I was looking through my local Dunhams at the old guns they have for sale and came across a whole bunch of pretty good looking VZ24s and it got me to thinking about an article I had read in american rifleman or shooting times a few months back about making custom Mausers from VZ24 actions.  What I want is a smaller caliber varmint rifle.  I guess I could just go out and toss down a few hundred and get a brand new one but whats the fun in that?  From what I understand, i need to rebarrel and headspace the action, bed the new stock and drill and tap the reciever and maybe toss in a new trigger.  Is this something a novice can do?

Keving67

I live in Michigan as well. How much is Dunhams asking for the Mausers?

It depends on how much of a novice you are.

You'll need a receiver wrench and barrel vice to get the original barrel off, and to attach the new barrel.

You can buy barrels that are "short-chambered", and ream the remainder by hand to get to the proper headspace (which means you either buy or rent a chamber reamer).

Bending or cutting off and welding the bolt handle has to be done since it seems you want to mount a scope.  And a receiver jig would be a good idea if you want to drill and tap your receiver at home.

All of this doesn't take into consideration what "should" be done to make a truly fine rifle.  Lapping the bolt lugs, truing the receiver face, truing the bolt face, etc.

You'll probably want to polish and re-blue the metal, too.  On the plus side, rust bluing can be done with minimal equipment, and IMO is a much nicer finish that hot-tank bluing.  It is also very labor intensive.

Should you choose a caliber like .223, you'll have to weld the bolt face and turn it to the proper diameter in a lathe to accommodate the smaller casehead diameter.

I'm not trying to drive you away from the project at all.  It's very satisfying to "build it yourself", so to speak.  Just make sure you go in with your eyes open.

And pick up Kuhnhausen's Mauser shop manual.  [:)]

edited for repetitive redundancy.  [:D]

I don't remember exactly but I want to say around 100$ or so for a pretty decent vz24 soaked in cosmoline.

Keving67

Don't worry, you arent turning me away at all.  I was just a little worried that all I had to do was toss on a new barrel and go shooting.  I'm looking for a good project that I can take some considerable time with and have a good shooting end result

Thanks for the info.

You're welcome.

And do pick up the Kuhnhausen Mauser shop manual.  More info in there than you probably wanted to know. [:)]

Oh, and make friends with a machinist who has a lathe and a mill (unless that describes you).  [;)]  

I had considered a project like this awhile ago, and my problem was finding a gunsmith that would do just minor things like re-barreling the action and drilling and tapping the receiver for scope mounts.  I eventually found someone, but they had so many projects going on, I had no idea when they could get to it.

I have two Mausers, a '96 Swede and a '48 Yugoslavian.  The Swede I bought for $100 with essentially no bluing on the barrel.  The stock disk said the barrel was still in good shape internally, though.  I had it rebarreled with a medium-weight Shilen 1:8 twist 24" tube, had it polished and reblued, had two-piece scope mounts installed, and had the bolt handle bent down.  The gunsmith work was (IIRC) about $350.  I then installed a Timney trigger and bedded the action into a Fajen thumbhole sporter stock.

I think it's beautiful.

I still haven't found a load it will shoot worth a damn.  

As far as I can tell the gunsmith (no longer in business) throated the chamber [i]way[/i] too deep.  If I seat 155 grain bullets out to just touch the lands, they are WAY WAY out past magazine length.  And I had the rifle built with the intent to shoot 140 grain bullets.  I'm not pleased.  It looks like I need to have the barrel removed, shortened, rethreaded and the chamber recut for a shorter throat.  That won't be cheap.

My other Mauser is a simple sporterization.  I have a Timney trigger, a Richard's Microfit semi-finished stock, and an AO Smith Scout scope mount.  The only thing I needed a gunsmith for was removing the rear sight and cutting the barrel off beind the front sight band and recrowning.  I'm still working on inletting the stock.  

I'd eventually like to get all the tools so I could do barrel changes, bolt lapping, and so forth, but I don't have the time and I don't have the workspace either.  Not to mention the money.

As always, YMMV.

Quite expensive...

That's why I quit before I started (but, unfortunately, not untill after I picked up a scope, scope mount, stock, & barreled action)...

If anyone wants any of the above, it's on sale in the EE....

If you are going to do it, I can save you some work on the stock... Houge (the grip people) makes a synthetic stock that comes pre-bedded (pillar bedding)... I bought one for my project, it's on sale in the EE right now (at a discount)...