I am now the PROUD OWNER of a 6.5 X 55 BJ Ackley Improved Mauser 98!



Then test shot is in the middle. Hardly worth doing I know, but it's EGO, and a little bit of real advantage.

I'm 52, have tinkered with Rifles my whole life, and I want to have something I did myself, that is unique. By sharpening the shoulder to a 40 degree , and slightly increasing the case capacity, as well as removing the taper from the case, you are supposed to get : increased accuracy, reduced brass growth( less trimming), and up to 13% increase in velocity, pushing close to the 6.5 X .284.

I'm, very pleased with the chambering process, I finished it out with 320 and a dowel, cross hatched, and the newly formed case looks fantastic, and mics exactly to spec.

Unfortunately, all the lathe and barrel vice work fubared the barrel bluing, so back to the boiling tank with it. I have a little stock work left, so I'm expecting final assembly next week and a trip to the range!

The bushing is the same one we use for the barrel vice, and is machined to fit the barrel. It was mainly a failed attempt to protect the bluing. Getting the runout gone was a pain.

We only had it chucked up to face off .008 to get the chamber depth set, all the reaming was done by hand, since it was only finishing. The barrel came short chambered, just not short enough.

Yep, next time I will do all the fitting and chambering before I finish the rifle.

I had the cart ahead of the horse as it were this time

Barrels hanging up right now geting it's rust on.

Looks great! Looking forward to your range reports. Very curious to see how your Shaw barrel performs.

A few more pics, really hard to get the whole gun













On shift tommorrow, Monday is Range day for fireforming

Round one.

Let me plug in my excuse algorithm first;

Crappy Bushnell 3-9 X40 out of the junk drawer until I buy something for this rifle.

Wobbly bench, somebody beat me to the good one.

Cramped for time, had two guests shooting, a buddy sighting in his new AR build and checking zero on his hunting Rifle, so I was shooting in between, and I let my neighbor who did the machine work do a lot of the shooting.

Fire forming cases from the Swede cases, 35 grains of Varget was only giving me about 2450. The factory Swedish rounds were hitting 2850-2900.

That said, the firs two out of the barrel at 25 yards went in the same hole.

At 100, I shot about 1 1/4 " groups, not bad wobbling around and barely able to see the center of the bench rest target.

I'm happy, I think it has potential!

Next up, some actual Ackley loads!

1.25" groups would be respectable for a hunting rifle even under good conditions. You have some serious potential there.

Very inspiring build. Thank you for the submission!

Thank You!

A final word on my Mauser Project;

Went to the range today, and the results were stunning. I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out. I am at what I consider a very early stage in load development. I have tried exactly one powder, and one bullet. All of my loads have been a variation of a 140 grain AMAX over IMR 4831 SC. Today's final load was 48.5 grains, at the top for the 6.5 X 55 Swede, but well below the max for the Ackley Improved version. It's running about 2810 with a SD of less than 10. The rifle is capable of 1 hole groups, I am not. You can see in the photo that I managed to put four of five in a single hole with one premature ejaculation of the just under 2lb trigger the next group is two groups



I had four of those left, so I moved down to the "good" concrete bench at 300 yards. When I went down to collect the target, I about sh** myself!



.75 inch four shot group at 300 yards.

That is the best group I have ever fired in my life. So I am HAPPY with the way my Mauser turned out. And for those that were curious about E.R. Shaw Barrels, I think you can buy with confidence and rest easy.
That barrel was on my front doorstep contoured, crowned, and short chambered for just under $200.They are available from Brownells for Remingtond for about $150 short chambered too.

I added up the Rifle, a rough estimate. The Receiver was a trade with my friend, as was the Fajen Stock, I'm building an AR for him. I bought the Receiver for $ 60, some miscellaneous parts, gas block, tube, a stock, he bought the upper receiver, barrel, I'm custom making the free float tube and barrel nut, so I bought materials. And I picked up a wood stock for his M-77 on eBay for $75
Call it $200 for the receiver
ER Shaw Barrel, $200
Brownells supplies$100, this included two bottles of bluing solution, heat paste, sling swivels, etc
$500 so far
$45 for the Boyds trigger
$45 for the reamer rental. $30 for the tap rental to clean up the receiver/barrel threads
$620
$50 for the two replacement trigger guards one I melted with the mig, the other cracked from cold hammering
$100 guestimate for miscellaneous supplies, sandpaper, metal for making the tools, epoxy, tung oil, etc.
$80 for the custom dies.
So somewhere around $850 total investment, plus untold hours sanding, polishing, fitting parts and inleting the stock.And dozens of hours of free machine work and shop help from my neighbor.

But in the end, a TRULY custom rifle that SHOOTS!

It is no where near perfect, plenty of little screw ups and things I'd do differently, but all in all it was a great learning experience that vastly expanded my gunsmithing skills and gave me a much better understanding of what it takes to make a good rifle.

Thanks to all who encouraged me along the way and offered helpful hints, and those like Fat Ncnasty who offer to do some of the bluing for me. Hopefully I put up a post in a year or so of the Antelope that I shot with it at some ungodly distance, in the meantime, I'm going to spend some time finding good loads for it and learning how to shoot out past 300 yards. I may post over in the reloading forum a thread about developing a load for the Ackley improved cartridge if I have time.

Off to the Archives with ya!

Awesome job on the rifle and the group.

Very nice job and a great rifle to boot! They should tack this thread for others.