93 Mauser Cocking Piece/Safety Engagement Issue (Pieces and Parts Don't Match Up)

[TCLouis]

Title states the problem . . .

Some years ago a friend gave me a Mauser action with 93 Mauser bolt(flat bottom bolt with straight handle) and hinged bottom metal. The action had very decent bluing that looks new.
I bought one of the 45 ACP Rhineland barrels when that rage was passing through the Boolit Forum to make a nice 45 ACP carbine.

The barrel fit nicely and I noted that the bottom metal was much too nice to modify to install the 45ACP magazine modifications needed to make the 1911 magazine work. So, I started looking for some rougher quality bottom metal and not finding any set the whole project aside unfired.

I have recently started working on several old ROUNDTOIT projects and this seemed like a good one to bring back out to work on concurrent with a few others.

Fast forward to this week . . .

When I was doing some checks to get this project moving again, I found that one could not engage the safety when the rifle is cocked.

There is 0.110" travel in the cocking piece between when is being held by the safety and when it is resting on the sear. The cocking piece has to be drawn back an additional 0.110" to engage the safety when the sear engages it when closing the bolt.

I know all about accumulated tolerances, but this has to mean some part(s) is/are not correct.

The action has been refinished and the only thing showing on top is the serial number (J and only 4 digits) on the left side about midway on the action.
There are some symbols (small) on the bottom of the action just behind the recoil lug.

Any suggestions on what to add, subtract to get this action in "Action"?

Any and all suggestions appreciated (other than to send it to for safekeeping)?

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Several possibilities. Could be the wrong cocking piece or wrong wing safety piece for that model. Could be the wrong firing pin. Might need a new sear. Since you don't know the rifle's history it's possible it was assembled from odd parts. '95 parts pretty much interchange with '93 parts, but the rate of interchangeability is not as high as was with the later '98 parts. Could be your rifle was mfg. in Spain but the incorrect fitting parts made by Loewe in Germany--just an example. So you'll probably need to make an educated guess at which part is probably out of spec. and see if you can order one from Gun Parts Corp. If you try filing the front face of the cocking piece to match the safety then it may fire upon releasing the safety as it may change it's relationship to the sear and no longer catch. Many of the Mausers had the last two digits of the serial number repeated on every part, so if the numbers match on the safety, cocking piece, or sear you should be able to figure which one is a replacement. If not, then like I said, you'll have to make a good guess.

[Yodogsandman]

Been a while so, take this suggestion with a grain of salt. I seem to remember having a similar problem that just turned out to be that I needed to screw the shroud down another turn. At least you could make a simple check without any modifications to your parts.

[TCLouis]

Two good ideas, I think I screwed it all the way down, but will check.

It is VERY likely an action of mixed pedigree and I know little about both the 93 and 95.
What little I do know is data from the Mauser book (Kuhnhausen) that at least gave me some ideas, but the measurements I need are not included. Length of cocking piece for instance ( I am assuming the 93 and 95 look a lot alike)
I guess I could get a 93 and 95 cocking piece, firing pin and trigger.
Is the 93/95 trigger the same as the 98?
And see what works, but I sure do not want a supply of uneeded 93, 95 parts, extra 98 parts would have uses.

[EDG]

Check the cocking cam and notch on the back end of the bolt. It seems that the Spaniards did not get the bolts hard enough or they had a lot of sand that got into their rifles because the cam did not wear very well. By cam I mean the little cam that lifts the firing pin when you raise the bolt handle. This design was used up to the 96 Mauser and it has a narrow bearing surface. The M98 bolt has a large boss around it to give a wider wear surface and cam for the cock on opening bolt.
You may not know it but if you are determined you can fit a M98 bolt sleeve to these rifles. You can fit it to the M91 Mauser too. The Belgians had their 1889 models modified for the M98 pattern. You can even install a M98 bolt stop on the M91.
There are some new M96 parts out there that are cheap but sadly they are not an easy interchange for an M93 or M95 so use caution with any M96 purchases. The 96 parts do not work on a M91 either. The buttress thread projects from the bolt sleeve a little less if I can remember the problem. The front of the bolt sleeve hits the back of the bolt handle base.

The M95 type firing pin does not quite work with the M96 cocking piece either.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I'm not sure whether it is the cocked position or the safety-engaged position that is the further forward. If the former of these, it could be that someone attempted a faster lock time, and only then discovered the big complication with the safety. "Oh dear, however was anybody to think of that?" I don't know of any speedlock kit for that rifle in recent years, but there might once have been, or it could have been an amateur effort.

