Opinions on old M98 actions

Thanks for all your answers guys, there's a whole bunch of info here that I didn't know.

I ordered my rifles finally, both of them Voeres. I went with Voere for the M98, because the FN's that met my criteria just looked in much worse shape to me. I wouldn't have minded too much the shape of the wood, but the metal is harder to deal with for me. Maybe if I had ordered a year ago I'd have had better choices from the FN litter, but I guess I came in late. :( Anyways, Anthony says this Voere is made using a regular M98 action, but we can't really know who made it. However, after looking at hundreds of pictures of M98 Mausers on the Internet, the only other action I've seen which actually resembles it, is the FN made one. Plus, almost all comments on all Voere made M98's I found on the Internet were positive, and the fact that it comes with a stock set for scope use, as opposed to the stock for open sights on HVA FN's, help me in my decision.

I should receive my order next week, so we'll see then what they're really like.
 
Santa Barbara (Spain) actions are those Voere used the most to build their sporting rifles, 2155 / 2165. They bought a huge bunch of it. Now they seems to use the Zastava made ones. I doubt they ever used FN actions.
Also, as a sidenote, Santa Barbara and Zastava both bought machinery and licenses to fabricate the later "sporting" FN actions, i.e. the 300 series (or, Supreme) and what really differenciates their actions is the finishing, not the overall quality. As an example, Parker-Hale 1200 are Santa Barbara (and some think they also sporadically used the Zastava-made actions when out of stock of SB).

If it's a model 2155 then you will have the thumb cut-out, this model is the entry model, there are plenty of options availlble for this model.
The 2165 is the same standard action, usually having filled thumb cut-out and reshaped bolt handle, with a replacement bolt shroud.
Those are very nice rifles, I really like the Bavarian stock. But I've recently heard from a trusted source, that today's quality may somewhat be on and off.
 
As far as I know, 2155/2165 are all ex-military actions and they fill in the thumb notch (tig welding?) - when needed - and mill out the rear bridge for the "FN Supreme" look.
 
RRCo. said:
The Swedes are beautifully made, but crappy safety and not as strong as the P14/M17. Don't like the triggers or sights either.
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While I like the Pattern 14 and 17...

The safety on the swedes are plenty strong enough in fact the modern day Swedish Palace guards ride around on horseback in public with their rifles cocked and loaded.

The saftey in the swedes Swede in the far left is in ready to fire mode...center position allows for safe unloading of the rifle (brilliant design), third position right disengages the sear and locks the action up tight.

When people bubba these rifles they often throw on a Parker hale wing safety...which is a poor substitute for the original safety and IMHO makes the rifle unsafe a great deal of the time.

I had one on one of my bubba swedes and it would fire the rifle when I disengaged it when the rifle was cocked. :eek:

Also it would allow for the bolt to drop open while simply walking a field with the rifle slung on my back. :eek:

One trip to a local gunshow for an original safety solved this problem.

Moral of the story...keep the rifle as original as possible, lots of man hours and engineer time was put into it long before most of our parents where even born.
 
mmm... You know Baribal, I really hope it is not a Santa Barbara action, 'cause I didn't really want a Spanish made one. I didn't even know the Spanish had made large ring Mausers. All of the references I could find about the Spanish Mausers showed only Small Ring receivers. But what the heck, it'll be here next week, so not much I can do now.

That being said, I tried to find anything I could about these rifles, and almost everything I found (which unfortunately wasn't much) was good, so it can't be so bad. I checked with Anthony and he couldn't tell who made the action. Also, he said there's no model number on the rifle, so we can't really know if it's a 2155 or what. My guess is that it may be a predecessor to the 2155, unless they come without the model number marked on them. It is a military action, thumb cut and all, with the original bolt shroud. The safety, however, is not original military, that hole has been plugged. Instead, it has a side safety (trigger blocking only, I suppose) to the right side of the shroud, somewhat like the side safeties on HVA 1600's. I did also look at a model with a tang safety, but I read about somebody who had a lot of problems with one of those, resorting to completely taking it away and leaving a very unsightly hole in the tang. I didn't want that, so went with the side safety instead. Oh, and it also has the military floor plate, not a hinged one. I would have preferred hinged, but only if it was steel, not aluminum.

