doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com classic Mauser Rebuild/Repair Project

First, nice to see a lot of old familiar faces here. Been a long time and several boards since the old shooters.com days!

Just wanted to show a couple of photo's of an ongoing project that I've had for some time.








This rifle has had a hard time since a WWII bringback. A relative of Bubba's named Rocky Gibbs rechambered it and marked it on one of the flats 319-8MM GIBBS. Then, the proud owner invested in an electric pencil and wrote his name and address on one of the barrel flats. The express sight was in the way, so they pounded it out, wedged a piece of steel in the slot, and used a cold chisel to stake the matted rib into it. Then, ground and filed it off semi-flush. It was scope time, so tapped holes in the florentine engraving on top, replaced the safety with a Bueller and mounted a Kolmorgen on it. Problem was, the rings were too low, so had to grind a divot in the bolt handle to clear the scope. Somewhere along the way, milled a new front sight dovetail and got rid of the european insert and added an american one. Then, tapped for some sort of receiver sight on the right side. A rubber recoil pad finished off the project.


I've found the correct dies for it, located 319 bullets, and fireformed brass from .30-06 so i can use it. There's no proper european cartridge big enough to clean up the big Gibbs shoulder, so I can't readily fix that.

I replaced the sight this week with a semi-correct folding leaf sight, that matches the style well. After I regulate it, I'll finish it off nicely to match. It took a big sight to clean up all the chisel marks on top of the rib.

Future projects are to either replace the bolt, or weld up the divot and refinish it. Want to remove the name from the barrel, and re-blue it. Debating whether to remove the Gibbs stamping and do a more tasteful engraved marking. Would like to weld up the holes and refinish, but don't know if it's worth the trouble. Overall, a hard to do restoration, and probably not worth it, but a nice rifle to at least fix up.

Would it be too sacriligious to put a gentry 3 position safety on it? I bet it had an original military when it was first built. A limbsaver will probably replace the existing pad, although a nice leather one would really be right.

dave

Rocky Gibbs was a well known experimental gunsmith. You might want to retain his original markings even if they are a bit crude.

Hi Dave, good to see you over here! Your experience and expertise are most welcome and will be greatly appreciated. BTW I agree with Froggie about your Ballard and with Mark about your Gibbs barrel. Rocky Gibbs, albeit not a very aesthetically-inclined individual, was nevertheless a world-famous ballistics experimenter and wildcatter, a pioneer of high velocity much like Roy Weatherby except without the Weatherby showmanship. His claims, like Weatherby's, are open to debate but are widely known and form the basis for some of our modern cartridge designs. One very serious caveat when reloading for this cartridge: Gibbs' wildcat designs move the original shoulders forward to such an extent that very special precautions are required to prevent head separations at the webs, but I figure that you already know this.
Welcome again, regards, Joe

Hi Mr. Dave --- good to have you with us. We are a bit small now but am compitent that we will grow as people hear about us. Spread the word. ken

Dave you should let me have it.!!!! Then that would be one last projet you would have to worry about. SMile
I was complety off anything that was not a SS with a lever.BUT NOW all these beatiful mausers etc.Has got me all fired up again.On some bolt guns.Smileee. Whitey

Hi Dave, I am glad to see you here.

Michael

Hey Dave,

Ditto's on the welcomes...glad you found us.

Don't spend all your project time on these new-fangled turn-bolts...we've got to conspire on that sporting roller soon! I have the old Swede action mostly cleaned up, and have turned a "practice" barrel stub...seems to be a bit longer, but fairly standard No. 1 black powder-sized barrel shank. I'm thinking a reasonably heavy tube in .40-65 will find it's way on the action soon.

Greg

Thanks for the warm welcome guys! Glad to be here, and see a lot of you here too.

I lived about 5 miles from Viola, Idaho where Rocky was from. Unfortunately, I never met him, I wasn't interested in experimenting in the time our living there overlapped. I bought the rifle there. The guy that had inherited it and sold it to the pawn shop was a truck driver and I could never get hold of him to get any more info or the dies for it. It's been 12 years or so, it's about time I did something with the rifle, the sight was a good first step.

There's nothing wrong with the cartridge, and it's easy to make brass for it. Just anneal the neck of a .30-06, put 8 grains of red dot in a primed cartridge, fill to the top with cream of wheat, and put a spit wad of paper into the neck to keep the mess in until you can fire it. Then, I take the bolt out, slip the cartridge under the claw, and chamber and fire it. Presto-chango, perfect 8mm gibbs case.

I'm going to load up a few and go to the range when weather allows, see where the new sight points it.

Greg, I'm thinking about the RB, even did something about it last week. I decided it would be quicker and easier to send the pieces off to someone to do than to set up my lathe and mill, so I sent it to John King. He told me February or so. I've got a lot of house stuff to finish that will take up my free time for a while, so other than finishing the stock on my Falling Block Works and on my other Mauser project, gun stuff will be put off unless I get someone else to do it.

dave