Mauser M 1871 -84

[danyboy]

Hi evrybody,
I am new to this site. I own a 71/84 and have been shooting it for years. I pour my own bullets with a Lyman 446110 mould and use reformed winchester 348 brass cases. I have always used smokeless powder (Imr4198, SR4759 and UNIQUE).

I slugged my bore and came up with bore diameter .433 of an inch and groove diameter of .4475 of an inch. Bullet is .446 of an inch made of wheelweights and BNH is about 9. I used to heat treat them but I don't anymore.

I recovered bullets from the sand bank at the shooting range and they were almost intact, just a tiny trace of rifling around them. I have never paper patch any of them nor have I ever used black powder.

Precision at 50 yards is very good, at 100 yards not as good. I am very happy to have discovered a website where people enjoy shooting old rifles.

Danyboy

[tommy303]

Hi Danny,

You might want to give black powder a try in your Mauser and see how it does.  Since you are shooting a bullet that is slightly less than groove diameter, the faint rifling marks on recovered bullets might indicate that you are not getting the most out of the bullet itself, and that might be why your 100m accuracy falls off.  I have seen gas cutting erode the rifling marks on undersized bullets.  You could, if you care to, try a few bullets made of pure lead or at least a very soft alloy of lead and tin.  

A soft slug from your mould will have a chance to upset into the rifling and fill the bore.  A card, felt or cork disk behind the bullet will help prevent gas cutting.  I suspect, if you keep velocities to within the normal black powder range, you will get an increase in accuracy with little leading.  I have an old 45-70 M1873 which has a groove diameter of 459 or so, and soft lead slugs measuring 458 do much better in it than harder alloys of the same diameter.  An alternative, if you have objections to pure lead, is to use a fine grit and lap the mold so that it casts a bullet right at groove diameter or a little more.

cheers
thomas

[Mauser]

Hi Fellow shooters.
This autum I have found some difference between original shells and shells made forex.

348 win.
Original Mauser M 1871 shells the wall thicknes in neck was 0.25 mm
replica shells it is 0.30...0.40 mm and not symmetrical.
Bullet is expanding inside the neck. But if there are not space to expand up to goove diameter it means blow by and the sealing of gases are not cod. This mean leading of the barrel.

Also if the neck walls are not symmetrical it automatically effects accuracy.
Do any body have any experience of

this.
paavo

[tommy303]

Hi Paavo,

Well, anytime one fire forms brass to make a new cartridge or uses basic brass to die form a new case, one should ream the case neck out to specifications.

It probably would not be a bad idea to do so to make even new made cases more uniform.  Old time target shooters generally did not resize fired cases used in
competition, but instead reloaded the cases at the shooting bench--often only one case was used to fire a string of shots, thus insuring regularity. The bullet was thumbpressed into the reloaded cartridge or seated in the lands by a special toggle tool.

[danyboy]

Sorry for delay in the reply but never knew if anybody had replied to me until I revisited this site. I know, unforgivable, it's been a while since I visited this site.
 I am a bit reluctant in using black powder for reloading. Heard it was much messier to clean. Maybe I am wrong.
Danyboy

[Fabian23]

Cleaning black powder fouling is a errrr...black art so to speak.  Everyone has there own method and there are plenty of expensive wierd and wonderful fluids commercially available to help.

If you drop your cases in water soon after firing, the corrosive fouling will be neutralised and kept soft, I then chuck my cases in an ultrasonic bath when I get home and leave to air dry.  They don't come out shiny but in over 6 years of reloading 10+ different BP calibers (not to mention muzzleloaders) I am still using the same cases without any losses due to case failure/corrosion.

For the barrel I use the traditional British army method....just hot water (left over from making tea naturally ;-) )!
Bronze brush, flush with hot water, brush again, flush, patch clean and oil up...job done.

If your cases obturate correctly the rest of the metalwork on the rifle will just need a wipe down with an oily rag.

Give it a try, come to the dark side :metal:

[danyboy]

Thanks for the tip, now I just have to kick myself in the ass and try it out, got no excuse now.
 Here is pictures of the old rifle:
http://s454.photobucket.com/albums/qq261/dan_leonard87/?action=view¤t=MauserM7184002.jpg
http://s454.photobucket.com/albums/qq261/dan_leonard87/?action=view¤t=MauserM7184001.jpg
Danyboy

[Fabian23]

Nice!  I'm a Kropatcheck man myself, near identical but IMO a slicker action and with the benefit of a smaller calibre.