M98 mauser sleeved action project

[Bob the nailer]

Been working with this for awhile and things are finally getting close to complete. M98 Argentino Large Ring action sleeved with aluminum tubing, I turned the inside radius to allow for a snug fit however I had to cut off the ears on the action for the bolt stop/ejector housing. I have been thinking of different ways to make a new or rework the original bolt stop/ejector, any thoughts out there? This will be a single shot with a bench rest follower.


Thanks for looking

 

[westcliffe01]

So would you fill in the blanks for us kids who are trying to understand why you are doing this ?

I know of cases where the "stock" is made from aluminum, including a free floated front tube, but the material is merely a place to bed the action in and to provide a fore end and stock to interface with the shooters shoulder and cheek. In that role it does not provide any structural support for the action itself, which has to contain all the stress from firing and supporting the cantilevered barrel.

 

[Bob the nailer]

Back in the 60's( I think) sleeving remington actions for bench rest shooting was common, a few come up for sale now and then and they look unique. I decided to sleeve a M98 for the purpose of uniqueness and it would be a good match for the curly maple target stock at the duplicators right now. It has been fun machining the aluminum for proper fit and like any project it's value is held by the builder and not for market place resale. As for any attempt to increase usable pressure that the action will handle that is not even a consideration.

 

[Clark]

I thought the purpose of sleeving a Rem 700 was to get a flat bottom to take the torque from the riflings.
The Mauser already has a flat bottom.

https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!topic/rec.guns/4_BHRcWvPBQ

Bart Bobbitt 6-1-1994
Remington 700....
Second, something needs to be done to keep the receiver from twisting
in the stock. As the .300 Wby. Mag. causes quite a bit of torque on
the barreled action while the bullet accelerates down the bore, the
factory recoil lug at the front does not provide enough resistance to
that torque to keep it in the same place from shot to shot. It will shoot
loose in about 100 rounds to where accuracy is degraded. The best
way to prevent the receiver from twisting loose is to either epoxy
bed the reciever and then glue the receiver into the bedding (you have
to modify the stock so the trigger can be removed out the bottom when
glueing in the receiver), or epoxy a square-bottomed aluminum sleeve on
the receiver and epoxy bed that sleeve into the stock. Such is life with
heavy-recoiling rifles with round receivers.
..

Bart posts here
http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/search.php?searchid=2022860


May 1997 issue of Precision Shooting had an ad for Krieger Barrels, Inc. that showed an actual-size
copy of a 20-shot group shot at 800 yards by "Bert Bobbit [sic] with his Krieger Barrelled PALMA rifle." Now this group has a .942" mean radius, with an extreme spread of 3.325".

They miss spelled his name.

 

[yobuck]

i personaly think barts opinion back in 94 was just that an opinion.
a 300 weatherby reacting like that is ridicioulas.
im old enough to well remember sleeved actions. no doubt it did offer some stiffness to an open bottom action. but it didnt offer any improvment to what
the bolt could handle by way of pressure. most of these were used by benchrest shooters looking for more accuracy. barrel sleeves for the same reason. keeping the front scope mount of the unertle scope off the barrel was
thought to improve accuracy.

 

[Bart B]

i personaly think barts opinion back in 94 was just that an opinion.
a 300 weatherby reacting like that is ridicioulas.

Of course it was my opinion. But it's based on facts from my own experience with round recivers as well as those from other top ranked competitive shooters.

When folks started using Rem. 7XX actions for belted magnums in long range matches back in the middle of the last century and conventional epoxy bedding was first used, they held zeros for a hundred or two shots, then worked loose from barrel torque. Rebedding was the solution. I learned this with my first epoxy bedding job on a Rem. 700 action thinking it was the greatest thing for accuracy on earth. Then I learned that the reason Win. 70 actions were preferred for competition with cartridges .308 Win. and bigger shooting bullets weighing more than 160 grains.

The US military rifle teams also had the same problems with their 30 caliber magnums used in long range matches. Their attempt at fixing it was to make 2-inch long recoil lugs for their Remmy actions. That didn't work either. They finally put a flat bottom/side sleeve on them and that fixed the issue. No problems ever existed with their Win. 70 receivers.

Someone finally decided that what the benchresters did with 22 and 24 caliber rounds in Remmy actions sleeving them with flat bottom/side aluminum sleeves. Finally, accuracy with a round receiver would remain constant for the life of the barrel.

Of course, if folks cannot see their 1/4 MOA at 100 yard accuracy at worst lessen by 50% (goes to 3/8 MOA) or 600 yard accuracy go from 1/2 to 3/4 MOA, shooting their stuff for a couple hundered shots, then they won't notice the epoxy bedding has gone to pot. To them, the cause, effect and fix I mention is considered rediculous. I've been there, done that but learned from others and was able to tell the difference.

Action stiffness, as well as barrel stiffness, has never been critical for accuracy. As long as the barreled action behaves the same way for each shot, best accuracy is at hand. It's all about repeatability of movement of all the parts, not minimizing how much they move.

 

[EddieHarren]

One of those round action Remingtons in 300 Win. Mag., still holds the NRA Longrange Highpower any sights record.

