The bolt action

The top rifle is an old Spanish Mauser I remodeled for my son. It came in 308 caliber but I didn't like the military barrel so I rebarreled it with an old Remington Model 30 barrel in 30-06 and rechambered it back to 308. I patched the cut down stock to fill holes where barrel bands and cleaning rods were and fitted a recoil pad and receiver sight. All told about $125.00 invested in the gun.
The next rifle is a Remington 700 action that started life as a 30-06 but I opened the bolt face to accommodate the magnum case and fitted a Douglas Premium barrel in 375 H&H. The barrel is fitted with a ramp sight and hood I made and can have the blade replaced with a bead or night ivory. The rear sight is a Williams receiver sight. I also fitted an Ultra Light Arms safety which allows the safety to lock the bolt or be opened without going off safe. It is a great upgrade and I'm surprised Remington never used it, instead they simply deleted the bolt lock feature. I recently fitted the rifle with the Knoxx-Hogue recoil reduction stock and it really does make the rifle feel like an 06 instead of a 375. Chris

My dog's tail is not part of the gun.
Chris S

Chris,
I knew you were good, but I didn't know how good, until now!

These are exactly the kind of guns you hang on your wall-not because they are an indulgence, but because they are as useful as it gets, and they are where you can grab 'em when you need 'em, right away.
What most folks forget about a working gun is that telescopic sights are useless in the snow or rain, and that a scope zeroed in at 150 yards is not the best device for hitting something at rock throwing distances.
I've long been a fan of the .375 H&H. A true do it all cartridge, and the .308 was designed by Phil Sharpe, a great ballistician, even if he didn't like the .348 WCF, and a worthy successor to the '06. That old Mauser reminds me of my Savage, short barreled, and mighty handy. I wish I had one just like it today.
Nice work, Chris, my hat is off to you, sir.

MAK;
Lots of us just like period pieces. If it was made in the days of iron sights, I leave it that way. If it is sinfully modern, I suffer it to look like that. That way, you see, I can pick up a rifle that fits my mood of the day.
EG:

My Griffen and Howe Mannlicher Schoenauer in 6.5X54. A bad example, because it goes both ways; the cocking piece peep or the vintage Weaver K2.5 with post in the Griffen and Howe quick detach side mount.

This is a German hunting rifle made from a military rifle. Barreled to 9.5X47R circa 1871. I used to make brass from 45-70, but recently found some real brass and dies on Ebay. Notice rear brass sight and socket on wrist for a removable peep. If you find one let me know. However, my grandson uses it for both squirrel and deer. 21 grains 4759 sends a 250 gr. bullet at 1678 fps.

My fun gun. I made this myself including dies from a 7mm Mauser Remington Rolling Block. Chambered it myself fot 577 Nitro Express. Really impresses the 200 yard rams on a pistol silhouette range. 61 gr. SR4758 propels a 750 gr. slug at 1888 fps. Keep your mouth shut tight so your fillings don't fly out. Three leaf folding sight and ivory bead. It's a copy of the one George Bird Grinnell had built to fend off grizzlies in Glacier Park.

This is my 338-06 that I built on a Springfield '03 action. Note the vintage all-steel K4 and Conetrol bases and rings. Smacks 'em good and proper and doesn't seem to kick as much as an '06. No iron sights here.

Gibbs .54 target muzzle loader I built a windguage front sight out of an old Redfield receiver sight. The rear sight is is a Lyman tang with an adjustable iris. Great out to over 200 yds. No scope here because only a gimmou would put glass on a muzzle loader. Also, only round ball.

Here it is; the Lion Rifle, as my grandson calls it. Model 70 .375 H&H. Williams Guide rear, ivory bead front. Accounted for 1 grizzly in Montana in the days when tags were $1.00. No scope.

And here is the one that bothers MAK: Schultz and Larsen M60 in 7X61 Sharpe and Hart. Only 5000 made in good old Denmark. Note the Bausch and Lomb Balvar 8 in the Kuharsky Brothers quick release mount. Adjustments are external. I can swap any number of nice old scopes on to it in about 5 seconds. Notice none of my mounts and rings look like plumbing fixtures like the overpriced stuff that newbies think are neat. No iron sights.

Now, in 50 years of hunting everything Montana had to offer, neither I nor any of my hunting acquaintances had a scope die in the field. And most of mine, as you can see, are old. Also, almost all are fixed power.  No farting around with knobs or dials, just aim and shoot.

