This is what we do. We convert an old military '98 mauser into the gun of your dreams and the caliber of your choice .
We started off with an old action we found for this project. It turned out to be a Spanish Mauser and came in a box with a bunch of miscellaneous parts so we assembled enough parts to have a working action.
Below are two photos of a Spanish '98 waiting to be molded into a new rifle.
The next photos below show some of the steps to take the above action from start to finish into a beautiful action and finally into a beautiful rifle.
The action has a more modern appearance with the thumb groove filled in, the stripper clip slot filled in, the insigna ground off, and the ridge at the rear of the magazine ground off. This allows a factory scope mount to be used and makes the action more sleek in appearance.
We have polished out the grinding marks and you can see we added a new bolt handle that will clear the scope. We cut off the old bolt handle, weld on a different one, and shaped it to the style desired. There are many choices available, this particular handle has a raised checkered panel on both the top and bottom of the knob. Notice how smooth the action looks!
The trigger guard is beginning modification here, the locking screw holes have been filled in and the front of the trigger guard is being ground away to provide a nice uniform looking guard. The factory markings have also been removed from the base of the guard. All markings are removed from the floor plate as well.
In the pictures below you can see that we elected to shorten the bolt handle a little bit and grind off the raised checkering panels. We also installed a new bolt shroud and a new trigger with a side mount safety. The barrel was threaded and chambered as a 22-250 Ackley Improved and installed. It is a Kreiger barrel, 1 in 14 twist, .224 caliber.
We added a small piece of metal along the tang of the action to fill in the void that would be visible when the metal was mated to the stock. The action is then polished to a high sheen and ready for bluing.
Here is a version of a custom break we can do. This one works so well that there was actually muzzle drop, not jump so we added a couple ports on the underside of the barrel to even out the muzzle blast.
Once the metal work was semi-complete we started on the wood work. We had a block of red lace maple that we decided to use on this project. It had some bark inclusions and some knots that all present their own type of problems but the first photo shows the block of wook cut into the outline of a stock.
We then clamped the stock into a vertical mill and cut the basic action shape and a slot for the barrel.
You can see there is a lot of wood to remove but the barrel and action are in place!
Starting to grind and sand it to the final shape.
The opposite side with the cheek piece now starting to take shape.
This is a skeleton pistol grip with a deer track visible. You can see that the trigger guard has been glass bedded and so have the barrel and action. This was done prior to the final shaping and sanding.
First coat of finish going on the final shape. Tru-Oil is the finish used. Notice how nice the grain of the wood is brought out already in this piece of wood, even with only one coat of finish.
Pistol grip checkering. The diamond in a different direction adds a unique look.
Starting the forend checkering. The fiddleback almost looks as if it is floating in the finish. It ends up with four diamonds in the final pattern with the two side diamonds connected on the bottom.
Still not complete with the forend but you can see the overall effect.
Here it is, the final product waiting to be blued.
The custom pistol grip with the visible deer track turned out nice.
The final checkering on the forend shows in this picture.
The bluing is nice and dark! We tried a spiral jeweling of the bolt that looks very unique as well.
Once again, the wonderful thing of a custom gun, you can have it the way you want it!!!!