Hunting knives and related projects

[Von Gruff]

TOTW checkered steel butt plates were fitted so I set to on the buttstocks and got some shape into them. Will not be able to do much more now till there are a couple of barrels threaded up.


As for the barrel I had got onto one that was a take-off and had been chambered for the a shortened 405 Winchester --the 405 x 2.2. It had been fitted to a Marlin Lever action so needed som work on it. Thr action thread was turned off and a sleeve was machined up and threaded onto it. One downside was that it had two dovetail cuts on the underside and one for the front sight. I had ordered a reamer to lengthen the chamber but had to keep in mind the Lee Enfield magazine length. I decided to cut the chamber to 2.410 and trim 405 Winchester brass to 2.405 and with the cast bullet I intended to use I could load to a COAL of 3 inches. It would also suit a jacketed bullet.

To fix - hide the dovetails a piece of steel was filed to shape and tapped into the first one



The second one was treated the same way

[Von Gruff]

The barrel for the 375-303 turned up so the forestock could be finish inletted and given some shape. Sitting at 150grtit sandpaper finish for now but I do like the balance and swing this one has.

[Von Gruff]

After seeing the trigger guard with the waist ground into it on the recent thread I decided I needed that for my 400 so a short spell on the grinder and with some polishing it looks a bit better to my eye, so I did the same for the one on my 303 as well. Slightly less waist on the 400 but it does take away from the solid square look quite nicely.


I had been having trouble sourcing ebony here in NZ which was partially why the grip cap had simply been walnut but a friend had got onto a small block that will do 3 tips so I decided to remove the walnut grip cap and used the last small piece of ebony I had and cut a grip blank that will replace the present walnut one



As shown before the cap was cut off and replaced with the ebony then hand filed to shape.

[Von Gruff]

I had got the 375-303 finished as far as I am going with it so it can be returned to its home base for sights and blue. The blank didn't have a lot of grain definition but the alkanet oil has bought a subtle tone that has made it rather nice

[Von Gruff]

The dies and a 405 reamer arrived from the US and a box of 405 win brass so I was able to get that side of the project sorted.
I did the arithmetic and cut the case length back to 2.410 and seated a bullet for an OAL of 3.052


With a case at the 2.410 length, it showed the chamber that had been cut for the 405 x 2 1/4 needed attention and because I had to time the barrel to my action this was not a concern. The barrel (being a take-off) had been sleeved to within a 1/16 of a turn to a friends action before the barrel was sent to me so in short order it was timed to mine and removed for the chamber work


Slow and with plenty of cutting fluid (ok, I used ATF)and with many checks for depth and to clear the sludge from the cutting flutes



Finished

[Von Gruff]

Filing in the extractor groove



Breaking the sharp edge of the chamber mouth

[Von Gruff]

The cartridges would not feed from the magazine or hold themselves in it for more than one so that required a little though and a remedy.
A piece from an old vehicle roof rack support made a dandy cartridge follower so I could save to original one unmolested.The follower needed to be narrower at the rear so I made it to exactly the width of the spring. With the turn up at the front and the turn down at the rear it was a perfect fit for the rimmed cartridge
I used some .040 stainless and made up an insert for the mag that would be held down by the spring and shaped the top to make it center feed and after a few trial re-shapes of the feed lips and the spacer folds down the back edge I finally got it to hold and feed

[Von Gruff]

About this time it was apparent I would need a front sight so A Lee Enfield military sight looked like it would do the job with a little work

The part I couldn't do myself was to open up the inside of the band. I don't have a lathe (or a mill) so it was down to the local garage where he has a small lathe and he opened it up for me.
The locating lug recess's were almost completely removed so there was no visible remainder when I tapped it onto the barrel.
I went and fired a few shots and with the aperture sight at the lowest setting where I wanted it to be, the shots hit 22 1/2 inches low at 50 yds. With a 31in sighting radius, I needed to lower the front sight by .3875 and if I filed the ramp down and cut a new dovetail that would have cut through the hole at the top of the band that was there for locating purposes, and would have dramatically weakened the hold on the divetail. This led me to file the ramp down and split it lengthwise deep enough to take a blade I made from a piece of .125 thick steel. (just a square I cut from a piece of 3x2 box steel) The blades for the LE sights are only .05 thick and my eyes can not see them clearly enough as they fuzz up badly but I have found that the thicker blade is a usable sight and I have split more of these blades and fit them over the thin blades on some of my other open sighted rifles.
The sight was over about .785 from the band to the top of the blade as the LE offering and when I got it "sorted" with the new blade so it would print on aim it was down to .306

I did start with plenty of blade height



This will do after test shooting as I filed it down to where the calculations said it should be.

[Von Gruff]

So with most things taken care of and a little blueing done, the stock was the centre of attention for a couple of weeks and after some alkanet/blo and tung oil I think I can just about call it done.







So this is my medium and heavy pair of rifles now with the 303 and its 190gn bullet and the 400 with a 320gn bullet I should be able to face off just about anything short of the big five. They have thier respective compannion knives that I made for them. I will have to take another pic some day of the pair of them with the sporting magizine in the 303.

[montana]

Beside your outstanding stock work you are quite the gunsmith. Did you use any compound when you cut the edges down on the new chamber? Using a piece of roof rack support for a cartridge follower made me smile. I have never seen a modification to a magazine like that before to fit a different cartridge. I would have never thought that possible, Genius! The modifications to the front sight and barrel dovetails are also very clever. Nice work!

