To all,

Thanks for the replies and feedback!

This is going to be a fun project to see if we can bring this old girl back to life. Everything is still very preliminary for me at this point. Remember, as I posted above, I haven't even seen or handled the rifle yet. Everything I know about it so far is just based on one phone call with my gunsmith.

Reboring is an idea. Todd (my gunsmith) did say during our phone call that the barrel has a very slender profile. He's not sure if there would be enough metal left if it was rebored to say .338 or .358 caliber. Still, thats just preliminary. The barrel dimensions and diameter haven't been measured yet. Of course, rebarreling is always an option.

Just for the nostalgia and romance of it, I'd like to chamber it for a cartridge that was one of the original Mauser sporter chamberings. Yet, I would like to have fairly easy availability of brass. I'm currently mulling over 7x57, 8x57JS, .30-06 and even 8x60S. Grafs, here in the US, is now carrying new Prvi 8x60S brass. I currently have rifles in .30-06 (Ruger), 8x57JS (Rem 700) and 9.3x62 (CZ 550). I also have a Husqvarna Model 46 in 9.3x57.

Making the rifle an 8x60S has appeal to me. .323" diameter bullets so no problem with bullet availability compared to the .318" diameter. And cases can be made fairly easily from .30-06 brass if need be. But, lots of time yet to decide on a cartridge.

But, as I said, we're just in the very early stages of this whole project. First, Todd has got to check out the action and bolt and make sure it's going to be usable. Then, we'll go from there.

As the weeks and months go by, I'll try to periodically post updates to this thread as to the progress on the rifle.

Cheers!
-Bob F.