents. Hope this helps. Course if you are thinking about a heavier caliber loot at the 7mm mauser. Here you can go up to 175 grains. another power house of a bullet. And recoil isn't that much than the 6.5x55 swedish mauser, I have a 1895 chilean mauser action in very fine shape. One of these days will have to get a 7mm tube for it. If only to shoot cast bullets. Frank