Briman

Put a mark on your case with a permanant marker and put the case in the magazine with the mark facing up. The relationship of the scratch to the mark will give you a pretty good idea where its coming from.

My bet would be on the receiver rails- the shape of these are really critical on a mauser action to how cartridges feed from the magazine. You might want to take the rifle apart and lightly dress the underside and edges of the receiver rails (the part of the receiver that the cartridges sit under in the magazine) with a stone or polishing wheel on a dremel tool to slick it uip a bit.

Long throat? Don't worry about it. The throats in the military rifles are long and tapered. I haven't seen an 8mm yet that I can seat a bullet anywhere near the rifling, and that includes a cream-of-the-crop Persian mauser that looked like it had never been fired. Just seat your bullets out so that you have 1 caliber depth of seating (bullets seated .323" deep). The rifle isn't made to be a tack driver, but there is no reason that a mauser in decent shape won't shoot 2moa with careful handloading and a good sight picture.

Getting the gray gunk out? As long as the barrel isn't grabbing and tearing patches, the barrel should be ok. I wouldn't be overly worried about getting all of the gunk out, just shoot it, then clean it while its hot, then repeat. Eventually the barrel will get pretty clean, but will probably look grayish on the inside instead of shiny. This doesn't hurt much, but the barrel might foul up a little quicker. If its tearing or grabbing patches, you migt want to try some brasso or JB bore paste. this stuff will take out much of the fouling and smoothen up the baller a bit, but it also removes some metal- to me its ok to use on a $100 rifle for an initial cleaning, but I don't use it on more expensive stuff.

Briman

Firing pin strike-
Did you take the bolt completely apart and clean it before firing? A little grease or cosmoline inside of the bolt and on the firing pin spring can slow the firing pin up alot. Take the whole works apart, and soak it in mineral spirits overnight or boil it in water, then clean with a pistol brush, oil lightly and reassemble.

BTW how does it shoot?

For powders, give 4895, 3031, or 4064 a try with 170ish grain bullets- they all work well with bullets of this weight.

charlie brown

8mm/06- I put a pic of the last group I did with the rifle on another thread that I asked about. I am going to go out again today though and see what I can do.

Charley- I have spent close to 4 hours total scrubbing all parts of the gun, including taking the bolt apart and cleaning the cosmoline out of that also, though I have not boiled it or put it in mineral spirits, only used Hoopes #9 and that seems to remove stuff pretty well (Briman). The shavings are brass, from the case.

Briman- I found out about where the scratch is coming from by doing as you suggested. It is coming AFTER the case if free of the magazine, as it is on its way into the chamber, and is on the "bottom" of the case in relation to the rifle as the case and rifle are sideways. Only problem right now with polishing the reciever rails, is I can't get the magazine release open!!! I don't know if it is rusted shut or what, but it is locked pretty tight in there.

Briman- I have never expected this rifle to shoot MOA at all, but right now, I am getting 2.5" plus at 25 yds!! Though I think I may be able to cure this slightly with the way I hold the rifle. The butt plate is slipping in my shoulder, and could very easily be causing the larger groups. The barrel is not grabbing patches, but every time I soak it with Hoppes #9, I can run 5 or 6 through the bore and have them come out black. Then when they come out at least to a light gray again, I repeat, by soaking the brass brush in solvent and then running through the bore 5 or 6 times and repeat.

HOW DOES IT SHOOT? Here ya go- 25 yds. You can see the two that are up and to the left. The rifle slips down and to my right, so this could be causing the group size, but the rifle doesn't slip every time I fire it, just every couple of shots or so.



My loads right now (and open to other suggestions) are a 175 gr Sierra Pro Hunter on top of 49 grs of IMR 4350 with CCI 200 Primers inside Remington Brass.

Here are the results from my chronograph taken on 6/5/04 in Elko, Nevada. 5000 ft Elevation, 70 degrees, no (or very slight) wind.

1) 2222
2) 2182
3) 2174
4) 2163
5) 2176
6) 2169
7) 2211
8) 2202
9) 2141
10) 2208

Average Velocity=2185 fps, Extreme Spread=81 fps, Average Deviations from Average Velocity=25 fps

I mainly would like to make this a 150 yard or so deer gun, and I think it will be possible with a little TLC, time, and some elbow grease

Judson

If you want a shooter why not rechamber to 8mm/06 or better yet have the rifle rebarreled? It seems like you are flogging a dead horse, put a new barrel on that 98 and alittle work and you will end up with a real shooter with out the problems.

