I wanted to share some pics of a rifle build that I have been working on now that it is in the near finished mock-up stage.

A takedown Mauser 98 in .35 Whelen.

I started with an Interterms Mark X rifle in 30.06. Pretty much for just the action and some other odds and ends from it.

I fitted and soldered on a slick claw mount base and ring set from Clawmounts Manufacturing. The bases were machined specifically for the Mark X action. They make these mounts/rings for FN, Interterms, military 98, 96 swede and Win 70 actions. Very high quality product. So when installed it makes a Double Square Bridge action with easily detachable claw mounts on the scope.

I welded on and finish fitted a butterknife style bolt handle onto the bolt body. And installed a Dakota bolt shroud with Win 70 style safety.

The bottom metal with Oberndorf release and double set triggers was sourced complete. I thinned out the guard bow and made/fitted up the screws for it.

The takedown mechanism is a very simple one of my own design that utilizes two steel plates tightly fitted together and attached to steel lugs on the bottom of both the action and the barrel. The barrel lug houses a spring loaded check ball which aids in locating the plates and also a plunger tube that extended out to the forend tip. Inside the plunger tube is a plunger that is spring loaded and is retained in a "J" shaped channel in the tube. Kind of like a tubular magazine on .22 rifle. The end of the plunger has a thin slot in it which allows a turn-screw to be used to twist and pop out the plunger or push it in and turn to lock it in. When the plunger is popped out, the barrel and forend are screwed off the action.

Obviously a precise fit of the plunger pin through the two plates is critical for maintaining headspace. The plunger pin is lapped through both plates. Between that and the tight fit of the plates. There is NO movement of the barrels on the action when locked down.

I will end up making a special 90 degree angle wrench for operating the plunger when all is staid and done.

The stock is english walnut.

I will next be mounting a barrel band swivel to it and open sights on the barrel.

All the metal will be engraved with just tasteful line borders and some accents of scroll. The majority of the metal will be Rust blued and I might do some accents of case color on some small parts.

The Plunger and escutcheon will be blued so that it will cleanly blend right in with the Ebony forend tip.

NICE work!

Thanks for showing your rifle project B. Very nice work, interesting, and a great set of pictures.

Very nice
Well done, well done
Thank you for sharing.
Mike

Very nice work, and well thought-out.

Super! Like that take-down device very much.

Who says "they don't make 'em like they used to"? Clean. Classic. Do-it-all caliber on a take-it-anywhere rifle. Bravo!

Wonderful craftsmanship!

I know, not many rifles are being built like this today. And modern builders seem to forget that a lot of it was done in the early 1900s.

The only work on this rifle i did not do was the finish chambering. I had a gunsmith friend of mine who is a rifle guy do it for me. When i asked him before hand about doing it and telling him about the project, he gave me the usual "well... I dont know about that..." And such. But then when he actually saw the design and how simple/sturdy it was, he simply said "Yeah... This WILL work."

That is a very good looking rifle and thank you for the inspiration BD. I have a very nice project coming along and one of my thoughts was a take down (just because I don't have a take-down). The project is a Brno 22H action fitted with an 06 cal., octagon to round with integral rib & front sight Oberndorf barrel. Should be a unique firearm when and if I ever get it done. Anyway thanks for posting the pics. --- John

Very nice. The KISS principle at it's best. Thanks for sharing your work and design.
Thaine

Ah but there is a gunnys heaven. Brian, I looked for years to find a young guy who wanted to build rifles and stock guns in the way I was taught in the 1950's. Nobody seemed to have the patience including my own son who could care less about a custom stock and checkering by hand but by some quirk of fate is a Master cabinet and furniture maker. Great job as is all your work that I have seen on the double guns. Regards1 Lee M.

You certainly deserve some stars for this project. I'd love
to see what is going on underneath the forend and I'd love
to hear how it does at the range. Does it remain sighted in
when the barrel is removed and put back on?

Here is a picture of a group from my first firing of the rifle in the stage that it is pictured at. Shots were taken at 50 yards without doing much work to zero the scope in.

Brian,
You are doing some exceptional work. I would have another look at the inletting around the bolt handle though. It appears very tight and may interfere with the wood after the stock is finished and the action seats in after firing. It'll drive accuracy crazy. But, it's a really nice job and keep up the good work. Thanks for posting.

The bolt handle is pretty close to the stock. When I first started this build, I had completely different plans for scope and mounting so I installed the bolt handle to be super low. But everything in regards to the scope system changed as things went on. If I were to do it again, I would have had the handle out farther and not even be insetted into the wood at all.

I just got photos back from my engraver of the work on the takedown mauser. So I will share them here. I pretty much left it all up to my engraver (Geoffrey Gournet) to decide on what do put on it. I had some specifics in regards to the matting on the bridges and the rings, but other than that I just told him I wanted some tasteful border work that went along with the lines of the action. I did not want anything over the top at all.





















[img]http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag104/dudleybm/Shroud_zpsfrnwzzam.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag104/dudleybm/Safe_zpsezygjlbx.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag104/dudleybm/front%20ramp%20matting_zps69m3i7va.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag104/dudleybm/Rear%20sight%20matting_zps8qmfyotj.jpg[/img]

Pretty nice rifle. I'm wondering if you can see thru the scope when your cheek is on the stock? Seems high to me. How will the iron sights work out?

The stock comb height is set to work well with the open sights. As with most any German claw mount rifle, the head would habe to be lifted some to use the scope.

The other four

Brian,
Re: the height of the scope. Claw mounted scopes can be much lower, but to do so the front ring has to be on the bell of the scope. This means the front base would have to be on the barrel. They could not make "standard" mounts to fit, then. The front of the scope would hit the barrel in tipping it off, otherwise.

I know there are varying heights of claw mounts, but based on the ones that I have owned, of varying heights, none are low enough so that there is no change in position to use either open sights through rings or the scope.

As it is with this high setup, I cannot use larger than a 33mm scope in order to clear the barrel when installing. And it still has to be a stubby weaver style profile.

Any idea what it would cost to convert a Mauser to a takedown if you were doing this as a business?

Not really sure at this time. I am sure it could be done with the addition of similar parts that were built for this rifle. Or a variation there-of. I think the easiest way to do a basic takedown conversion would be using a Jeffrey style thumb screw in the receiver ring.