It might be useful if anybody can tell us the actual length of travel in a 93 Mauser. If you work out a parts replacement that leaves you with a short fall, it might require a stronger mainspring too.

[TCLouis]

The cocking piece falls 0.110' to engage the sear when you take the gun OFF safe.

OR

To engage the safety, the cocking piece has to be pulled back an additional 0.110" to allow the safety to turn and engage it.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Well, then--given the measurements, and if you're absolutely certain of them, you could solve the problem with a little judicious filing of the front face of the cocking piece. Note that it is probably not necessary to cut the entire surface down. Usually there is a slight bevel on the upper left of the surface. If viewed from the rear of the piece this would be from about 9 o'clock to 12 o'clock. This is to ease entry of the safety lever, allowing it to enter it's safe position by gradually forcing the cocking piece a bit rearward, and it is desirable to be just a few thousandths off of the sear, but should not fall onto it "clunk" when the safety is turned to the off position, which is the situation that it sounds like you presently have. This is a "cut and try" job and you're unlikely to get it on the first try. But that is good, because if you overdo the filing you'll have to buy a new cocking piece. Fortunately, as previously discussed, there were many made and parts aren't expensive. So the way that I would advise you to proceed is to take a really good look at it's relationship assembled. With the bolt out of the rifle force the cocking piece to the rear, pressing the sear catching lug downward on the edge of a workbench works well, and stick something in between the front face of the cocking piece and the rear of the bolt sleeve to hold it back. A penny works well for this job, stick it in the described location at about 3 o'clock. Examine the cocking piece and see if you can observe the bevel I'm talking about. Also, note that there are two little rounded places on the bottom of the safety lever that correspond to that beveled area and enter it to force the cocking piece back when in the rifle. There are variations on this, some have dished out spots. There are two of them, and they give the distinct positions of the lever being straight up and over to the right. Just having you observe these areas so you get the idea that it is a rounded area trying to enter a rounded/beveled area and it's designed to work quite smoothly and almost effortlessly if fitted properly. You are going to have to increase the bevel a bit at a time until you hit it right. You can do this with files or a Dremel Tool's grinding and polishing bits. It would be handy to have some Dykem or a blue felt tip pen. File/grind/polish a bit on the bevel, coat it with Dykem, reassemble, try medium-hard to engage the safety (has to be in the rifle so the sear holds the cocking piece back to the desired location) and then disassemble it and look for the marks the lever made on the cocking piece in the Dykem and file/grind/polish some more in that location, repeat until success is achieved. If at all possible you should examine how these parts appear and function on a Mauser that has an operational safety so as to observe how the parts function in a proper relationship before undertaking the job. When you reach the point that the safety will engage with a little extra effort than normal it is time to proceed cautiously so as not to go to far in metal removal, because like previously stated, it is desirable for it to be just a few thousandths short of sear engagement. It was designed to actually push the cocking piece back just a bit as the safety lever cams it. That is the procedure I have used to fix this problem several times, always successfully, but the hard part to describe is exactly how to increase the bevel. If your angle is too vertical the lever won't engage smoothly (remember it's designed to cam the cocking piece back a bit) and it it's sloped too much it won't cam and will look amateurish when assembled. So, once again, take a look at one that works before you start to get the idea. I learned this job on '91 Argentine Mausers and ruined two cocking pieces before I got it right. Once learned, it applies to all of the military Mauser series of rifles. Good Luck. You can do it. Take your time. It's o.k. to PM me with questions.
DG

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Hand it to a gunsmith and the odds against his having as good an idea how to proceed as the above. I'd only add a couple of details.

If you would prefer to do it by replacing parts, a comparison with the striker travel of a properly working Mauser 93 will probably enable you to eliminate the safety as the culprit. You might also find those parts a bit hard to file. Try them first, but if it is a Dremel tool with their little cutting discs is good, and useful for all sorts of other things.

I doubt if the cam on the bolt is worn, since this is (or originally was) a cock-on-closing action, with the cam shallower and less stressed than in cock-on-opening. All it had to do was to keep the firing-pin from touching the primer with the bolt handle up, so it acted against only the first, lowest-stressed fraction of the spring's compression. It would be doing nothing whatever when it was 0.11in. short of the final position. One reason that cam could be worn, though, would be if someone overheated it in bending the bolt handle.

A short striker travel still sounds like an amateur or amateurish speedlock conversion. I remember that when I fitted the Dayton-Traister conversion kit to my P14 Enfield (for the speedlock, as I didn't care about the cock-on-opening it also brought) they were also available for the M93. Dayton-Traister's involved a forward extension on their replacement cocking-piece, so that you could alter the camming surface in the bolt to lift it rather further on the upward bolt movement. But others might omit that.