I know the military wing safety is more... well, safe. However, it is very inconvenient, slow and noisy to use for hunting. Yes I know you can do it, I have and I didn't like it. YMMV. Also, this rifle comes with a scope, which I need, so the original safety is a no-no. If I could put my MK-V safety on it, I would, but I can't, so this one will have to do for now.

Oh, Baribal, just in case you didn't know, Voere bought at least 10,000 unissued 1935 Mausers from Argentina, all made by FN. So I guess there's a whole bunch of them out there with real FN actions. I got that info on a Argentinian forum, from a guy who used to be in the Argentinian army. Apparently, Voere also bought rifles made my lowe and some other company I can't remember now, all with much better quality than Santa Barbaras. I know I am REALLY not THAT lucky, but I will still keep my fingers crossed in the hopes that I would get one of those. LOL...
 
Santa Barbaras aren't as bad as made out. Sadly, the last bunch to come out of the factory weren't heat treated before the company went bankrupt, and the whole lot were sold to a company in the US, who in turn sold them as "kits". So quite a few made it out the door without being properly treated, and these are the ones that generally cause issues. I've owned a few over the years, and have never had a problem with any of them (just lucky I guess).

I have a Voere in the basement, haven't really looked at it yet (got it in a round about kind of deal), so I can't comment except in a general way, but so far so good.

As to the safety, a horizontal type is easy to fit, as is a Timeny wing if you don't like the military safety. I agree, the military one is the safest, but not good for a scoped gun. Or get a shroud and put on a trigger with a built in safety. - dan
 
Baribal said:
As far as I know, 2155/2165 are all ex-military actions and they fill in the thumb notch (tig welding?) - when needed - and mill out the rear bridge for the "FN Supreme" look.
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I had an '08 Brazilian mauser that was in very nice shape, action in the white and I was going to use it as the basis for a custom 'project' gun. How do you rate that action?
 
"I had an '08 Brazilian mauser that was in very nice shape, action in the white and I was going to use it as the basis for a custom 'project' gun. How do you rate that action?"

Good action, basically a 98, std length action. You can build any standard length caliber (30-06, 270, 7 Rem Mag etc) you like. I have numerous Mauser sporters, just keep in mind you have to do it for fun, you'll never get the money out of them you put in.

"Have any of you fellows ever seen an 1895 mauser calvary carbine? I've had this safe queen for 20yrs."

Basically the same action as the early Swedes (but not made from as good a steel). Can be successfully sporterised, but you should keep it in the original calibers (7x57, 6x55 etc) and not hotrod them. FWIW - dan
 
Gun Lover,
I didn't know Voere bought actions from Argentine, but I'm not really surprised, since they bought a huge bunch of actions and sold plenty of rifles in the whole world, but mostly in Europe.
After some further readings, I found that they did, in fact, in the 1950's at least, used the "commercial FN actions" for their higher grades of rifles (i.e. 2155/Lux - they have the floorplate release catch enclosed in the trigger guard ring i.e. 300 series (pre-Supreme)). So you may be "luckier" than you thought. Maybe will you be even more lucky and have a set tigger. The side sliding safety is still an option today, it belongs to a "trigger group option".
I wouldn't worry about the Santa Barbara actions because Voere is/was a serious company and I'm sure they went through all the testings and made good heat / surface treatment of the parts they used (they have the facilities, though). Also, the P-H rifles are not reknown for action-related problems.
All those i used or saw were well made, it just seems that some of the last ones are not as well fitted as they used to.

Since the early days, the models did not change a lot and they always used the same denomination for them. If it still have the standard bolt shroud, then, it's likely a 2155.
Check out their website, you will be able to identify what you have.
voere.com/model_2165___2155.htm#Seitenbeginn
BTW, they are not very helpful for older production informations, but you still can try to contact them.
I could post pictures of a "standard" Bavarian 2165 but I don't have it here for now.

Anyways, I'm sure you'll like these rifles, whatever they're built on.
 
