Need ID's on old school custom rifle stocks...Mauser guys, come on in...

[MelvinWalker]

I recently bought a portion of a gunsmith estate. In this group of stuff was five older, very fancy rifle stocks. They remind me of the 1960's "Weatherby" style rifle stocks. Three of them have cheek combs and several of them have very fancy wood, Schnabel type grips with inlaid burls,etc.

I obviously know the Remington 700 composite stock and the well done 1903 sporterized stock, but can anyone positively ID the rest of them? One of the three fancy ones might be a custom 1903 sporter stock and the other two may be 98 Mauser stocks? Can anybody tell from the upper and lower inletting pictures?

 

[The Kid]

The three on the right all appear to be Mauser 98 stocks. Likely Bishop, Fajen, or one of the other suppliers of semi inlets back in the 60s.

 

[LVSteve]

Which one has been identified as a 1903 stock? Also, a 1903 what, Springfield or Mauser? Second from the top looks to be a shortened Mauser stock going by the crossbolt.

 

[MelvinWalker]

Which one has been identified as a 1903 stock? Also, a 1903 what, Springfield or Mauser? Second from the top looks to be a shortened Mauser stock going by the crossbolt.

I think you are correct. I was casually told it was a scant grip 1903 Springfield and I didn't really look at it....However, I looked closely at the remaining cartouches and I believe it to be an 1891 Argentine Mauser.

 

[BB57]

The three on the right are Mauser 98s but the second from right is inletted for a small ring action.

Keep in mind that back in the 1970s and 1980s it was common for people to build custom Mausers starting with surplus military Mausers, often already sporterized, as well as with commercial M98 actions. Zastava started making a very good commercial M98 in 1970 that was sold by a number of companies and imported into the US by Interarms as the Interarms Mark X. They imported both completed rifles in three different grades as well as barreled actions. Those barreled actions were very popular to drop into a Fajen or Bishop stock, and they were also very popular as the basis on which to build a high end custom Mauser.

There are differences in the dimensions on the military versus commercial actions and barrels and it's hard to tell the difference based only on a picture.

The one on the far right appears to have the same barrel profile as the Interarms Mk X, but it could also be inletted to match a replacement barrel with a similar barrel on a military Mauser.

The 3rd from the right appears to have a modified military profile, while the second from right is straight up military profiled.