Gunsmith help needed

john carr

In the late 70's I bought a Mauser Model 3000 made in Oberndorf. It was imported here by the Bauer Co. in Michigan. It has since been used with open sights. Last year I decided to scope it and purchased a Weaver scope mount and rings. When I attemped to install the mount I found that the rear screw hole was a milimeter off line to the right of the axis. This precipitated ten or twelve e-mails between Mauser and myself. They declined to honor the warranty based on the time elapsed but gave me their assurance that the mount would stay solid with the two screws on the front and one on the back. It would appear that the screw hole will have to be filled by welding, a new hole drilled and tapped. This sounds expensive and I am wondering if the rifle is worth this or just to take Mauser's advice and mount it with three screws. The caliber is 30.06. I no longer use the gun and plan to sell or trade it but will inform the next owner of this condition if I do not have the repair made.

cbxjeff

John,I have no business on an expert board, but I do know a little about machined parts. Look at this as a trig. problem. You have 3 good hole locations. The mis-machined hole is off .039" but it is in the fore to aft axis which is important. It's trivial. Mauser is right and so is LTS. At .039" don't even worry about filling and redrilling. Just elongate the hole in the mount and be done with it. I do believe that it might be wise to check which of the 2 rear holes are off. Your scope mount might be a good indication, but at only .039" you might want to make measurements on the gun itself. Jeff

luger01

John,The gunsmithing work is not too hard, but will leave the receiver 'scared', and needing a reblue job. Since you are not planning to keep the rifle, I would recommend you sell it as-is and inform the buyer about the problem.If I were to own a rifle like this and wanted to scope it, I would probably buy a blank base, fit it to the receiver and present base holes, and mount it that way, aligned with the bore. By using a gunsmith blank scope base, you can match the existing holes and have a perfect fit.The cost of having a blank base fit is less than fixing the receiver, and the rifle itself is not altered and reblued - keeping the value of the rifle higher than 'fixing' the problem.

J.John

I have several custom mausers and all have only one screw on the rear of the mount. In fact the FN mauser mount sold by Redfield, Leupold, ect., has only three holes, two in front and one in the rear.

john carr

Thanks a lot for the good advice, all the solutions I hadn't thought of. Now to decide. Thanks again.

D.S.COLE

All of the one pc. bases from Leupold , Redfield, Burris, etc only use one hole on the rear ( go check if you like). If you install your scope with one screw in the rear you wont have a problem. Ive read in gunsmithing books that the front screws bear 75% of the recoil thrust on the scope. Just put one the little filler screws in the empty hole and forget it.Your rifle is an excellent one ,enjoy it.DSC

v35

Use the three screws that will align and use loctite. On the 4th screw, cut the threads off flush with the bottom of the mount & lightly countersink the bottom of the misaligned mount hole then upset the bottom of the screw with a center punch so it wont fall out or move in the mount and be done with it.