FN98 with receiver lug setback....

Hitzy

Hitzy

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Was having a nice enough HVA commercial FN98 30'06 rebarreled to 9.3x62 by the local smith, when he took the barrel off he noticed the receiver lugs were quite setback, enough that there was an imprint of the split bolt lug on the top lug. I only put 10 rounds through it and everything was okay, and my loads were mild handloads so this would have happened prior to my ownership....
So a couple questions:
I'm not going to use this for the build anymore, obviously I'm spending some money so no point starting with a "what if" receiver. Is it any good for anything at this point, or should I get it torched? Would it be OK for 30/30 or 6.5x55, or some lower pressure round?
Also, I have a bubbad up duv42 K98 receiver that is in pretty decent shape, would all the commercial FN98 receicer parts slap right in like the bolt etc? Barrel going on it is new and short chambered, just looking at a bunch of good FN parts lying there, and trying to mate her up with a donor receiver at this point....
I have other HVA FN98''s in 8x57 but they are nice and I don't really want to tear one of them up.
 
Drill a hole in an obscure part so it is not usable then get a couple of screws and mount it on a nicely finished pieced of Walnut. With a little effort it can be turned into a nice paper weight or pen holder or even a lamp if that floats your boat. Personally I would get rid of it after cutting it in half.

I have seen a couple that were cut down the center, lengthwise and mounted as well. They make nice conversation pieces.
 
The locking abutments could be trued up, and the receiver re-heat treated, but this is not a practical solution.
 
Smith said he's never seen that on an FN action before, and figured it's seen some seriously hot loads. I had to repair 3 cracks in the stock when I got it, so that might have been the reason. Cracked at both the bridges and the butt.
Barrel is one of those ER Shaw units from Tradex, and Andy lent me his 9.3x62 reamer, so hopefully it works out. If it's going to be too much work I'll just scrap the whole build, sell all the parts lol.
It was going to be a nice high polish blue in some nice lumber, but now I see it being more of a cheap synthetic stock and BBQ paint affair.
 
Well - The issue is self correcting, to a degree. The lug engagement area has now increased, so the wear rate on the softer metal will attenuate. I doubt you are going to put thousands of rounds through it, so I would continue with the build, to a lesser standard, with some moly grease on the engagement surfaces.
The salient issue is whether the bolt "locks" in the lug upon firing, which would render the action to be unusable in its present state. You stated to have shot some mild handloads in the gun previously without issue, so this doesn't appear to be a problem.
 
cosmic said:
Well - The issue is self correcting, to a degree. The lug engagement area has now increased, so the wear rate on the softer metal will attenuate. I doubt you are going to put thousands of rounds through it, so I would continue with the build, to a lesser standard, with some moly grease on the engagement surfaces.
The salient issue is whether the bolt "locks" in the lug upon firing, which would render the action to be unusable in its present state. You stated to have shot some mild handloads in the gun previously without issue, so this doesn't appear to be a problem.
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He checked it with headspace gauges and it swallowed a no-go with zero resistance, so it's set back quite a bit. He just doesn't know if it will continue setting back with normal 9.3x62 loads or not. His advice was get another receiver to remove any doubt, since this work is costing money, why chance it.
I like the commercial FN receivers as they look better then a military style in my eyes anyway. The other ones I have are just too nice, and still all original, so I'm not too keen on ripping one up for this. This one had a bit of blue wear, already D&T, stock was nothing special and had 3 repairs already so it was a good candidate.
I'm bringing the duv there today, I'll see what options he can give me.
 
The rifle may have been built with excessive headspace. Now, I have not seen the receiver but can tell you this much: If the ridge in the locking lug seat is not sufficient to be readily felt when the rifle is fired, the lugs have probably not set back all that much. Sometimes, it happens that the top (split) lug is doing all the bearing and will set back until the other lug contacts. It may only be one half thousandth but it is enough to make a shiny mark. I have seen this on at least a dozen FN's as well as on 98's and some Sakos.
I cannot, of course, recommend that you go ahead and use it since I have not seen it but from the sound of it, I would be OK using for myself.
It is relatively easy to measure the amount of setback by using a depth mike and a pin. One can start by just feeling the step with a scribe. If there is no step on the lower lug seat or if the lower seat isn't showing some wear, there isn't much setting back going on.
 
