Finally finished my 2005 gunsmithing project

[kawalekm]

Back about 2004 I bought a pair of K98 Mausers for 50$ each. I decided to keep one original, and the other one I would sporterize to make a deer hunting rifle. The one I'm sporterizing appeared to have a pristine bore with sharp square rifling, and no visible pitting at all.

First, I removed the stock and cut off the rifle barrel to 24 inches and crowned the muzzle. I cut off the bolt handle and welded it back on at a 90 degree angle to facilitate scope mounting. I drilled and tapped the receiver with a drill press and mounted a Midway Mauser scope base. Lastly, I mounted a Simmon's 3X9 scope and bore sighted.

I sanded down the stock and filled in sling holes with excess wood from the forearm. I added a Brownell's rubber recoil pad, and whisker sanded all the way to 600 grit, then completed it with a hand-rubbed tung oil finish.
http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r55/kawalekm/2005_gunsmithing_project.jpg
Well here it is. Not bad for a 50$ rifle! Just had to add innumerable hours of labor! Now I can start load development and then I'm off to the range!
Michael

[madmac]

Nice job. I did the same thing about 15 years ago. Mine was a small ring mauser. I re barreled it in .280 rem. and added a timney trigger. Leopold bases and rings. It shot great. I wish I still had it but gave it to a real good friend. Your gun turned out pretty nice. I can see by the pics you put much work into the stock. Hope it shoots well for you. It's always nice to see an old gun brought back to life.

[Pitdog]

You should add a forend tip and a grip cap of some oddball character or colored wood to set it off.

I'm working on a similar project for myself right now, using an M-48 Yugo, making a butterknife handle for it, putting open sights on it, color caseing a few parts, and doing some carving on the stock. Trying to make a super classic Euro style deer stalking rifle.