I am not writing much for SurvivalBlog these days, since I am busy preparing for the worst. This is fortunately my lifestyle, and I am constantly prepping. Currently, I’ve been working squaring away three old Mauser rifles for long-range work. They all need scopes and I had to wait until I could afford to get that done. I am an aging man with many physical limitations. My income is less than $5,000 per year. I receive no regular check from any source and so I am forced to operate under austere conditions and a super tight budget. If I cannot buy stuff, and learn or do stuff that cost “nearly nothing” to get done, then I don’t make much progress. My situation has inspired plenty of improvisation.
I speak to those who are in a similar situation as many fellow senior citizens these days, or those who will be in the future. But I can report that we can still get it done if we are smart about it. I found problems with my rifles that needed to be fixed. These are three old Mauser bolt action rifles with good to excellent bores. All three will be glass bedded and Picatinny scope rails will be installed. One will be done by a professional, and the others I’ll do myself.
It is a good idea to go through our equipment now while we have access to a gunsmith if needed. I can do much of that work now and in a pinch later, but a good gunsmith is necessary at times when my tools and experience will not produce the best results. I could weld up a cracked bolt handle, but the result could be ugly. Some rifles deserve the best, and some of the rifles will have to tolerate my best efforts. Some of the defects that I found only after close inspection during deep cleanings of these rifles. Only because of my very careful method of inspection, I found a crack in a custom bolt handle, an inoperative safety, and a stripped-out scope mount hole. These are examples of the kinds of defects that one might find in older sporterized rifles.
The reason that I have so many rifles is that they are spares for my primary, alternate, and contingency plans. All stuff breaks, even sturdy Mausers. So I have spare parts and it happens many of the rifles have interchangeable parts. It is good that I have standardized on Mausers. As old as they are, they will never be truly obsolete. No one will complain that some of them are legally classified as “antique” rifles.
While I would prefer to standardize on just one common caliber rifle this is how this poor “Country Mouse” can get it done on the cheap. In the coming austere conditions ahead, we must learn to innovate and this is an example of how to do so. The rifle pictured at the left was free to me from Elk Creek Company. Over time, I had saved up SurvivalBlog writing contest prize purchase credits toward the purchase of this rifle.
It is an antique M1895 Ludwig Loewe Chilean Model 1895 action that was re-barrelled in .300 Savage and then obviously only lightly used, thereafter. As a hunting rifle, I guess that it has had less than 100 rounds run through it. Given the nice stock condition and a bore that looks like new, one can conclude that it has had a very low round count. So it has the potential for “tack-driving” accuracy.
The .300 Savage is well-known as a very accurate cartridge. Because of its impressive performance, it was considered for adoption as a military cartridge back in the 1920s. And later it was used as one of the progenitors of the 7.62 NATO round.
With that in mind, this rifle will get a modern scope to see what it can do. The action must be drilled and tapped for a new Picatinny rail that is easy to modify to accommodate the hump on the rear of the action. Because money is tight, in this case, I might do this gunsmithing work myself. I have the tools, and I have the time available to do this work deliberately. It did come with a few minor problems, but it otherwise has “good bones” to build a precision rifle on the cheap.
It is noteworthy that .308″ bore diameter barrels on non-magnum rifles retain their accuracy longer than smaller bores. And .300 Savage is loaded to a maximum pressure of 46,000 CUP (51,000 psi), the same as 7.62 NATO. The 7.62 NATO was developed by improving this cartridge just slightly and .308 Winchester/7.62 NATO cartridge was born.
Much of the load data for .300 Savage is for the original lever action Savage 99 that introduced the cartridge to the North American shooting community. The Savage 99 was loaded to lower pressures of around 43,000 CUP and much of the original load data is based upon that earlier standard and simply copied over the decades.
Take note that to get the most out of any rifle cartridge safely, you do need to know how to recognize the signs of excessive pressure.
In previous SurvivalBlog articles, I have extolled the virtues of the 6.5×55 Swedish Mauser cartridge. A 6.5×55 Swedish Mauser built on a Large Ring 1898 (“98”) Mauser action can be loaded to the European pressure standards of 55,000 psi. Modern rifles chambered in 6.5×55 can be loaded to a maximum of 60,000 psi or 50,000 CUP and greatly outperform both the 6.5 Creedmoor (CM) and the .260 Remington. I do not advocate ‘hot rodding’ any cartridge. But a well-informed handloader with the proper knowledge can safely get the most out of a rifle.
Keep in mind, however, that lower pressures extend the service of life of both the brass and the barrels/ So I seek to find the accuracy node at the high end of the pressure scale for a particular rifle or gladly accept the accuracy node closer to the starting charge for a particular powder that produces less than optimal or higher velocities.
By the way, never shoot someone else’s handloads in your rifle. A hand loader does not necessarily know what they are doing, or they may be loading for a rifle with a badly worn throat and have exceeded the safe powder charge for rifles in good condition.
Given that the .300 Savage uses lower pressures that are on par, or are lower than 7.62 NATO, the barrel should retain its useful accuracy for as long as 10,000 rounds. The featured rifle — my sporterized M1895 Mauser .300 Savage rifle –has barely been used and has a long service life ahead of it. In contrast, 6.5 CM, while a ballistically superior round for long-range work, is a case of: “The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.” Those barrels might be worn out for precision work after only 5,000 rounds or perhaps only 3,000 rounds. I expect on average a new-in-condition 6.5×55 Mauser barrel that is typically operated at lower pressures relative to the modern 6.5CM to retain its best accuracy for about 6,000 rounds.
The more ‘overbore’ the cartridge — that is a smaller in diameter projectile shot out of a disproportionally large cartridge case — or the higher the velocity of the cartridge, the faster it will wear out barrels. While 7.62 NATO is not as good for long-range work, the barrel will last at least twice as long as a 6.5 CM barrel. I will not load my .300 Savage cartridge cases with the typical 180-grain round nose bullet, but rather with the Hornady 178-grain ELD-M at 2,400 feet per second. It will have about 6 inches less deflection with a full value 10 mph crosswind than standard M80 7.62 NATO ball at 500 yards and the same trajectory or drop, and yet it will deliver a whole lot more energy on target.
(To be concluded tomorrow, in Part 2.)