A few photos for you.

[Ben]

My friend wanted to see some photos of one of the Mauser 98 rifles , cal. 280 Rem. that I built several years ago. The rifle has a clean crisp 1.5 lb. Timney trigger, is glass bedded and is a super accurate rifle. I thought while I was at it, I'd post a few photos here. Sorry, but it seems that several of the photos are out of focus.

I did all the stock work, my gunsmith in Colorado did all the metal work.

Ben

 

[Rick H]

What a beautiful piece of wood. Just beautiful attention to detail.

 

[Dimner]

Oh man. I need something like that in my life.

 

[hporter]

Ben,

That is one beautiful rifle. Your wood to metal fitment is absolutely amazing. I was really taken with the photo of the metal buttplate and how well it was fitted to the stock. I would be very proud to own a rifle like that.

Regards,

Harold

 

[Ian]

All I can say is WOW.

Oh, and I appreciate a fellow who notches the stock behind the tang for the striker tail to clear rather than filing the tang down flush. Keeping the wrist line original looks "proper" to me.

 

[smokeywolf]

Ben, you're killing me. I'm a sucker for a pretty stock. All I can say is, You are one heck of an artisan.

 

[Ben]

Thanks fellows for those nice comments.

Ben

 

[Bret4207]

OOOOOOOO! Gun porn! Nice job Ben.

 

[Ben]

I built a pair. The one above is a .280. this one is a 7X57mm :

 

[Gary]

Wow!! Beautiful craftsmanship Ben. BTW, have you noticed the price of Walnut Gunstock Blanks? You've got a $1200 ~$1800 piece of wood on that Mauser, BEFORE what you did to it!
https://www.cookwoods.com/collections/gun-blanks

 

[Ben]

Yes, nice walnut is " off the scale ".
Finding someone who has the skill base to finish the stock isn't easy or cheap either .

Thanks,
Ben

 

[462]

Stop with the pictures, Ben, my drool organ quit working!

 

[Ben]

Oh, you wouldn't want this rusty junk in your gun safe.................

 

[creosote]

Ben those are beautiful.

Can you use iron nitrate to get the grain to stand out Like is used on curly maple. ?

I'm slowly working on a set of Pistol grips. The stuff is as hard as wookpecer lips.



I splashed some water on the rectangle piece.

 

[Ben]

I've never done it, but I've read about it.
You are going to end up with some very beautiful grips.

Ben

 

[Barn]

Go back and relook at the pictures again. Ben has every screw heat clocked. You only get that from a master craftsman!

 

[creosote]

Thank you.

 

[Dimner]

Okay, I give in Ben.

I have a Chilean Mauser 7x57 and a Turkish Mauser 8mm Mauser that are begging to be taken through the process you did with yours.

Is there a site or a book that shows the process to do something like this? Or heck, if you can give me a set of google search terms to look up that covers the main phases of the project? (stock inletting, bolt modification, etc). What's the list of stuff you had to do?

 

[Dimner]

Go back and relook at the pictures again. Ben has every screw heat clocked. You only get that from a master craftsman!

So I have done screw clocking in my woodworking projects, generally by filing ever so little off the underside of the screw heads. Mainly on the screws on piano hinges, because it looks so cool. but what is heat clocking?

 

[Missionary]

Two fine rifles to be right proud of !!