As far as the PHs are concerned, there seem to have been four generations of Mauser type actions used:
-military pattern receivers.
-commercial receivers, C cut inner collar.
-commercial receivers with double cut inner collar.
-commercial receivers with no inner collar, and M94 type front collar on firing pin.
-then there are the Midlands, but they don't count.
I have observed quite a bit of variation in barrel threads tolerances, more than found in military receivers.
 
Gun Lover,
Well, again, I got more precisions on the "solid wall actions" Voere used; It seems they did not reweld the side side rail to fill the thumb notch, but they used anything they could find (FN, Santa Barbara and Zastava) and the whole bunch of Santa Barbara they bought were all solid walls. Those were used to fill the 2155 Lux and the 2165 series demand, while any kind of standard K98 were used to fill the rest of the 2155. I will try to access the 2165 and look at the bottom of the action to find if there is any proofmark I can identify.
 
All right! Thank you very much Baribal. If what you're saying is true, then I know I'm not getting a Santa Barbara action, because mine has the thumb cut. Yes!

I got extra pictures, of much better quality, from Tradex. Mine is definitely the lower end model, but I chose it knowing that. The action looks very similar to the 2155 they're making today, but the rest of the rifle is quite different. Mine, as I said previously, has a side safety. Anthony didn't say anything about a set trigger, so I don't think it has one. It's a single trigger, I'll check once it's here and will let you know if it can be set. Also, my rifle has a barrel of a different profile than todays, as well as different open sights and stock profile.

I went back to that Argentinian forum to read a little more. It seems the total number of rifles bought by Argentina in 1935 was 10,000, which were then put in stock and never issued. According to one guy, they were made by FN using leftover WWI M98 actions made in Germany (unknown manufacturers). The actions were stamped "Mauser Modelo 1935" on the left side, but unfortunately Voere grinds off as much as it can from the original markings, so it would be too hard to determine if mine is one of those.

Of the original 10,000 rifles, Argentina sold 6,000 to Voere and the balance of 4,000 was converted to sporting rifles by the Argentinian Army's arsenal "Fabricas Militares", or FM, and sold on the Argentinian market.

One interesting aspect of this story is that FM ended up licensing the Model 1935 and manufactured a number of Cavalry Carbines for themselves. An unspecified number of FM made actions, not from military built rifles but just actions specifically made for Voere, was also sold to them once they had used up the 6,000 rifles originally bought. The years mentioned for that sale were '73/'74. Those actions were factory marked Voere and were supposedly copies of the FN 400 sporting action, a number of them with side safety. This means that my rifle could also have one of those actions made in Argentina, although I don't think so because I think they were solid wall actions. Now, having handled an Argentinian made Browning HP35, I'd have no problems with a M98 action made by them. I know they manufacture a high quality firearm, more so than the Spanish. Not German quality, but good enough for me.

I can't wait for my order to get here now. It is going to be a very long wait until Thursday/Friday of next week. :(
 
To add my little bit to the Brazilian 08 action question, based on the same Argentinian forum, and translated as closely to the original text as I could:

It may be, together with the Argentinian 1909 (both made by DWM), the Steyr made Chilean 1912 and the CZ made Persian 1929, one of the best made and finished military Mausers. Better than most sporting Mauser clones made today, and on the same level as todays Original sporting Mausers and the Mannlicher-Schoenauer.

That must be one really fine Mauser, indeed!
 
If it's a copy of the FN sporting action, you may mean the FN 300 (a.k.a. Supreme) but these FN sporting rifle actions have the "solid wall".
 
Baribal said:
If it's a copy of the FN sporting action, you may mean the FN 300 (a.k.a. Supreme) but these FN sporting rifle actions have the "solid wall".
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Actually, if FN 400 is a mistake, it's theirs. I don't know much about all of this, I just translated the info and 400 is what they said. Thanks for bringing it up.

Like I said, I don't think I have one of those sporting ones, mine has the thumb cut. The actions FM made for Voere were the solid wall ones, so my hope would be for it to be one of the Original 1935 military Mausers sold by Argentina to Voere.
 
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