doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com H. Barella 7x57 Mauser - Tight Chamber?

The horn forearm tips that cover the ends of the stocks seem to be a feature of German stock making. I have an 03 Springfield with G&H metalwork and an anonymous Germanic stock fairly similar to these. It has this tip treatment. Michael Petrov called it a NYC rifle, saying there were several German makers there in the 20's and 30's whose work was unsigned. Its lines aren't up to the quality of these. I'd like to see some info on Barrella.

Here are the bulk of choices from the script EW:

Edmund Wagner

Ernst Wagner

Ernst Weigand

Ernst Werner

Ernst Wolf

Ewald Wolf

I believe Baumgarten has an W. Eblen with the script EW. My vote would be from either Ernst Wolf or more likely Ewald Wolf. After the Wolf mechanics, I'd lean toward Ernst Werner. We've(Royal We) been chasing those odd Script Rs in a brace for a time. That denotes the tube & tubeset work. Not sure who owns those just yet.

Cheers,

Raimey
rse

This treatment sounds interesting, does anyone know of a tutorial on how it was done?

If it belonged to me I would modify brass before altering the gun. Check with your chamber cast and even better a fresh case painted with machinist marking dye. Tight spot will show up as the dye rubs off

How depends on where it's tight. Check the neck first several ways to alter neck dimensions mostly turning with readily available hand neck turners. If the body is tight use sizing dies, CH4D will have on hand or make correct dies. If the tight spot is near the web, dies won't reduce solid brass. The cases can be reduced in size in a lathe.

I have a 25 Kraig that needs about .002 removed from cases just in front of the rim to chamber properly. Lot easier to turn cases than run the chamber reamer in the barrel and no chance to run the rifle.

Boats

like Boats I also have a rifle that needs the brass reduced just a bit in front of the rim on my 5.6x50R.
No Lathe so a very light touch with a fine file and final touch with fine paper until it will just chamber ok.
S & B cases fit only just but not RWS.

Fact that you can close the bolt tells me the case is just a bit too large. Factory ammo is not all that consistent either are gun chambers, particularly old calibers like 7x57. Who knows what a German gunsmith used for a reamer 100 years ago. May solve it by switching brass.

Opening up the chamber requires pulling the barrel, not something I would do to a nice gun like that.

Boats

I appreciate all the input - very helpful My plan is to take it slow and adapt the ammunition to the gun.

Raimey - I appreciate the info on who E.W. might be. Thank you.

The germanhuntingguns.com website has the best information on the history of the H. Barella firm - http://www.germanhuntingguns.com/archives/archive-barella/

Ken

Yeah, Larry does a lovely effort/job on propagating the info collected by Dietrich Apel. Huge learning curve I'm sure.....

http://www.dutchmanwoodworks.com/


Cheers,

Raimey
rse

Very nice pair Ken.
I checked first to see that it wasn't a Delta L problem
Being that isn't the case, a very simple approach might be to grind a few thou off a case holder. Cheaper than new dies and would solve the problem of a short chamber.
Blueprint the fired case and see how the dimensions align with the standard 7x57.
Afterward try and resize the fired case a little at a time and see where the die hits it. At least you will know where the issue is.

Cheers,

Tom

I have "painted" sticky cases with a Sharpie, or similar felt pen, jammed them in as far as I felt comfortable and the extraced and read the rubs to tell where it was hitting. Often I'm surprised that it's not where I thought.

Have you slugged the bore and made certain that it is not too tight too?