Mike

Mike,
I admire your battery and your skill, and I envy you, who has access to such fine equipment!
I am especially taken with your model 70 in .357 H&H. Does this model have the traditional controlled round feed? Some years ago, I was sort of offered a chance at a model 70 375 H&H. It was a beautiful and deadly rifle, but the stock had been shortened by over 6" for a very short Alaskan. The price was still quite steep, and with a replacement stock, would have cost more than the current retail price. I asked for a slight reduction in price, but the seller was not interested, and so we went our separate ways. Some day, maybe I will tell the story of the Alaskan Brown Bear, and the Mauser mark X 375 H&H.
Great photos, and great guns, Mike!

I wonder where and when that silly term began to show up in print. As you have already figured out, my Model 70 does not have that clanking piece of metal hanging on the bolt. I never heard the term before about 1987. It seems to have been contrived by some person still pining for a pre-64 Model 70. I always wondered why nobody whined about the 700 Remington, the Sauer 90, the Schultz and Larsen, or Mannlicher-Schoenauer. I guess W.D.M. Bell must have been a rank neophyte since he used the Mannlicher on elephants. Anyway, the biggest thing I hear as a deleterious result of "push feed" actions is Short stroking. The only time I have ever seen this happen was with a Ruger 77. Hmmm.
Anyway, I never felt unsafe with my 1968 model 70 300 Win Mag when hunting in Montana. It accounted for a grizzly so big it took a pair of mules to drag it to a logging road where a lift truck could hoist it onto a flatbed. Stupidly. I traded it for a B78 Browning in 30-06 when they first came out. Another hapless rifle without a controlled round feed.
Enough steam. I'm crabby because my computer is lazy today, and the rain won't stop so I can hunt. I'm going to use the Schultz this year to enhance the danger of being attacked by a granddad whitetail while I am struggling with a short stroked action. Kind of like being Manolete and getting an eye full of sand just as the bull charges.
But wait; that's not all: how about the silly British who carelessly trounced all manner of miscreants with the various lee-Enfields? They probably held their Webleys sideways when it got down to close quarters after all their rifles jammed.
What ho, Old Bean?

Mike
I feel better; the sun is coming out.
 

I shoot many types of rifles and kick myself for one of those "I guy offered me..." stories involving a Mannlicher, Indeed my pet hunting rifle is a Remington 600, .308 and I have 660 and Mohawk models as well, but I must defend the Mauser controlled feed for the virtue of ease of unloading for those of us who have learned to distrust detachable/hinged floorplates. Nice to be able to half-stroke the bolt rather than run every round into the chamber and lock/unlock the bolt.

Mike,
I find your posts to be endlessly entertaining. Your talent to take sarcasm to the level of literary art is appreciated, my friend!
Oh, and about that 7x61...
Well, maybe another time!
Great pics, and great guns.

Although, the Mark X Mauser is a nice rifle. Just reading a 1969 article in Rifle by Les Bowman reviewing the Champlin rifle. He seemed to think the Mauser extractor was less than perfect. What a gimou.
Mike

Well folks, the bar was set over 100 years ago by Peter Paul Mauser and the 98 action. Often copied, but never surpassed.
The first and maybe most famous copy was the '03 Springfield, so damn close to the German design that the US lost in patent court and had to pay royalties to the firm. Imitation IS the sincerest form of flattery.
No need to defend the Mauser action, CG, it sets the record at its own pace. However, you seem to have disposable income with which to make new purchases, and with this in mind, I'd like to tell you that the Mauser firm is going to be back to work, possibly by next year, in making their famous actions, including the magnum square bridge, and even complete rifles!
In my dreams I've already ordered mine, a square bridge with folding leaf rear sights in .505 Gibbs.

My Remmy in 375 H&H is not controlled either excepting by the shooter! Chris S

Well Mauser can do what they while without my help for a while. My rifle budget for a while was  blown on this one this summer.
 

 
 
 
It's an Early 60's German Weatherby in .300 WBM. What I am going to use it for is still up for debate.

Way back when I used to read some of the outdoor rags and there was a Weatherby magazine that had loads of pictures of Roy using his stupendous round on all manner of game, griz in Alaska, buffs in Africa etc and the 300 was able to hold it's own quite well but I remember it was at the expense of lots of powder and heavier recoil. All that aside that is a good looking rifle. Chris S

She was a present from my wife. I have no clue as to what to use it for. I am in the costal mountains and my elk gun is a 45/70. If it is too far away for that it means it is over on yonder hill and it will take a 6 hr drive and a 2 hr hike to get to it if I hit it.  Now a .257 WBY would be of some use, and more enjoyable to shoot as well. The wife wanted to be able to tell her snob friends that her husband had a Weatherby. Sigh. So, I am ordering some brass and dies after the first of the year and looking at some serious down loading off of the screaming loads and recoil of the factory rounds.
 