I'm heading there at 1pm, I'll take a few pics and see how bad it really is.
I would really prefer to use the FN receiver, and I guess I could always have it put together and shoot it for a bit and take some frequent measurements. Hold off on the refinishing until I can confirm there is no further setback...
 
Well it's junk, upper lug had a visable and obvious protrusion where the split lug rests, and the lower was obviously set back as well to the point you could feel it with your finger where the edge of the bolt stops.
The duv looks like it's going to work at least, the bolt fit snug and closed, Jason doesn't think there will be any issues now.
 
cosmic said:
That's unfortunate - the commercial FN actions are quality kit.
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Yep, real pisser for sure, would have preferred that nice clean action. First time Jason's ever seen that on an FN98 too.
The duv42 was a barreled Dane M69 I bought just for the barrel, has diopter holes D&T on the right rear section, it's been refinished by the Danes as well so no history being destroyed...markings are half scrubbed already, ugly but should be durable at least.
 
buckbrush said:
that's a shame, FN's are usually a safe bet for Mausers. Along with Brno's and Radom's.
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Well hopefully zee Germans in 1942 Berlin did a good job on this one.
I know the Danes took a lot of pride in their shooting clubs and marksmanship. S&L did some accurizing and smoothing of the receivers when they built these, then they got shot A LOT.
I decided to have him put it together but skip the refinishing for now. If it turns out to be a real shooter then I'll go for dehumping and making it artsy.
 
Leeper said:
The rifle may have been built with excessive headspace. Now, I have not seen the receiver but can tell you this much: If the ridge in the locking lug seat is not sufficient to be readily felt when the rifle is fired, the lugs have probably not set back all that much. Sometimes, it happens that the top (split) lug is doing all the bearing and will set back until the other lug contacts. It may only be one half thousandth but it is enough to make a shiny mark. I have seen this on at least a dozen FN's as well as on 98's and some Sakos.
I cannot, of course, recommend that you go ahead and use it since I have not seen it but from the sound of it, I would be OK using for myself.
It is relatively easy to measure the amount of setback by using a depth mike and a pin. One can start by just feeling the step with a scribe. If there is no step on the lower lug seat or if the lower seat isn't showing some wear, there isn't much setting back going on.
Click to expand...


I haven't seen this but it certainly makes sense. The receivers I've seen with set back on the lug ways have always been very obvious and deep. Often the set back occurred because of improper heat treating done to rework surplus receivers. Doesn't matter much who did the work. I've had an engraved BSA marked 98 receiver that was made up on a reworked surplus action. No idea of who the original maker was but it had to be softened enough to do the fancy engraving. When I changed out the barrel the set back was very deep and obvious. To deep to warrant any further work and the rest of the rifle became a source of parts.

Even at today's prices that receiver isn't worth the cost to fix IMHO.
 
When I read that FN decided to eliminate the internal collar ("C") on their "98" clones and transitioned to "H" broaching as a cost saving measure (while BRNO continued with the original mauser design) I became curious why they continued to be held in such high regard. I think that I see relative quality of '98 in descending order as BRNO/Original Mauser/Early FN, Husqvarna manufactured actions, Later FN, Santa Barbara. And I think that the 'improved 98 style' ZKK actions as being among the very best. Dont know about some of the more recent newly manufactured 98 actions and of course the Model 70 is very nice IMO .. The Belgians can build crap too fwiw... although not saying that FN actions are in that category ... just that they are not 'top drawer' imho.
 
Finally got some pics of the FN.... won't get into the issues I've run into trying to use the FN parts on a K98 receiver but I think I've got the "bugs" worked out now...
Photobucket difficulties now...

 
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