Ok so This is my musgrave mauser 98 in 243. Sorry if you're bored of this as I did another post about mounts.
It was my first deer rifle and I'm trying to decide whether to keep it or sell and get something else. Basically Iv'e got a cz550 in 30-06 which I'm using for everything at the moment, but it would be nice to have a short barrel, light, 243 for the roe, munties and foxes which is what the 243 should be for really.
I bought it for £450 with the scope on but soon discovered it wouldn't hold zero well. I spent a few months learning about what makes guns shoot straight, and did a number of things: installed a steel bar into the stock to stiffen the fore-end, pillar bedded it, got new mounts, shorten and screwcut the barrell. This all basically got it shooting acceptably. Not great but good enough. Accuracy seems to have gone off again and after cleaning the barrel back to bare metal and checking all the usual things, I now reckon the reason it's not shooting sub inch is because there rear mount is not seated properly on the receiver so have ordered up a 1 piece base to try. I've also had £300 worth of stock work done on it to add chequering, rosewood tip and grip cap.
It has a few things that irritate me:
So assuming I could get it shooting say sub inch reliably with new mounts, what would you do with it? Sell it - could probably get about £500 for it looking at gun trader, persevere with it and get the safety sorted out and keep it, or just leave i in the cabinet and use my 30-06 for everything!
If I was to get something else I'd be looking at say sako85, mauser m12, kimber simething like that probably so would have to find another grand or so!
It was my first deer rifle and I'm trying to decide whether to keep it or sell and get something else. Basically Iv'e got a cz550 in 30-06 which I'm using for everything at the moment, but it would be nice to have a short barrel, light, 243 for the roe, munties and foxes which is what the 243 should be for really.
I bought it for £450 with the scope on but soon discovered it wouldn't hold zero well. I spent a few months learning about what makes guns shoot straight, and did a number of things: installed a steel bar into the stock to stiffen the fore-end, pillar bedded it, got new mounts, shorten and screwcut the barrell. This all basically got it shooting acceptably. Not great but good enough. Accuracy seems to have gone off again and after cleaning the barrel back to bare metal and checking all the usual things, I now reckon the reason it's not shooting sub inch is because there rear mount is not seated properly on the receiver so have ordered up a 1 piece base to try. I've also had £300 worth of stock work done on it to add chequering, rosewood tip and grip cap.
It has a few things that irritate me:
- one is the lock time is so slow that it makes shooting a bit weird and probably affects accuracy
- the action is a long-action which is a minor thing I guess but it means's bigger and slower to cycle than needs to be. I suppose it could be argued that this is a positive as it's the same length as my 30-06.
- The other is the safety is the original flag type system that fouls the scope. This means I can apply the safety, but not to the point where the bolt can be locked and there is always the risk that when carrying the rifle that the bolt can open and a round drop out! This can be sorted but might have to spend a couple of hundred quid on getting a new bolt shroud and 3 position safety fitted.
- Final thing is that if you bore sight it and then fire a shot it shoots about 30cm low which makes me suspicious about what's going on as all other rifles I've got are usually at least on the paper and not too far off where as this one is miles off.
So assuming I could get it shooting say sub inch reliably with new mounts, what would you do with it? Sell it - could probably get about £500 for it looking at gun trader, persevere with it and get the safety sorted out and keep it, or just leave i in the cabinet and use my 30-06 for everything!
If I was to get something else I'd be looking at say sako85, mauser m12, kimber simething like that probably so would have to find another grand or so!
