First go with 462's Chilean Mauser

[Ian]

This little rifle is fantastic, love it, and very glad I bought it from Michael on more or less a whim.

I tuned up the 287641 and cast a short run of bullets and powder-coated them last weekend without gas checks. Today I loaded them over 8.0 grains of Universal without sizing the bullets at all. CCI 200 were the primers and RP fireformed, neck-sized brass Michael had prepared with the Lee collet die were the cases I chose to start out.

I scoped, cleaned, and scoped the bore again and found some ancient crusty rust spots in a few places and a lightly checked throat, but good solid rifling for a 125 year old military surplus rifle.



PC residue from determining seating depth with a dummy cartridge. This has me a little worried about shooting unlubed, unchecked PC'd bullets through it considering the few rust spots elsewhere in the barrel cast a shadow.



Since the proof of the pudding is in the eating, I went to the range with ten loaded cartridges. Here is the result:



Bore after shooting, no cleaning, down and left is toward the muzzle, there is no lead deposit on or past any of the raised rust crusties and no PC residue that I can find:



The throat had a light plating of lead on the high spots but nothing seemed to be accumulating anywhere after 10 shots.



So to say I'm pleased is an understatement! Thanks Michael for a fine rifle!

 

[462]

Oh, boy! I am so thrilled for you, you can probably see my huge grin all the way to Texas.

The bore:
I don't have a scope, so had no idea of it's condition.
I purposely left in it uncleaned and conventional lube "conditioned" condition.
Don't know when the last time it was cleaned.

I threw out three or four 50-yard targets that were all within an inch plus a wee bit, using that bullet and 13.0-grains of Unique. I foresee MOA targets on the near horizon.

By the way, what did your mould fine tuning entail?

 

[462]

Found this on the computer. 50-yards.

 

[Ian]

In order to group MOA I would have to be able to SEE MOA! Really struggling today. Fir this second go I improvised an eyeglass aperture with a piece of tape and a needle which brought the sights into focus but the pond water in my eyes made the target a real bad floating blob. Waiting between floaters I could catch a clear glimpse of the black dot and make adjustments, but it's tedious and my elevation estimate is very uncertain, as the target shows.

9.0 Universal and a sight drift:



2-3/4" at 100 ain't too bad if you could see through my eyes today. Been shopping scout scope mounts but then I remind myself it isn't a target rifle and I can see plenty well enough to drill coke cans.

 

[Ian]

The mould alignment pins needed to be reseated, and there was a glob of something like hot glue in one of the cavities at the nose. Now the nose is round but the base is .002" out of round, I need to use some shim stock and press to strategically twist the blocks. Or do I? It shoots these mouse fart loads pretty well I think. Maybe I'll just lap the mould a bit because even powder coated the bullets are .287" at the largest dimension and need to be seated with half the lube groove sticking out of the case.

 

[462]

I know what you mean about seeing MOA. Waiting for floaters to move out of the way while maintaining breath control causes the entire sight picture to go blurry, then I have to restart the entire process.

Hmmm . . . didn't know about the mould's problems.

 

[Ian]

"Problems" are relative, but I did puzzle over the hot glue glob since none of your bullets have a nose defect. I have OCPD, remember? It takes a conscious effort to skip things like Iosso bore paste, firelapping, and tweaking moulds to less than .005" runout before ever trying to shoot bullets cast from them. You should have seen the 6.5 mould I got from someone else before I worked on it (and it still needs more), blocks fully .003" out of alignment due to cherry torque.

 

[richhodg66]

I really like the 7x57 and shoot a lot of cast through mine. It's a sporterized Chilleno I was lucky enough to find on a local rack a few years ago and my standard loading in it is that Soup Can bullet Midsouth had as a special run a few years go and ten grains of 700X, I rarely shoot it off the bench, just various field positions on my front porch at 100 yards. Fun rifle.

That 287641 looks like a good bullet. I might have to try and find one at some point.

 

[Spindrift]

Congrats with a nice, accurate rifle!
Good shooting!

 

[Bret4207]

Ian, I'm not saying this is the only way to deal with rough military bores, but it's worked a couple times for me. Lee Liquid Mule Snot. Run a mess of that crap into the bore and let it dry as much as it will. Then make a pass or 2 with a not too tight fitting patch to sort of remove the excess. For me it seemed to fill in the divots and pits to a certain extent and smooth things a bit. The bores I used this on were quite a lot rougher than yours, at least to the naked eye. It doesn't work at all, or so it seems, if you're dealing with jacket fouling. This is for after you've gotten the barrel pretty clean. Might not even be needed in your case, just a thought.

 

[Ian]

The Good Idea faery visited me a few weeks ago and suggested I strip-clean the barrel and mop some Naval Jelly through it, so I masked off the crown to preserve the blue and did so. Results were dramatic, no more crust, only small pits now. After a scrubbing with baking soda solution, generous rinse/wipe with water, flush with kerosene to displace the water, and a good oiling, I shot it again. No targets, but I punched a bunch of holes in my rubber gongs at 100 yards from the bench, couldn't miss even the 3" one if I aimed high and left a little, so it sure didn't hurt anything and it patches out like a lapped, match barrel.

 

[Bret4207]

Huh, interesting. I wonder if Evaporust would do the same? A little easier to use I'd think.

 

[Ian]

Evapo-rust leaves a frosted, etched surface behind even on clean steel, needs to soak the surface overnight for thick rust, and one drop on bluing ruins it. The bore could be corked and filled with Evaporust, but....no. I dipped a bore mop in the Naval Jelly and jogged it through the bore and let it soak for a half hour, repeated, and then rinsed it out. That's all it took and no mess or ruined finish.

 

[462]

Wow, 124-years of hidden-from-the-naked-eyeball stuff removed just like that. Your son will be shooting the wings off flies. I love it.

 

[Bret4207]

Okay, now I see why you went with jelly. I have a gallon of Evaporust I have yet to use yet. Some folks swear by it.