[Von Gruff]

The cartridge is the same size as the 303 at the rim end but being a (relatively) straight walled case compared to the bottle necked 303 the cartridge would try to cross ove at the front so the 22 rimfire styled magazine insert made it a single stack that feeds flawlessly.
I used atf as a cutting fluid but I cut so slowly with the hand cutter that it was more like a grey sludge when I removed the reamer (frequently) to clean and to use the air hose to blow-clear the chamber before putting checking the case length. The headspace had been correct for the 405 case rim so that was not effected.

There have been a number of other Lee speeds but they all involve very much the same process.

So how about a Howa for the next one?? It is the 308 sized action as I havent had a mini action to work on to date but that would be another option to the boyds etc that the guys are getting to replace the flexi stock that they have been complaining about.

I will post this one tonight on propper cartridge to magazine fit and how to make a cartridge feed from the magazine to the chamber then I will post on the Howa tomorrow night.

[Von Gruff]

This is an artical I have C&P from another forum so the authorship is by Tileyman of Australia

I originally wrote this article for our club magazine, pulled together from a few sources including Ludwig Olsen's Mauser Bolt Rifles and De Haas' Bolt Action Rifles... hope you find it useful!

Many thousands of Mauser 98’s have been rebarrelled to a multitude of modern cartridges very different to the original 7.92mm German military chambering.

While some of these conversions feed reliably from the magazine, many do not!

The fault often lies with the magazine and follower profile if it is left unaltered from the original layout.

Paul Mauser was a gifted firearms designer who carefully designed each magazine of his M98 rifles for a particular cartridge.

Box and follower dimensions were predicated on case dimensions... Paul figured that a staggered column would enable more cartridges to fit into a given magazine well than a single vertically stacked column.

In order to feed correctly from a staggered magazine, each cartridge needed support... from the magazine box on one side and a cartridge or the follower on the other side and underneath. With a stacking angle of 30 degrees, three stacked cartridges in contact would form the corners of an equilateral triangle:

By multiplying the Cosine of 30 degrees ((0.866) by the case head diameter, then adding the diameter to the product of the equation, the correct magazine box width could be determined.

For example, a 9.3x62mm case measures 11.95mm across the rim.
So 0.866 x 11.95 = 10.35 +11.95 = 22.3mm
Theoretically, that is the correct inside rear magazine box width for any cartridge deriving from the 9.3x62mm case.

However, all cartridges taper, and so must the magazine.

The same formula yields the proper box width at the point of shoulder contact:
The shoulder diameter is 11.45mm
So 0.866 x 11.45 = 9.92 + 11.45 = 21.4mm

A magazine box for a 9.3x62mm cartridge must therefore theoretically taper from 22.3mm to 21.4mm. Adding an extra 0.07mm ( 0.003") or so for dirty or oversized cases makes practical sense.
So a practical magazine box for the 9.3x62mm cartridge would taper from 22.4mm to 21.5mm

A magazine box designed for one cartridge works for others ONLY with the same identical front and rear diameters and the same span between them. Triangles between cartridge centrelines get steep when the box is too narrow, and rounds tend to cross-stack.

Paul Mauser also relieved the box sides slightly, from just ahead of the cartridge base to just behind the shoulder, so there would be no increase in friction between the case body and the box wall.

He lavished equal attention on the magazine follower, which on an original M98 mirrors the box taper.

The width of its lower shelf matches that of the case, with a 61 degree step between the upper and the lower shelf.



The top shelf is high enough to touch the next-to-last cartridge without lifting it off the last round in the stack (its half a diameter above the lower shelf at base and shoulder) The follower has a slope to follow case taper and keep the cartridges level in the box.

Side clearance of the follower to box is also critical.

Followers should be about 1.5mm (0.060") narrower than their boxes so they can wriggle a bit... especially important for the last cartridge.

A magazine follower for our 9.3x62mm example cartridge must therefore theoretically taper from 20.8mm to 19.9mm.
A magazine follower to fit the practical box above would taper from 20.9mm to 20.0mm

Floor plates that have been machined to hold the magazine spring tightly won't feed properly either... the springs are supposed to shimmy back and forth!

If the spring can't shuffle a bit as the bolt strips a round, it twists and the follower tips or ends up sideways... sometimes both!

Follower length is not as critical, but one that is too short will tend to 'dive' in the magazine box and cause misfeeds.

Many temperamental-feeding custom rifles have had some attempt at magazine alterations, often made on trial and error rather than based on sound engineering principles.

Getting a custom M98 rifle to feed flawlessly with a new chambering is the mark of a top-notch gunsmith who fully understands the ‘elegant simplicity’ of Paul Mauser’s original design.

[Von Gruff]

For those who may want to make a larger cartridge feed from a magazine and there is some fitting-grinding to be done this is as good a tutorial as I have seen and a valuable resourse. I had to change the 223 sized mag and feed rails on the mini mauser I covnerted to my 6.5 Grendel-Max but did it before I had seen this thread but somehow I did exactlt whar Duane has shown is the correct way to approach the problem so it all turned out as intended and my little grendel-Max is a delight to hunt with as I expect to re-prove to myself this month

http://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9411043/m/843106779/p/1

[1075 tech]

Gruff, you've been making me late for work nearly every morning after you post. I sit here with my coffee and enjoy every detail and picture. Thanks again for doing this.

[Von Gruff]

So how about a Howa

This one came about when a guy came to see me with his Howa as he was having trouble because of his build and the Howa stock shape. When he mounted the rifle he only had the bottom third of the butt contacting his shoulder and with it being a 308 was becoming abit painfull to shoot. Not because it is a heavy recoiler but because all the recoil was being concentrated in such a small part of the butt plate.

This is the rifle and the stock bank he chose