Sported Swedish Mauser

[Calfed]

A few years ago I got this sported M38 Swedish Mauser. Stock cut down, drilled and tapped for a scope base. Barrel is 24" and appears to be an original barrel, because it has the threads for the BFA.

It is a shame what was done to this rifle...I would never have done this myself. It is an all numbers match (for everything that is still there) Obendorf (s/n57458) that appears to have been converted to an M38 configuration. Bore looks great.

I'm intending to go ahead and mount a scope on this to see how it shoots and if it is a good shooter, to put it into a military stock and shoot it at the vintage military silhouette match in the open category.

The front scope base holes are approximately .875" apart, the rear holes approximately .50" apart. Anyone know what mount would fit those hole spacings?

Information

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[vintage hunter]

I'd have to say with the stripper clip guide hump still present it would have been drilled for Weaver top mount bases #46 front and #55 rear, the rear will require some fitting or else it won't sit flat on the bridge. Back in the early 90's there were a couple gunsmiths in my area that had a regular cottage industry going sporterizing these. They could'nt turn them out fast enough to
keep up with demand. I worked for both doing the buffing and blueing and have no doubts that between them they did at least a couple thousand over a 4 or 5 year period before the fad went away. The more gifted of the two turned out some real beauties that wore fine custom made stocks. IIRC he marked them on the bottom of the chamber with the name Hamilton.

[Calfed]

I think you are right, vh

It looks kinda like it is drilled for a st of Weaver bases

Thanks

[us019255]

I set one up as a foul weather deer rifle for my son. Left the military stock, refinished the metal to parkerize, set up scope mounts as described. Many of these had almost no finish, but had been fired seldom if at all. Apparently the Swedes have not been in a war in many years.

The real challenge is to break through the really hard case hardening on the receiver. Some would spot anneal. I took the other approach and used a carbide drill to start the holes and cheap carbon steel taps (a new one each hole) to tap. The nice thing about the carbon steel taps is that you can shatter them if you break one. (don't ask how I know)

[browningautorifle]

We did lots here in Canada too. We did them as shown and as a full snabble Manlicher type too. Polish and re-blue and they would be about perfect. This is where the world was with the 1903s after WW1 and 2 so I can understand the mentality of it somewhat...

[westkraut]

Great pics CALFED
Leupold makes bases for the M96 that fits the M38 also that has holes spaced at .860" on the front base and at about 5/16".....for the rear windage base. You would need to drill a second hole for the rear base while the front one just may match? Drilling is easy, getting a good alignment is much more difficult, even with a drilling jig, so I strongly suggest using bases that provide windage adjustment for a scope and maybe elevation as well if you intend to shoot longer distances. On one Mauser 8mm I have the Weaver bases were not aligned as well as I would like when I bought the rifle and redrilling is no longer practical so I have added Weaver windage adjustable rings to help correct the misalignment. I also practiced base mounting on a very inexpensive and ugly 6.5x55mm sporter before I dared touch my two keepers. All went well! I have read where the Leupold bases for the Mauser FN can also be fitted if you, forgive me, grind down the hump related to the stripper clip loading slot. With yours you will still have issues with the height of the scope (needing high or extrahigh rings) to allow the safety lever to clear the scope and to make loading easier. I assume the bolt handle already is bent to clear a scope? I have drilled and tapped two Swedish Mausers and luckily was able to position the front base to avoid overlap with a hole that had previously been drilled to accomodate a peep sight. I am still debating whether to go to a side safety or alter the original safety lever (grind or bend it to the rear) to clear a scope. These are excellent rifles that were already "mutilated" from their original state so doing a good scoping job on them will give them another 100 years of good life.
Please send in your results and experiences and good luck with the scope.....karl

[Calfed]

Thanks, Karl.

I took the path of least resistance and ordered a set of steel Weaver mounts. I'll mount a scope and see how it shoots. If it is a good shooter, I'll probably buy one of those low mount bolt safeties and mount it in an M38 military stock that I ordered from Numrichs.

First things first..I'll mount the scope, give it a try at the range and post my results.

[mtbikerwvu]

I hope your M38 stock from Numerich looks better than mine, it was horrible so now it is used as a pattern on a stock duplicator. I ended up ordering one from EBAY. I extra stock metal bits if you need them.

[Calfed]

It is actually pretty nice. Not new by any means, but solid. I'll post a few pics of it.

[westkraut]

HI Calfed, Hope this will be helpful for anyone who thinks they have done a complete job bending the bolt handle of a M96 to accomodate a scope: Your post turned out to be very helpful for me although at the time I wrote back to you I had no idea how helpful. I spent several frustrating hours trying to get a horribly abused M96 sporter fixed up just because it has such a great barrel and even tho' I had bought it initially as a parts rifle. A few days ago I replaced the broken firing pin and bent the bolt handle, did the final polishing etc and believed I was all set to reassemble the action........nope! Hour after hour of disaasembly and reassembly with a bit of grinding here, a bit there and I could not get the bolt shround to screw in properly and thus could not fire the trigger or work the safety properly. I did some searches and found a similar set of problems described on The FiringLine and pretty well had given up until I had another look at one of your pics showing the rear of the bolt. I was having issues with not being able to set the safety nor fire the action and it seemed that the bolt shroud was either too far forward or too far back and the problems described above were constant. I fiddled around for two days, even trying the old broken firing pin and last night after reading this thread just figured my M96 was headed for the parts heap. This morning, however, I tried again after viewing one of your pics, this time with the trigger removed from the frame and immediately could see that the half moon recess in the bolt into which the male counterpart on the trigger fits was about 1/32" off center.....meaning that the bolt was rotating to the right fully........tada! The inside of the bolt handle was hitting the right side of the receiver too early! Solution found and just reheated the bolt and bent it outwards slightly and all is resolved.....the safety works properly and the trigger too, shroud screws in easily and all is set to continue making this into a shooter. Live and learn.....k