Need some help, ideas!

[taylorce1]

What you see above is a M93 Mauser in .300 Savage. I’m building this rifle on the cheap, sort of. I bought the donor rifle for $50 that some bubba did a real hack job on. I picked up the .30-06 small ring barrel from Vapodog for something like $45 shipped. The bottom metal and trigger guard came from a trade. . The Trashco scope was pretty much a freebie and we have it on because we needed something when this rifle was test fired, in a borrowed synthetic stock.

I have a buddy with an FFL who is a machinist as well and wants to become a gunsmith so he did the metal work for me for $200 which included cutting off the threads and rethreading, chambering, welding on new bolt handle, putting the low swing safety, contouring the trigger guard, filling some extra holes in the receiver, and the Dura-coat for $200. I rented the reamer from 4D, along with the headspace gages

I’m now putting it into this stock. I’ve pretty much got it inlet the way I want it. Do I bed it now or do I shape the stock? Plus I want to trim it up since it is a Richard’s stock it has plenty of extra wood. How far back should I cut the forearm? Is there a good rule of thumb, my barrel after we cut it back comes out to 23” from the bolt face. If you look in the first picture you might be able to make out my pencil mark for where I’m considering cutting the stock back to.

It feeds pretty well as long as I work the bolt hard, if I try to go slow the cartridge rim hangs up on the firing pin since it still COC making it a pita to chamber. I did order a Bold trigger for this rifle, should I get the Traister cocking piece as well? The reason I ordered the trigger is because the current one is just a constant creep until it fires. It doesn’t have the two stage feel anymore.

I just need some opinions and ideas here to help me finish this little rifle up.

 

[CAhunter]

Id say shape the stock but dont finish it yet. Then bed the action and check the barrel channel and finish fit. I think your pencil mark looks pretty good. Id say shoulder the rifle and find your prefered hand placement on the forend. I like about 2-3" beyond that for stability and sling stud/bipod mount! BTW Great looking rifle. What are you finishing the stock with? Color?

 

[SJB358]

Cool rifle, great round also. Looks very nice. Can't really help much with the other questions, but it looks like it will be a nice shooting gun. Scotty

 

[taylorce1]

I don't know what I'll stain it if any. I've got a lot of wood to remove so I'm hoping most of the blonde on the left side of the stock will disappear and show some more of the other laminate colors. The last couple of rifles I've oil finished wiht Minwax Antique oil finish. If you look at my .25-06 I posted it came out pretty well.

 

[DrMike]

A great looking project. The laminate is displaying some great character.

 

[taylorce1]

A great looking project. The laminate is displaying some great character.

Thanks, I saw the picture you posted of your .350 Rem Mag. I liked the wrist and pistol grip area. Anyway I could get some pictures of the stock? It would help me greatly in shaping mine.

Thanks!

 

[DrMike]

taylorce1,

I'll get some decent pictures and post this this week.

 

[1Shot]

I would shape the stock before I bedded it myself. Don't get the forearm too thin or you may have warpage problems. After shaping and bedding then do a final sanding and finish. The Bold triggers are pretty good but be very careful if you start adjusting the trigger. The trigger body is made of soft aluminum and you can bugger up the adjusting screw holes if you try to set the trigger too light and then tighten down on the locking nuts much they will pull the screw out stripping the threads out with them. On the one I used on my 96 Swede action I could not get it lighter than 2 lb 13 oz. and have enough thread to hold when tightening down the lock nut. It is crisp with no creep though.

A near max load of IMR 4895 about 42 grs. and the 125 Nosler ballistic tip is a deer hammer.

 

[taylorce1]

Ok, still haven’t bedded it yet but I did get to spend about 4 hours on it with a rasp and file. Still have to bring the wood down in a couple of areas on the trigger guard, and in the tang. I did thin the wrist out, a lot of recommendations came to use a 1lb coffee can to set the radius in my grip, didn’t have a coffee can but used a roll of 2” masking tape. I’ve put this stock on a weight watchers diet plan but I think there is some more weight loss to come.

As you can see I’ve toned down that extremely blonde left side of the stock. Plus I’ve thinned the forearm by removing a ton of wood. Anyway I could still use some suggestions on this stock. I’ve decided to not bed it until I’m finished rough shaping the stock. I’ll bed it before I start doing the final sanding and the oil finish.

Thanks for looking.

 

[taylorce1]

Starting to look better, here it is after a little more time spent shaping. Thanks or the suggestions everyone. Next I think I’ll spot bed it and see how she shoots before I go too much further on the stock.

