merited. The main task as I saw it was to add new actions and revisit old ones in new chapters that tell plainly of the turn-bolt rifle.
There was another mission, though: to assess improvements in bolt rifles and offer readers better ways to equip and use them, especially for big game hunting. During the past decade, since the third edition of Bolt Action Rifles, we shooters have clung to the century-old bolt action as tightly as ever. But the sporting rifle’s form has undergone marked changes. Synthetic stocks have evolved from crude, heavy, ungainly handles into components so artfully designed and carefully fitted as to woo the most loyal fans of French walnut. The lightest of these (less than a pound!) are still stronger and more stable than wood, and reasonably priced. Stainless steel is no longer blackened but sells briskly with no finish – both in barrels and receivers. Fluted barrels reduce weight without sacrificing stiffness. Slender muzzle brakes take the bite from hard-recoiling rifles without marring their profiles.
Accuracy has improved too. Half-minute groups from hunting-weight rifles chambered for cartridges that will floor an elk a quarter-mile away are not common, but they’re no longer astonishing. With such levels of precision come new prospects for hunters. The advent of the affordable, pocket-sized laser rangefinder is a boon to anyone wanting to test the effective reach of his rifle. More powerful scopes, with convenient, turret-mounted parallax dials sharpen the focus on distant targets, while range-finding, range-compensating reticles tell where to hold for a hit with a specific load. Ballistics software delivers drop and drift data for any practical hunting yardage … and beyond. With these technical achievements have also come ethical questions, and the inevitable rules designed to keep hunting and shooting in the realm of sport. Marksmanship remains an acquired skill.
Unlike Frank, most riflemen who own bolt actions got them with barrels and stocks attached, and they’re keen to use them. This edition of Bolt Action Rifles is designed to give readers more about the history, design, manufacture, and – now – use of the bolt-action rifle than any other book you can pick up. Far more. It’s the reference you’ll come back to when you need just the facts, straight up. And when you need solid information on making your bolt action more effective in the field. I think Frank would like this edition of Bolt Action Rifles.
Wayne van Zwoll
Part I
Bolt Gun
Beginnings
Bolt Gun Beginnings
Mauser Competitors & Derivatives
An American to Match Mauser: The Charles Newton Story
The Mauser Legacy WvZ
Dear David,
Your 98 Mauser in 8x57 can be useful as is, given its sporter stock and receiver sight. As you’re aware, the cartridge as commercially loaded in the U.S. is about on par with the 30-40 Krag. European companies offer stouter loads.
The 98 action is strong and is among the best choices if you’re out to build a custom rifle. However, if the gun was mine and I had only a few bucks to play with, I’d leave it alone. Here’s why:
The 8mm bore limits rechambering to wildcat cartridges only – the 8mm/06, for example. The action’s too short for the 8mm Remington Magnum unless you want to remove some of the lower lug buttress. You’d have to lengthen the magazine and open the bolt face for the magnum as well. Even the 8mm/06 would require a longer box.
Rebarreling to 280, 30-06 or 35 Whelen would be another option. You’d still need the longer box, and the fitted barrel would cost at least $200. Drilling for scope bases, altering the safety and installing a new trigger will jack the cost above the price of a commercial sporting rifle.
No matter what you do with that 98—even if you handload 8x57s above factory specs— you’ll do well to have it Rockwell tested for hardness. Unlike Winchester 70s and Rem-ington 700s that are built of chrome-moly steel, Mausers were of carbon steel, heated to harden the surface. This "shell" around the soft steel action core may be only .004" thick, Mauser Legacy and its hardness will vary. Some parts may not be treated at all. Mausers built late in the war are notoriously unpredictable in this regard. Your receiver should test 38-42 on the Rockwell C scale. The bolt is best treated to Rockwell 42-46, so it operates smoothly.Thickness of the hardened surface should be .015", according to a gunsmith friend of mine.If your 98 doesn’t make the grade, you can have it heat-treated, another expense.
You may want to keep your 98 for those foul-weather days in deer cover when a receiver sight and century-old cartridge are all you need. That would be my inclination.
Sincerely,
Wayne van Zwoll
I wrote that note more than a decade ago. Many hundreds of similar responses to similar questions had no doubt chattered off the carriages of manual typewriters for decades previous. The fall of the Third Reich brought a flood of battle-bruised Mausers stateside. Soldiers had learned to respect this rifle, not as quick to repeat as a Garand, but sturdy, reliable and accurate. Returning G.I.s properly looked upon it as the sound basis for a custom rifle. They set about rechambering, rebarrel-ing and restocking. The best work could turn a pitted veteran of the Ardennes into a veritable work of art. But in their haste to revamp and refurbish, to make American rifles of war trophies, American shooters overlooked the merits of both the rifle as issued, and the cartridge that conquered Europe. While Mauser 1898 infantry rifles lack the refinements coveted by hunters, it now seems a shame that so many 98s were sacrificed in crude attempts to make them like sporting rifles that were easily affordable. Beaten-up Mausers may have served no better purpose, but not all rifles liberated had been beaten up. American cartridges naturally had more appeal to soldiers on the lookout for a cheap hunting rifle. But the 8x57 was no pipsqueak round. In fact, developments in military 8x57 ammunition set the evolutionary course for our ‘06.
The rimless, smokeless 8x57 clearly outperformed the 30-40 Krag. Beginning in 1900, when Army Ordnance set out to design a new infantry round, it fashioned the 30-03 after the 8x57. The original loading of a 220-grain, full-jacket 308 bullet at 2300 fps was essentially a match for the 8x57’s 236-grain load at 2100 fps. About a year after the 30-03 entered service, however, Germany came up with a new bullet and load: a 154-grain spitzer that rocketed downrange at 2800 fps. The U.S. had to respond. Its Ball Cartridge, Caliber 30, Model 1906 featured a 150-grain pointed bullet at 2700 fps. Because the bullet was somewhat shorter than its predecessor, case dimensions were changed. The 30-06 that resulted has a hull .07" shorter than that of the 30-03: 2.494 inches. Pursuant to the change, all 30-03 rifles were recalled and rechambered. In battle, the 8x57 and 30-06 proved deadly equals. Hunters who’ve since loaded or sought out commercial high-performance 8x57 ammunition will tell you it’s as versatile as the ‘06 on big game. Sadly, the standard loads most accessible to sportsmen in this country feature round-nose bullets at modest velocities. They’re good deer killers but hardly show the potential of the round.
If you were to start a book on bolt-action rifles, you could start it with America’s first, or the earliest evidence of a turnbolt breech, but you’d run into lots of short dead-ends. The story really begins with Peter Paul Mauser and his brother Wilhelm, whose
