ETA: AR15.com is a great site, but I guess old bolt actions are not our specialty. I posted the question on "the high road" and got practically the whole history of sporter Mausers. Check out the link for a good read.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?p=10043061#post10043061

I started to look at a commercial FN Mauser I had acquired years ago. It is made by Firearms International. Overall, it is in very nice shape, the action itself is excellent, but when I got it, it was known to have some safety issues, with the firing pin falling when the rifle was shifted from safe to fire on the shroud safety.

Below is a lengthy post. Long story short: Rifle was tinkered with and has 2 safeties. One of the safeties has to be removed.
Option 1: Keep the Jaeger trigger with a lever safety, adjust it properly, and remove the shroud safety.
Option 2: Keep the shroud mounted safety and install a new Timney trigger with no safety.
Option 3: Adjust the Jaeger trigger to safely function and keep both this and the shroud safety. (This might work, but I am concerned about messing with the whole assembly too much. The replacement bolt shroud and cocking piece are haphazardly fitted, so I am not confident in them, and for a few bucks would rather replace it all)

Here is the rifle.




I checked it out, and researched how the action was originally set up. It had a Sako trigger with a side mounted safety. The bolt shroud was the streamlined version (no safety) in the white.  Over the years, the rifle had some modifications. The Sako trigger was replaced with a Jaeger trigger, which is similar to a modern Timney.

These triggers have a feature that locks the bolt closed when the rifle is on safe. The action is cut for a slot for a metal bar from the trigger that locks the bolt.

But oddly, the bolt shroud was also replaced with a military Mauser shroud, and an FN shroud mounted safety (like a Buehler safety or "wing" safety). So it has the wing safety, and trigger safety.

The rifle was also rebarreled to 25-06 and headspaces well. No issues there thankfully!

Any ideas or comments appreciated.

Note: I did not realize I would have such a strange set up when I acquired the rifle. But I like the FN Mauser actions, I would have bought the rifle just for the action alone, since it is in very good shape. Overall, the rifle is a solid and well made sporting rifle, just have to fix the trigger/safety so I can take it out and shoot it. For the record, I don't mind the clunky look of the military bolt shroud and safety. It's functional and works. The blueing does not match, but I don't care about that.

Mauser actions are still fine rifles.


Original ad for the rifle.




An example of one from an internet auction showing the original configuration.




This rifle has 2 safeties. The Jaeger is not adjusted properly, and, it creates a mechanical conflict with the wing safety. One of them has to go.




It has a Jaeger trigger, which I determined is not original. It looks very, very similar to a Timney trigger, but additionally has a bolt lock.




The action has a slot for a bolt lock, which the original Sako trigger and replacement Jaeger both had. Most modern replacement triggers are not set up to utilize a bolt lock. I do not know if the bolt shroud has to have some specific cut out for the bolt lock safety. The military shroud has no such cut out, and i think this is causing the incompatibility.

your options are pretty straight forward and pretty close to equal in price.  You can either:

A. Buy a commercial style bolt shroud (should have the slot for the bold lock, but make sure) and keep the Jaeger trigger

or

B. buy a Timney sportsman and keep the military bolt shroud.  

It all depends which safety location you prefer.  I hear some people talk about how they prefer safeties the directly block the firing pin (like the military shroud) over safeties that just block the trigger mechanism.  I'm not sure there's much too that.  I've never had a problem with trigger safeties.  Which one is most similar to your other rifles?

Thanks for the ideas.

It's settled, I'll remove the current Jaeger trigger, replace the cocking piece (since it has been "enhanced" by someone with a dull file), and use the shroud mounted safety. I'm also looking into swapping the whole military shroud assembly for one thats been modified to take a "Wisner" safety, which is a simplified Model 70 type of safety that is simpler and not overly costly.

Even putting another $50 (trigger) to $175 (trigger and Wisner safety) into the rifle I will be happy with the set up. I am a big fan of these "sleeper" actions from the 50's and 60's, but I will still advise anyone getting one to inspect them carefully. Check the trigger and safety, and check the bolt face for excessive pitting. Guys could have tinkered with the rifle over the years and done more damage than the rifle is worth.  If everything checks out, or is reasonably fixable, then you'll have a solid rifle.

I learned an expensive lesson on my first FN Mauser. Superb condition overall from Husqvarna. It came with a scope base attached, which I assumed was fitted to factory holes. I was wrong. The action was so early to have not been factory drilled/tapped. Probably just to make it look good at the gun show, someone did a free-hand drill and tap to put the scope bases on (which I could not tell at the time), but in fact the holes were so out of square to each other that the action was trashed, so I disclosed the issue and traded it off.

Trust, but verify!