 

[YoteSmoker]

Looks very nice and like you have it coming your way. It's always nice to be able to rasp it to custom fit your hands like a glove. I did this a few years back with a roughly inletted boyds target stock on a m98 that I made into a target rifle in 308 winchester with a bull barrel. It is super heavy but is exactly what I was going for, a bench shooter rifle not a fine sporter and lightweight rifle like yours. I did all the wood work and inletting myself however, I had my gunsmith do the bedding job for me. For what it's worth, he bedded the tang and the barrel lug area forward about an inch and a half or so and left the wood under the action alone. He said with the laminate wood stocks, that was all that was necessary. After working up a load, it consistently shoots 155 matchkings into the same hole time after time. You may find that spot bedding in such a manner is all she needs!

 

[Scott Spencer]

That is awesome!! Love the pattern of the laminations and the overall "look" of the shape as well!! That is true art and extremely well done

 

[FOTIS]

Bed it and work up a load. Then finish it the way you want.

 

[taylorce1]

Just another update, I hope to get some more pictures taken this afternoon of the rifle back in the stock. It looks much better than I had planned on when I started this. I think I'm done with the rough shaping now, there will be some more fine tuning of it as I do the final sanding and finish it.

I did have to open up the stock for the new trigger which came in and I installed. I picked up a Bold 94/96 trigger, sure is nice to not have the constant creep in the trigger now. If I remember Boyd's sets them at 2.7 lbs of pull and I could go down to 2 lbs easily, but the trigger feels great when I dry fire now. The only problem now is the safety doesn't work with the new trigger, so more than likely I'll have to take it back to my buddy or other gunsmith to get it adjusted properly. Plus since I'll have to take it in for an adjustment I went ahead and orderd the Traister speed lock kit to change it over to COO.

Going to spot bed it in the next day or so, and then I'll put it away so I can have my bench to reload some cartridges. I picked up some 130 grain Hornady bullets to try. I was going to shoot the 125 grain Nosler BT in it but with Horandy I get an extra 50 bullets for around $5 more a box. Still want to try the NBT's but I'll wait until I can find them at the SPS. The intermediate length of the magazine box sure gives me a ton of room to use longer bullets if I want, but I have the .30-06 and .300 H&H if I want to go heavier than 165 grains.

 

[SJB358]

Sierra has a 125gr Pro Hunter also. It is a good shooter out of my wifes 308. That stinks you were able to grab the 125gr BT's, they were just on the SPS too. I wanted to grab some, but I already have a ton of Nosler building up right now on the bench! Scotty

 

[taylorce1]

Sierra has a 125gr Pro Hunter also. It is a good shooter out of my wifes 308. That stinks you were able to grab the 125gr BT's, they were just on the SPS too. I wanted to grab some, but I already have a ton of Nosler building up right now on the bench! Scotty

You know how it goes, you win some and loose some. Sportsmans Warehouse didn't have any 125 Sierra's in stock or else I'd have snagged some. I did snag about 600 NBT's in 70 grain for my 6X47 the other day, and SW wanted $51 for 250 bullets. So I figure I got an extra 100 bullets for the same price out of SPS and didn't have to pay tax.

Good news is I can get over 3000 fps hopefully with accuracy and no pressure signs with the 130's and 3031. So I may have to pick up some TSX bulets in 130 to try if I can get that kind of velocity. Might make this into a first elk rifle for my kid! I'd just like to have a little extra velocity with a pill that light for elk although I'm sure the 150 grain Partitions would work just fine on elk. :wink:

 

[SJB358]

That is my plan for my wifes 308. I was able to pick up some 150gr Accubonds. I am hoping those shoot well enough from her rifle to make it do everything. If they don't work, I will move on to 150gr PT's. I don't see any issue with the 300 Sav / 308 Win with 150's and elk under 200 yards with a good tough bullet. Might not blow them off their feet, but I think it will get it done good enough. Plus, the 150's and under have a whole lot less recoil and allow them to focus on shooting and not recoil management. Good luck with the 300, sounds like a cool rifle. Scotty

 

[taylorce1]

Well here is how my rifle looks now. I've torn it back down and will bed the action tomorrow!

 

[taylorce1]

Well the rifle is spot bedded now and it is resting in the safe while it cures so no new pictures. All I have to say is this has been a great time to get this project done. I'm getting married in a couple of weeks and just being able to get out to the garage, rasp, file, and sand had been great stress relief especially since I can't make it to the range! :wink:

Next set of pictures will hopefully be a range report. I've got two loads worked up I want to try. 150 gr Speer bullets being pushed by Ramshot TAC and CCI 200 primers top velocity should be around 2800 fps with the max load. 130 gr Hornady bullets, H4198, and CCI 200 primers as well, these should do over 2900 fps at max load as well. Don't know if I'll get all 50+ cartridges fired in one trip to the range, but I'll try a week from today.