 

[yobuck]

well i have several 7x300 weatherbys on rem actions both with many times that number of rounds. i personaly cant shoot 3/8" groups with them.
but they shoot as good as they ever did for me. ive had a few custom actions
with round bottoms also. while ive never personaly been a 1000 yd competetor ive many friends who are/were including a few record holders. quite a number of whom i hunted with. that topic has never been discussed.
ive never heard of rebedding an action after a hundred or so rounds or even a
1000 rounds. many guys dont even rebed after changing shot out barrels.

 

[Bart B]

Eddie, a lot of those round Remmy's shot great scores winning matches and a few would have set records except for a bad shot or two caused by the shooter. Every one of them didn't have many rounds down the barrel and shot that way before barrel torque caused the problem. My first match rifle was a pin driver (more accurate than a tack driver) Rem. 700 in .308 Win. that performed so for about 200 rounds before accuracy degraded. After rebedding, it went back to pin-driving accuracy. . .for another 200 or so rounds.

I thought I made that clear earlier that starting out with a new epoxy bedding job, it took some number or shots fired before the accuracy degradation was noticed. How many rounds did Lt. Carl Kovalchik's .300 Win Mag barrel have through it when that 200-19X record was set back in '96? And was the receiver bare, or was it sleeved?

Gale McMillan sold the US Army team a handful of Rem. 700's with .300 Win. Mag. barrels made by his folks that may have been the most accurate magnums they ever had for long range matches. For several dozen shots, anyway.

One fact about rifle shooting records (group, score, whatever) is, they all happen when all the variables cancel each other out. All the other performances (group, score, whatever) are not as good. The lowest scores and biggest groups happen when all the variables add up gogether. And all the other instances of shooting by that rifle, its ammo and its shooter are not that good. Rarely, if ever does a record setting rifle-ammo-shooter system better the one(s) it already has. Records are at one extreme of performance; worst results are at the other end. Few, if any, benchrest aggregate record holders make public or even remember what the largest group size was in that string of several few-shot groups. But one can reasonably estimate that their largest one was about 50% larger than the agg's average; sometimes a lot bigger. Luck is a partner of group and score shooting; bad luck when performance is poor, good luck when it's record setting.

 

[yobuck]

i would agree with the luck aspect to a point. remember the 1000 yd heavy gun record (10 shots) was held by the same man for about 14 years.
it was shot with a rem 721 action and a 30 cal weatherby type cartridge.
that record was broken only about 3 years ago. id love to have in cash the
dollars worth of ammo shot trying to beat that record over all those years.
when you consider the names of some of the gunsmiths involved building the guns its even more impressive. so in that respect id agree luck plays a roll.
agregate scores are a different situation however in my mind.
when a shooter at a place like williamsport shoots consistantly well enough
to win the year end agregate award thats more than just luck. best groups
or scores for at least 6 out of the 10 matches. nobody is that lucky.

 

[EddieHarren]

BartB, Carl's action was not sleeved and I don't know how many rounds were on the barrel. I will ask Bill O'Rourke when I talk to him today. I have been shooting an unsleeved Rem 722 action in IBS score matches since 1989. I have never rebedded it. Granted, it was a 6PPC for 2 years, a short 308 for several years and has been a 30BR for the last 10 years, so recoil has not been as large a factor as with the 300 Mags. I do, however, re-torque the action screws on a regular basis.

 

[yobuck]

well as a result of this conversation i made a call to an old friend and former
williamsport competetor. he had been a year end agregate award winner there twice. he did concur with bart that rebedding with a skim coat is in fact a
practice some shooters use. he knew of one guy who did it for every match.
he seemed to think it might be more widly done in the lighter bench rest classes. wether it actually helps or is another grasping for straws thing
would be hard to say. he did not concurr with bart on the action stiffness issue however. a solid bottom action will out perform an open bottom action period
end of story according to him. it was the sole reason for sleeving actions.

 

[EddieHarren]

BartB, Bill says Carl had about 150 Rds. on that barrel. He shot it because he was saving his other gun/barrel for Perry. So, he goes and sets the record with the new barrel, then shoots it at Perry and wins the Wimbledon Cup. Bill says that they do not re-bed but, they do re-torque before every match.

 

[Bart B]

. . . . he did not concurr with bart on the action stiffness issue however. a solid bottom action will out perform an open bottom action period end of story according to him. it was the sole reason for sleeving actions.

when a shooter at a place like williamsport shoots consistantly well enough to win the year end agregate award thats more than just luck. best groups or scores for at least 6 out of the 10 matches. nobody is that lucky.

Yobuck, what size circle is the smallest you think a Win. 70 box magazine action based rifle would shoot 40 shots in a row at 600 yards from a .308 Win. or 30 in a row at 1000 from a 30 caliber belted magnum; all shots fired 20 to 30 seconds apart? At least that guy winning those aggs was that lucky. What's the largest and smallest groups sizes in those agg records. I'd like to know what the worst and best perfromance was in them unless it's a secret that's not available except to benchrest insiders.

Eddie, what's the largest and smallest groups sizes in those agg. records you mention? I've never had any benchrester, including some record holders, tell me what the biggest one is, just the smallest one.

One other thing, a benchrester who has the most accurate stuff may not shoot all that well for group or score if he ain't a good wind doper. Many times I know that folk who dope the wind well will outshoot someone using a tack driver but misses the subtle wind changes.