Howdy folks! 
So I got me a Santa Barbara Mauser 98 commercial action in 7x57, basically new condition. Trouble is it wont feed anything properly but FMJ's.
Especially with a full magazine the first round (right side) will feed especially rough, the last 3 rounds will feed relatively smoothly most of the time. Those that don't feed well kind of get stuck halfway into the chamber, I have to retract the bolt and slam it home again to get it chambered.
Sometimes a round feeds relatively smoothly but then when i want to lock the bolt I realize it didn't slip under the extractor and I have to push it out with a cleaning rod.
The tips of soft points get mangled hard, it even chips off lead of the tips of the bullets.
FMJ's don't show any of these problems, even though the first round of a full magazine does require a little bit more force to chamber. But no failures to feed.
The weird thing is, why is this spring related? The last 2-3 rounds will feed much better. Why?
Before any suggestions come, things I have tried so far:
* Shorten the OAL of the softpoints from 3.060 to 2.970 which helped a little
* I suspected rough feed lips so I polished the heck out of them
* Switched extractors
* Switched followers
* Switched magazine spring
* Polish the magazine walls to make sure the follower does not cant, tilt or get stuck resulting in funny feeding angles.-
* Use 3 different types of soft points, the blunter they get the worse the problems get. I just cycled 50 FMJ's without a hiccup but I cant get through one magazine of softpoints without at least one failure tom feed.
Any suggestions? I wanted to use it as a hunting rifle, and being stuck to FMJ's kind of makes the rifle useless for me.
Thanks!
So I got me a Santa Barbara Mauser 98 commercial action in 7x57, basically new condition. Trouble is it wont feed anything properly but FMJ's.
Especially with a full magazine the first round (right side) will feed especially rough, the last 3 rounds will feed relatively smoothly most of the time. Those that don't feed well kind of get stuck halfway into the chamber, I have to retract the bolt and slam it home again to get it chambered.
Sometimes a round feeds relatively smoothly but then when i want to lock the bolt I realize it didn't slip under the extractor and I have to push it out with a cleaning rod.
The tips of soft points get mangled hard, it even chips off lead of the tips of the bullets.
FMJ's don't show any of these problems, even though the first round of a full magazine does require a little bit more force to chamber. But no failures to feed.
The weird thing is, why is this spring related? The last 2-3 rounds will feed much better. Why?
Before any suggestions come, things I have tried so far:
* Shorten the OAL of the softpoints from 3.060 to 2.970 which helped a little
* I suspected rough feed lips so I polished the heck out of them
* Switched extractors
* Switched followers
* Switched magazine spring
* Polish the magazine walls to make sure the follower does not cant, tilt or get stuck resulting in funny feeding angles.-
* Use 3 different types of soft points, the blunter they get the worse the problems get. I just cycled 50 FMJ's without a hiccup but I cant get through one magazine of softpoints without at least one failure tom feed.
Any suggestions? I wanted to use it as a hunting rifle, and being stuck to FMJ's kind of makes the rifle useless for me.
Thanks!
Last edited: