What do I have here? 1901 Large Ring, Short (true short) action Mauser 98

So do you want to pick my lottery numbers for me? I would say that is factory original kurz large ring. The radius behind the recoil lug is as it should be, except for a slight flat in the centre. I'm sure this is a result of the larger diameter receiver ring.

A couple of things to look for when you have some time: if you strip the bolt, you will likely find there are no safety lugs on the firing pin. This means it would be possible to fire when slightly out of battery. The other thing is the lugs where the cocking piece attaches. The bottom of the notches should be radiused ever so slightly. The very early, ( or very late WWII ) are not, they are square at the bottom of the notches, and have a bad habit of breaking off where the first notch joins the pin. If your notches are square, not radiussed, I would shoot it sparingly and dry-fire not at all, considering the difficulty of having a new pin made.

If you check the bottom of the bolt, the gas ports will be narrower than on later production rifles.

As an aside, Champlin arms has a few interesting mauser listed currently, including a small ring intermediate action 7x57, dated 1900, and an original kurz type A.

Enjoy your rifle, it's quite a rare treasure.
 
From the German collector and Jon Speed,

Hi Angus,
after diskussing the action with Jon, this is my now state of comments:


Nearly all the short Mauser K actions are radiused behind the recoil lug, some have the small flat too. But, nearly all are small ring actions. The only other known large ring K action, serial Nr. 5340, has the flat behind the recoil lug common with the larger actions. That action is dated 1902, while this one is 1901.

As you wrote, it is marked "V1". This may be a Mauser factory toolroom number. Several other one of a kind Mauser actions are known with such low, V-prefix serial numbers. "V" most likely stands for "Versuch" = test or experiment. So it may well be a toolroom prototype action.

Richard Mahrholdt then was a very influential gun authority besides being a "name" gunmaker and -retailer. He was the original author of the "Waffenlexikon" = gun encyclopedia, a book that was for decades and at least 7 editions "the bible" for German speaking sporting gun enthusiasts. So a Mauser toolroom prototype may well have ended up in his shop.

It would be interesting to know about any marks, numbers or letters, under the barrel. Such marks may show if the half - octagonal, ribbed barrel is a Mauser original in 6.5x54, only rechambered to 6.5x57, or if it was added later.

It's a pity that the action was so much reworked, receiver bridge reshaped, tapped and drilled, bolt sleeve and safety altered.

The colour case hardening is certainly not original. It looks a lot like "Turnbull" to me.

Waidmannsheil!
Axel
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9.3mauser said:
So do you want to pick my lottery numbers for me? I would say that is factory original kurz large ring. The radius behind the recoil lug is as it should be, except for a slight flat in the centre. I'm sure this is a result of the larger diameter receiver ring.

A couple of things to look for when you have some time: if you strip the bolt, you will likely find there are no safety lugs on the firing pin. This means it would be possible to fire when slightly out of battery. The other thing is the lugs where the cocking piece attaches. The bottom of the notches should be radiused ever so slightly. The very early, ( or very late WWII ) are not, they are square at the bottom of the notches, and have a bad habit of breaking off where the first notch joins the pin. If your notches are square, not radiussed, I would shoot it sparingly and dry-fire not at all, considering the difficulty of having a new pin made.

If you check the bottom of the bolt, the gas ports will be narrower than on later production rifles.

As an aside, Champlin arms has a few interesting mauser listed currently, including a small ring intermediate action 7x57, dated 1900, and an original kurz type A.

Enjoy your rifle, it's quite a rare treasure.
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Thanks 9.3, it's seems I got very lucky. Had a suspicion it was special. Funny you should mention Champlain, was talking to them a few days ago on one of the rifles you mention. And wish I did as well on lotto numbers as rifles!
 
And more from Jon Speed, he literally wrote the book on sporting Mausers. Wish I could find a copy.

Now I see the bottom correctly in this image and note the set up looks quite a bit different than on the 1902 system in my book. It appears as the Mauser folks were trying to figure out how to handle the Large ring position in regards to the opening for the magazine box portion of system thus creating the flats under the action we see here. In this case the layout of the system has the lower ring machined flat to mate with magazine box contours etc. This is in a different form than their 1902 system so this 1901 was a preliminary form before the final production versions like the 1902 example. Thats what the V 1 would indicate as we mentioned before. Regards, Jon
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The clip guide, while certainly unfortunate to remove, is actually removed cleanly, the recontouring is smooth and flush with the lines. The holes for now I'll just fire blue some plug screws and leave them indexed straight, will be a more pleasant look while I make a plan on what I want to do.
 
It just seems like they removed a lot more metal than was really necessary for fitting scope bases. I think it could have been done without creating such a deep notch at the front. Anyway, it's done, and sitting around wishing they hadn't done that won't change the fact that they did.
 
The clip guide in this case has simply been brought flush with the rear bridge elevation, and the guide
slot squared. I've considered resto TIG work but not the path I want to go. Instead I may take the opportunity to use the holes for custom claw mount or Recknagel bases, the holes are already there and the clip guide already gone seems a tidy solution as it won't hurt or change the receiver any.
 
I'd leave it the way it is. Whats done is done. Add some high end mounts like you say and have them and the rings also case colored to match the action.
 
It must be an optical illusion, but is it possible the magazine floor plate is not truly parallel to the action?

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