8mm/06

Sounds like you've cleaned it ad nauseum. Unless those scratches are putting HUGE creases in your brass I wouldn't worry about that now. I'd focus on it's accuracy before deciding to spend more time and money. If my guess is correct, your group at 25 yards was around a 3-4" group about 5 " high of center. The high of center doesn't concern me at all but 3-4 inches at 25 yards is not acceptable - even for iron sights- not if you plan to hunt with it. If you just want it as a piece of history to burn some ammo now and then no problem. Unless you are willing to diagnose and rectify the poor accuracy I'd find another Mauser for a project gun. If you don't mind swapping the barrel you would be starting fresh-almost. I'd question reamiong it to another wildcat because of your accuracy and the darkness and dirtiness of the barrel. heck, for another $100 you might be able to find a decent Mauser at a show that has a brighter and tighter barrel that throws respectable groups without any playing around. Another option is to find another VZ24 Mauser with a great barrel and keep your other for a parts gun.

Briman

Floor plate- What I do is use a 1' section of an old brass cleaning rod. Use a punch and a hammer to tap on the release button to loosen it a little first. Then Stand the rifle up on its butt, push the brass cleaning rod into the button release hole (or use any other suitable stiff narrow rod) and strike it sharply with a hammer in a direction parallel with the rifle- it might take 3 hands to do this as you need to keep pressure on the release button at the same time.


How does the muzzle crown look? Is the rifling sharp at the muzzle or rounded off and/or dinged up?


As far as shooting and sight picture goes:
With the iron sights on these rifles, you need a very consistant cheekweld to shoot accurately. Shoulder the rifle, grasp the wrist of the stock, then put your head down on the stock and use a knuckle on your thumb as a reference point I rest my cheekbone right alongside the first knuckle of my thumb the same way every time, this is similar to and just as important as establishing a consistant anchor point when shooting archery. Sights- focus on the front sight- the front sight should look sharp (I know its hard with the rounded pointy sight) , the rear sight and the target should look blurry.

charlie brown

Well, I went out again yesterday to shoot it again. I shot only at 25 yds again, as the wind was blowing 15 mph steady and gusting to 30+!!! I did find one thing out, though, the rifle is consistent with the loads I have, though they are not very accurate. I shot 5 shots again and the group looked almost identical to the one before. There has also been some talk lately on the boards about groups at 25 yds, where is the bullet at 100?? It has been said that a bullet takes some time to stabilize after leaving the muzzle, so I may actually get some different results farther down range? Who knows, I will have to wait until the wind doesn't blow and see what it does, now that I know I can at least get it on paper.

8mm/06- I have been looking around for another mauser with a decent barrel on it, and there is only one place in town that has them shipped in. I know one of the managers and he is having a hard time getting one shipped to him. I have thought about trying ebay, but I have no way to be sure the barrel is in any better condition than the one I have now!! I have not put a large amount of money into this gun at all. $60 for the gun, plus the dies to reload, 100 bullets, and 50 brass. I think I will still try a little more with maybe a different powder or bullet and see what that does.

Judson- The way the bore looks, I wouldn't want to even bother with rechambering. If I am going to have a gun rechambered, I will just go all out and have a whole new barrel put on and sporterized the whole thing.

Briman- I think I have the sight picture figured out, as I have been able to print similar groups two days in a row that have had varrying weather conditions. Thanks for the idea with the floor plate (couldn't think of the word earlier). The muzzle crown isn't in much better condition than the rest of the rifle. I can't really see much of the rifling at all, and there are a couple of dings on the very end of the muzzle.

Briman

Mausers tend to be finicky about loads put through them- I would work up a load to the maximum loading at .5gr increments- at least 5 rounds of each loading. For some reason, most of my 8mms can change in group size drastically with a .5 gr difference in powder when you hit its sweet spot. On the other hand my 6.5 mms seem to shoot just about anything I put through the rifles well.

If your muzzle is rough or worn, you'll need to recrown it. Looking straigh on at the muzzle, the bore should look like a square with rounded sides, not like a circle. Alot of wear has been put on these rifles from cleaning the bore with jointed cleaning rods while cleaning from the muzzle end of the rifle. There's a quick, easy and cheap way to recrown the rifle:
Take a Brass roundheaded bolt or screw that has a head about twice the diameter of the muzzle (i've also used iron carriage bolts before I found a good sized brass screw) plug the muzzle tightly with some cleaning patches, put some valve grinding paste (can be found at any automotive store) on the bolt head and chuck the shank up in a drill (use a drill press if you have one, but a handdrill work work if you are careful) and using the bolt grind away at the muzzle face- go slow and don't apply too much pressure, you want to rotate the drill around from side to side a bit to get an even cut. What you should be left with is a slightly dished crown with fresh sharp rifling coming up to the surface. Push the patches out from the breach end and clean the barrel, if your crown was damage, this should make the rifle significantly more accurate.

If the rifle is counterbored- the muzzle end looking like a smoothbore (drilled out) for the first 1/2' to 1" at the muzzle, then recrowning probably won't help much.