Mauser 98 sporterized rifle reworking - worth it or not?

Chris-

All of this depends on your point of view. I have a customized Mauser K-98. It is from one of the Mitchell's Mausers, (their "shooter" type).

I purchased it with the intent on making it into a nice varmint rifle. The rifle and the parts were sent to Pisco in Oregon for assembly. Needless to say it is a very nice rifle indeed. I had it re-chambered for .308 Winchester, (7.62 NATO).

It was not a numbers matching rifle, hence why I did this.

All of the parts were purchased from Midway with the exception of the stock. This was purchased through a local gun show, from a person who made stocks. I wanted a solid Clario Walnut, (Black Walnut), stock for this project.

The parts cost me a little more than the purchase price of the Military Surplus Rifle, but in my opinion it was worth it for this project, as no-one else will have a rifle like this.

The barrel is a Lijia straight taper varmint barrel with a Timney trigger group, Harris Bipod and a Shepherd Stadia type scope. It is currently accurate out to 300+ yards.

The only other item I added to this was a Holland's Quick Discharge Muzzle Brake. Now the rifle has the recoil of a .38 Special.

The person who said to turn your 8mm into a .30-06 is not very knowledgeable about 8mm Mauser Actions. I would suggest purchasing Larry Kunhausen's book on Mausers before you start making your custom decisions. This book is available from Amazon or Midway. It has nearly complete information on action types, and what caliber conversions best serve which actions. All of this based on serial numbers and where the rifle was manufactured.

This is how I made my decision on the caliber I decided to use. 8mm Mauser can be either a long action, large or small ring, Mauser or it can be an intermediate, large ring type. You need to purchase this book, and read it to determine what type of action you really have. There is only 1/4 to 3/4 inch difference between the long action and the intermediate action, large ring Mausers. Just stating that making it a .30-06 Springfield is incorrect. The cartridge will not fit the magazine well, or the action, and will need serious modification. For shorter cartridges, the only modification you will need to make is to the magazine follower.

In any event I hope this helps you out. If you will contact me directly, I will show you the pictures of my rifle.

Contact me via my profile page, and I will give you my direct E-Mail address, then I will exchange photos with you so you can see my Mauser.

Good Luck and Happy Shooting!

Some people will tell you it's not worth the money to sporterize it. That by the time you get through you could have bought a nice hunting rifle.

I disagree. If it is worth it to you then that is all that matters. My first hunting rifle was a M98 Mauser my dad brought back from WWII. I sporterized it and shot my first deer with it and many deer after that, then thought I had to have a "real" rifle. I have hunted with a lot of rifles since, Winchester, Remington, Kimber, Sako, to name only a few. None of them were any better than that sporterized Mauser. I would give all of them to have that Mauser back.

Go for it. You won't necessarily have a tack-driving target rifle, but you will have a very good hunting rifle that will last you for a lifetime.

Disagree that 8mm is to be avoided. It's a damn good hunting cartridge. But, if you have to replace the barrel anyway, then I would go with 7x57, but that's just my 2 cents.

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RE:

Mauser 98 sporterized rifle reworking - worth it or not?

I've got a rarely-fired Mauser 98 (1916, upgraded 1920 so it's one of the Weimar "transitional" models) that I picked up for $100 at a gun shop (first centerfire rifle I bought, around 4 years ago). It's been sporterized, the finish is a nice "rust" color, and the...

definitely worth doing, one thing to avoid is the 8mm barrel, if you can find any barrel other than 8, buy it, have it head spaced,refinished, all set, the mauser action is the best, get the bolt jeweled and all that, make it nice. I have an old chilean modelo, it was in 308, box mag, real nice, except, you could not eject the spent rounds, we tried everything, had to carry a rubber mallet to the range to pound it open, so we got us a chamber reamer, a couple turns with a wrench and we had a 30-06 magnum!!! Couldn't believe how much metal was removed, anyway, back in the lathe, we tried and tried, eventually ran out of threads, so I found a barrel at gunparts, in 8mm of course, Only problem was the 8mm didn't fit the 308 magazine, so, to the grinding wheel, ground down the tips of the bullets, back in business, now I have a normal flat bottom, no more box mag, 8mm, cycles great, with aimpoint scope, looks cool. my deer rifle. Oh well.

It's worth it if you think it's worth it. The Mauser is a very solid base for just about any project you'd like like to undertake but you have to decide. The good thing is that even if you don't do anything with it right now, it's like money in the bank. Actually you'll probably get a better return on it than on a bank account.

Just because it started life as an 8MM doesn't mean you have to keep it that way. Personally I'd go with a .30-06 chambering. Same bolt face, same magazine dimensions.

The action is probably the worth something but the rest of it is going to be worthless. It would have been worth a lot more if it wasn't sporterized. The wood and hardware would have been potentially worth a few hundred dollars because of everybody in the past cutting them down and sporterizing them. The cost of reconditioning and re-barreling the rifle will probably cost more than a new gun off the rack.

Go price a Mauser action... those are worth what you gave for the whole gun

If you want a good sporter build it -those are good bones.

IF all it needs is a barrel, WHY replace anything else?

The Mauser action alone is worth what you paid for the whole thing.