Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Mauser build for my son

And I'm back again....After my last update I had great plans about getting in and knocking this out. And then I got Covid. That was not terrible but walking more than from the chair to the kitchen was all I could do. I've never felt so fatigued in my life. But I'm better and got a little bit done;

One of the things I worked on was the trigger. I have a drop in Bold trigger that doesn't work. I'm not sure why, it's 'new' or I should say "new old stock". I've had it in a drawer in the package for years. Interestingly the factory Mauser two-stage trigger that came with this receiver when I got it has been smoothed up some. After putting in place and playing with it some, both my son and me feel it's a nice trigger so that's what's being used in this build. To that end I stoned it a bit and turned my attention to the underside of the receiver where the trigger bears. It was pretty rough.

That's after I had run a diamond stone over it some. To the right toward the tang you can get an idea what it was like originally. I sanded with some wet or dry paper and a flat metal backer from 180 grit through about 400 grit. I think this will be better:

I'm not going to lie I've been hesitant to do some of the metal work, specifically working on the hinged trigger guard conversion and latch. I've never done one and I want to do it well. But it was time to do it. I started with the floor plate. I ended up drilling the exiting hole for the release larger, then turned a piece of steel rod to make a press fit plug.



Then filing and sanding it down. Having a plug allowed me to drill a new hole the size I wanted. In my case since I was making a swivel latch it allowed me a little more room to fit the locking tab. The other thing the plug did was leave a relatively flat base under the lever instead of the lever overhanging the bevel on the back of the floor plate.

and after sanding:


I relocated the through hole in the floor plate, I made it .180" diameter. Then I made a lever with a one piece stud to go through the floorplate. And then I turned a 'tab' that would fit on the stud, sanded 2 flats on the side and pinned it to the stud with a 1/16" roll pin. The tab is a pretty close fit and was pressed tightly before pinning. I'm hoping the friction of the fit will keep it in place.

I also fitted the 3 position safety. In this case I didn't have to take anything off the cocking piece. I did have to make the lever fit, it was dragging a bit on the cocking piece so just a bit of sanding with the dreaded Dremel tool made it right.




And once it was all in place working the safety pulls the cocking piece off the sear;
In the fire position:


and in both safe positions:

The last bit of progress I have made so far is working on the hinge part of the magazine floorplate conversion. I cut a 1/4" slot in the trigger guard, and I'm working on the metal piece to solder to the floorplate.




I hope to have that done one night this week. I'm about to turn back to the stock and work on finishing it. I still need to wet sand the epoxy so I can put the Tru Oil on. Before doing that I plan to "glass bed" the action and short section of the barrel.

I am really torn on the checkering. This guns needs and deserves nice checkering. But, I'm not sure I can do it. Part of me says I can and part of me knows how easy it would be to really make it look bad. I've got a couple of other stocks, leftovers from a 10/22 and the stock that came with this action originally, I do intend to practice before I decide for or against doing it myself.

Thanks for the update!

Very nice and am really liking this thread, thank you!

If I missed it, I apologize. Will you be reinforcing the wrist area of the second stock? In over 50 years of using rifles, I've broke 2 stocks, both at the wrist, both clumsy me!

Best to you and take care.