Odd, I load the .44 and .41 mags down to a useful level for myself as well. Going through a deer at 100 yds and killing it is fine, killing the tree behind it is a bit more than I need.

MAK;
The new bar has been set by Sako, Schultz, Sauer, etc. 
I like to go read my 60's Handloaders and Rifles to get some perspective. Nobody cared then, and many of us who were there don't care either.
Controlled Round Feed is a red herring.

Mike

If I have learned one thing the hard way, over and over again, its that you can't make everyone happy, no matter what you do.
I still find the criticism of Mauser extraction to be funny as Hell, because if anything, that little goofy lever on the push feed actions is what is most susceptible to failure. But hey, whatever.
Sako made some truly fantastic rifles, before they were taken over by Beretta. Doubt they ever made a dime for the company, because back when, you could never find one at the store if your life depended on it. I still wonder who actually got to buy them! Used, now they go for outrageous prices. I don't know what all has happened since the Beretta purchase, but what I have heard has not been good.
Sauer made an authentic Mauser for a few years, and by authentic, I mean the whole works, including gas ports, firing pin, and staggered magazine. Most so-called Mauser actions cut corners in key areas, like the fine FN action, which disposed of the gas porting.
I think the new wave in bolt actions today is led by Germany-Heim, Merkel, and others. Theirs are variations of the straight pull bolt, which disposes entirely of the use of the receiver. You won't touch them without a hefty dose of sticker shock, but accuracy, feeding, and ejection are top notch. further, they have multi-caliber applications, and can go from carbine to long rifle with a quick change of parts. Truly amazing engineering.

Mak, we all nitpick a bit when we pick your choices apart. All good fun and it's because we can discuss our opinions freely that this forum is so great. Now that I have said that here goes my opine....One of the smoothest ever bolt actions is the Remington 700. The oft touted complaint about the Remmy is the ring extractor which everyone just hates. I pose this question. who has ever documented a failure of a 700 extractor? I think in it's history I can recall only one or two actual failures written up and proved to be faulty. Otherwise the Remington series 700 and the 40-X have a proud record of long life and service. The sniper rifle for many years was often a 40-X or a stock 700 with great scopes. The old Sako extractor had quite a few failures in it's history and several well known gun writers expressed a dislike for it's reliability, the Winchester M70 push feed also had known problems with it's extractor among other faults. The Mauser extractor has a minor fault in that it is possible to load a cartridge into the chamber and close the bolt whereby the extractor snaps over the rim. This has been know to cause problems and documented instances of the extractor tearing the rim of the case causing a failure to extract. The only proper way to load a Mauser is to load the magazine and allow the cartridge to rise up under the extractor at which time it is "contolled" all the way into the chamber. Now at no time has this ever been a serious problem in the hands of an experienced shooter. The much praised old M70 controlled round used a coned breech and this actually is a departure from the Mauser which doesn't. The cone breech allows a small portion of the case unsupported. The extractor also can snap over around loaded into the chamber. So no matter which system is used they all have some faults. Choice is a personal thing and one shooters rifle may be someone else's bad choice. I like all kinds as long as the shoot where I want them to.... Chris S

For smooth, it's hard to beat the Mannlicher, but the smoothest ever has to be the Sauer 90, which for a while was sold as the Colt-Sauer. I hesitate to mention it because part of its smoothness is aided by the lack of traditional locking lugs. It has three retracting locking lugs at the rear of the bolt. Ingenious, but undoubtedly very expensive to make. I have one in 300 Weatherby. It puts paid to the old myth about case stretching with rear lugs. It is one of my rifles that I never seem to have to trim. Along with my Schmidt-Rubin in 308 Win.  As long as I'm at it, I will mention the 1910 Ross in 303 British. What a great invention. And, by the way, it can't go together wrong and blow your face off. After a buttload of research, I have been unable to find a recorded case of that. Just rumors; and I think the rumors were started by the Germans as a measure to get the Ross off the field.
 
And that's the rest of the story.
 
Good Day

Countrygun;
Mannkicher-Schoenauer took care of that problem handily. Just push the button on the ejection port, and they all fly out into your hand. Plus the rotary magazine design guarantees that bullet noses won't get smashed.
Mike

Anyone have any experience with the Browning T-bolt? I heard they re-introduced it a while back, not sure if it is still available. Chris S

Indeed there was a solution in that rifle, and yes the Mannlicher rotary magazine was so smooth that it was copied in the design of the Savage 99 (and thereby influenced Bill Ruger who wrote an a article for "American Rifleman" in the late '40s on converting the 99 to a semi by running the op rod through the center of the mag. A portend of the .44 mag carding in the future and the mag of the 10/22 series) however of the era I find that the smoothest bolt and best magazine is in the form of the oft-neglected Krag. Granted the Krag was short one locking lug by our standards but in the 30-40 and the 6.5 Swedish round this is not of concern. Having both in sporter configuration I find them to be more than adequate for most of my hunting if I were to restrict myself to  a single design. As with handguns I feel the heavy bullet of the Krag in 30-40 (or for that matter the long-for-caliber 6.5 rnd with it's high BC) to perform as well if not better than the ultra fast rounds so popular. Of course mentioning the ballistics of the 6.5 to Mannlicher fans is a tad redundant, but as Jeff Cooper said of the 220 gn loading of the 30-40 "The Krag hits HARD"
 
I have never ceased to be amazed at the Krag's reloading ability without the need for stripper clips, not perhaps, as history would indicate, as fast as the Mauser with clips, but none the less faster than most "civilian" sporters. As ham fisted as I am it seems to run par to my '03 Springfield with clips IF everything works right getting the rounds into my hand, from that point it's even money plus I can top the Krag off with a round in the chamber.
 
Everything has its place and purpose. I even know a gent in Idaho who has made quite a habit of modifying the extractors of Mausers so the they can still control feed while being able to "snap over" if need be with no deleterious effects. His rifles have the best of both but it is not a job for the impatient.
 
 
 

Yes, a boyhood friend had a 30-40 and hunted deer with it for many years. It was slick as butter but as you indicated not really strong enough for magnumitis lovers so it fell out of favor when newer 06's and magnums took the world by storm. An interesting side story is that the world record elk on display in a small CO town was taken way back in the early 1900's or so by an old guy with a 30-40 Krag. If I were a rich man???? I would buy all kinds of rifles, Krags, 99's ( I love the 250-3000), lever guns galore (32 Special is a favorite) and of course all manner of 03 Springfields (My Favorite) but I only dream. Chris S

Chris;
I found an original T2 in Montana years ago. I paid the princely sum of $100 for it. I also found the Browning receiver sight that clamps to the dovetail. I don't use that as I have an old Weaver K-10 on it. It's great for squirrels and armadillos. The straight pull action is kind of neat and it is quick.
And, Countrygun, I love the Krag, too. I wish I had one. A guy here in town has a really nice carbine. I haven't whittles him down yet because he's too much like me. Loves the old things that are unique. I guess I'll just have to outlive him. Shouldn't be too hard. He's a crop duster.
Another nice, light gun for hunting is the Savage 1920. A friend has one in 250-3000. He keeps moving to the giant powder wasters like the Ultramags and worse. Maybe I can slide that over to my gun room before he wrecks his shoulder and realizes how nice it is.

Gents, this is a fine conversation.
Chris, I agree with you that The Remington 700 action is one of the best. Last time I looked, there are still several custom gunsmiths who build super high end affairs on the 700 action. I should mention that I never found the snap over thing a problem with the Mauser. It is my habit to hunt/carry with an empty chamber and the safety OFF. As such, if I need to unload, I can release the floorplate and collect the cartridges, and when I need to shoot, a simple motion at any angle charges the rifle for its' lethal duty.
Mike, the Mannlicher-Schoenauer is one of the very best rifle systems ever built. This is probably the main reason that this rifle design was made on contract by so many different countries, for decades. For some reason, though, M-S often chose a larger than caliber bore, which limited velocity and accuracy, when compared with tighter tolerances. Still, if I could choose just one more rifle to own for the rest of my life, it would be hard to beat a M-S in 30-06.
CG, the Krag was a great weapon system, and the 30-40 with the 220's was an almost unstoppable combination. Today, with magumitis infecting the mind like a virus, the drooling, nodding minions repeat the zombie mantra, "speed kills". Yet we know they are wrong, and foolishly wrong. It is the heavy for caliber bullet, with high sectional density, that REALLY kills.
So many fine rifles, so little money and time...

 
Did I hear someone say they liked Savage 99s, particularly in .250/3000?

 
 
 
this one, my third .250, joined the rest of my 99s a couple of years ago. It has a bit of history and was a "good luck" moment worthy of its own thread. It's about a 1922 undrilled or messed with.
I think I can get the two parts back together with some super glue and a good long clamp. (Insert rolleyes as necessary)
 

Country: That is one slick Savage! I am so envious!!!!! Chris S