doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com re. using ’98 Mauser actions with rimmed cartridge

A few months ago I spoke with J D Steele about using ’98 Mauser actions with rimmed cartridges and promised I’d post some pictures when I could arrange some technical help. Here are ’98 Mausers in .30-40 Krag and .405 Winchester. The bolt face of the .30-40 is shown together with a standard ’98 for comparison. The .405 bolt face appears alone and is very similar to the .30-40. The extractors require a small notch at the breech of the barrel. These modifications, I think, are similar in design to the 1917 Enfield for the .303 cartridge. This work and changes to the action rails were done by Dennis Erhardt in Helena, Montana.

I built the .30-40 rifle first and thought it might need some slant to the magazine box for reliable feeding. I fitted wedges of buffalo horn at the front and rear of the box, and it worked well. It maybe hard to figure out this arrangement from the pictures, and it may not have been necessary to do. The .405 cartridge length doesn’t leave room for this magazine modification but feeds fine without it.

Having used Siamese actions and been frustrated with loose tolerances and poor materials, I was pleased to find that the regular ’98 Mauser would work well for these rounds at least. I can’t say if the .45-70 would also work.

Photos to be added as soon as I can figure out how, or request via email at: davegcm@montana.com
Bill Ferguson

I would enjoy seeing the photos as I have a rimmed cartridge M98 project on the back burner. Easiest way to post is to load the photos on photobucket.com, then copy the address to a post on this forum.

If you do not get them up in a day or two I will send a request via email.

Thanks!

Here is the link to photobucket...hopefully:

http://s765.photobucket.com/albums/xx294/supergoldendog/

Here are a few of the photos. The rifles are stunning!!!! We need a couple of full photos of the rifles, put them on photobucket and I will add them. Thanks!








Below, original bolt face on left, modified on right

Well if the rest of that pair of mausers look as good then you are doing professional quality work.

Jerry Liles

Absolutely no question about that! Ccongratulations on 2 fine jobs, and thanks for the photos and the info update.
Regards, Joe

Nice rifles Bill and in two of my favorite calibers, is a 405 Winchester in a bolt gun a .400 Whelen ;-).

Altamaha,
Thanks for bringing the photos in. I will see about getting the full shot of these rifles. My dad (Bill) makes them, I just get to handle the digital aspects!
David Ferguson

These are really beautiful rifles, recently, I won an auction for a partially completed Siamese Mauser sporter project. It hasn't arrived yet and the barrel is still supposedly in the original 8x50R chambering. I'd like to rebarrel it and am considering a 405 Winchester chambering and I was wondering where you obtained the 405 barrel in the wonderful rifle in this thread.

I am a bit of a skeptic here. The rimless cartridge was thought a vast advance for bolt actions, permitting larger magazine capacity and smoother feeding. Laboriously turning the clock back by altering a rimless bolt gun for a rimmed load seems basically a stunt, even though it can result, as here, in stunningly attractive results. And of course it has been done all along, Oberndorf made slant magazine 98 actions which Rigby used for the .400-.350 and Frazer, I believe, for the .303. The difficulties of adapting a rimless action for a rimmed cartridge were clear enough so that Howe and Whelen invented their own .400 and .35 on the '06 case rather than adapt the 1903 for the .405WCF and .35WCF. And as for making a bolt .30-40, surely Mr. Ferguson has heard of the Krag !!