good morning, gentlemen

the new charles daly s/s mauser actions are made by the fine old serbian gunmaker "zastava" which used to be the yugoslav national arsenal which made the mark X mausers.

they also made actions for one of the low-end "english" mauser makers, i think parker-hale (or was it whitworth?).

before the formation of yugoslavia at the end of WW I, zastava was the royal serbian arsenal going back to the 1850's.

zastava has a website with tons of info in english as well as in serbian.

i have not seen the new s/s actions but my mark X is a fine action.

by the way, to a "mauser-man" such as myself, the winchester model 70 is not a "real" mauser 98 action because they dropped the 3rd lug from the design.
heresy!!! ;-)
but seriously, the M98's safety lug is a very real virtue.

the gent who mentioned older brownings being mausers is 100% correct. those M98 rifles were made by Fabrique Nacional d'Armes de Guerre (National Factory of Arms of War) usually abbreviated to "F.N." in Herstal, Belgium.

FN and browning had a long intertwined relationship. when somebody brags about his browning superposed shotgun being a "belgian browning", it means made by FN. some early weatherby's were also made on FN mauser 98 actions, as well as on german actions.

the browning FN actions are top-notch, but not stainless of course.

FN's history is also intertwined with mauser's. the chap who bought out the mauser brothers and merged their gunmaking operation into his own (to form DWM) also owned a huge stake in FN. his name was ludwig loewe. and he licensed the mauser patents to FN to make mausers for the belgian government.

regards

lapsub