Thread: mauser actions

hi im wondering if any of the swedish mauser actions are stronger than than each other given they were made by a few different factories. Ive got an obendorff manufactured one and have been told it will handle higher power loads im not going to go out and keep loading higher and higher until I start to get pressure sighns I tend to work up and accurate load that's under max in the book

Originally Posted by northdude

hi im wondering if any of the swedish mauser actions are stronger than than each other given they were made by a few different factories. Ive got an obendorff manufactured one and have been told it will handle higher power loads im not going to go out and keep loading higher and higher until I start to get pressure sighns I tend to work up and accurate load that's under max in the book

I dont think any of it would matter within the boundaries you're working with. IE Book Max.

Obendorf Swedish Mausers were made from Steel produced in Sweden as the Swedes believed their steel was better than the German steel and required the Germans to use thier steel rather than their own. So considering the design and the steel is the same I would say that both are equally strong/weak. The debate about whether the 94/96 action is strong enough to handle loads in the 60,000 PSI range has been going on for years, my thoughts are that some of these actions are 100 years old and more and having seen a 96 bolt without a set of locking lugs (Sheared off) I would be very wary, but hey its your face.

I thought the lawyer loads were for Krag Jorgesen rifles

All M96s are listed as made with Swedish steel even the German made early ones. The ww2 made M38 guns/steel has comments that it is a wee bit stronger though, however I have seen some later receivers that appear rather worn/sloppy. The M96 action is pretty strong, its the Norwegian actions you have to be careful with, however my Swedish Mauser book lists the max safe pressure as 44,000psi and a test pressure of 66000psi. Again though my ADI book lists 53000psi, so I'd assume there is a mix up with the 2 different measuring methods.

I'd suggest if you want to make this cartridge really go it should be out of something like a Tikka and not a WW1 era gun.

If anyone has better documented info with URLs etc, I'd love you to share it.

"Ive got an obendorff manufactured one and have been told it will handle higher power loads" I'd suggest this is substantially not correct.

Stiga arms used to use the M96 action to build rifles in 30-06, 270 etc when sporterizing milsurps for the retail market was the in thing years ago mate of mine had a 308 that was built on an M96 action.

Interesting as the Swedish action was supposed to be able made smaller and lighter because they adopted the 6.5mm round, yet it was used for a 30-06 / 308w? hmmm.

regards

The M96 action was smaller because that was the design of the time. The large ring actions didn't come about until the 98 action, by that time the Swedes had already committed to the 96, which was really just a modified 93/95 action.