[John 242]

.030 minimum clearance is what Kuhnhausen recommends between the sear and the cocking piece when on safe. .110 is an awful lot. I had similar problem with a 98, but not as extreme as yours. I fixed it by working the cam surface on the safety with a stone. The cam surface I'm talking about is the ramp that shoves the cocking piece backwards. By creating more of a slope and moving the angle forward, the safety is able to cam the cocking piece rearward.

[TCLouis]

This is a cock on close action as several have said.
That said . . . .
When the action is closed and cocked cocking piece resting on the sear.

One has to pull the cocking piece back an additional 0.110 to engage the safety.

I could fix that by hard soldering a piece on the sear and "grind" to fit.
I can not buthelp to believe one or more of the pieces involved is incorrect (most likely trigger or cocking piece).

I am pretty sure the 93 and 95 firing pin are the same dimensions, that really only leaves two pieces in the chain, but I can not find a dimensioned drawing of 93 and 95 cocking piece.

IF it were 15-20 thousandths I would likely "grind to fit", but .110" is way outa whack and needs correct solution.

[405grain]

I just pulled the cocking piece out of one of my '93 bolts and took some measurements. As I'm sure that you already know, the Mauser was designed in metric. I'll give the metric measurements, and put the English equivalents in (parenthesis). The cylindrical body of the cocking piece is 29.5mm long (1.161"), and 13mm in diameter (.511"). The portion of the cocking piece that contacts the sear is somewhat rectangular, and is 6mm (.237") wide, 16.5mm long (.649"), and extends 5.5mm (.219") below the body of the cocking piece. 6.5mm (.256") of this rectangular portion extend forward of the cylindrical body, and this is the portion that contacts the sear. There is a small notch cut into this face which engages caming surfaces on the rear of the bolt. A radius cut on the rear of this rectangular portion allows the cocking piece, along with the rest of the bolt, to be pulled back over the nose of the sear when the bolt is opened.
Your cocking piece is grossly too far forward in the cocked position. I would advise against grinding or removing material from the cocking piece until after you've determined the cause. One probable cause might be that someone removed material from the engagement notch on the sear in a botched attempt at a trigger job. Another possibility cause might be that the cocking piece might have been shortened. This was done on some target versions of the '96 Swedish Mauser to shorten lock time, but it requires modifications to other components in order to work. Another scenario is that the rifle was assembled with the wrong parts. That trigger group or the cocking piece might not have even come from that model of Mauser. ie; Once I got an M38 Turkish that had a 1903 Turkish cocking piece forced onto the firing pin so crudely that it was "riveted" on. I had to cut the firing pin and spring in half to salvage the bolt shroud, and with the wrong cocking piece the safety wouldn't work on that one either.

[John 242]

Yes, I'm aware it's a cock on closing, but apparently I'm under the mistaken impression that the safeties operate the same. Doesn't the safety move the cocking piece to the rear, off of the sear, the same way it does on a 98? If it doesn't, then I apologize for my lack of knowledge regarding the subject.

I have a Spanish 93 with a flat bottom bolt face that I clamped up into a mill vise and used an indicator to measure the movement of the cocking piece. When switched from fire to the disassembly position, the cocking piece is cammed backwards off the sear approximately .030, which would be right according to Kuhnhausen.

My cocking piece body measures 1.152 long, with the total length (rear to the end of the part that contacts the sear) being 1.415.

The distance from the center of the rear guard screw to the face of the sear on my Spanish Mauser is .987 using a DRO.
The distance from the rear tang to the sear face is 1.321, which may be easier for you to measure, but probably not a reliable dimension to use.

Measuring the length of my sear (just the small knob part, not the whole sear body) with a set of calipers I get .322 from rear to front. Mine looks unmodified and you may be able to compare this number to yours to see if it was machined or stoned down.

Measuring from the center of the sear pin hole to the face of the sear I get 1.332. I measured this as best I could using a height gauge on a surface plate and using a gauge pin in the hole. The measurement probably isn't perfect but it should be pretty close.

I hope this is helpful.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

This is a cock on close action as several have said.
That said . . . .
When the action is closed and cocked cocking piece resting on the sear.

One has to pull the cocking piece back an additional 0.110 to engage the safety.

I could fix that by hard soldiering a piece on the sear and "grind" to fit.
I can not buthelp to believe one or more of the pieces involved is incorrect (most likely trigger or cocking piece).

I am pretty sure the 93 and 95 firing pin are the same dimensions, that really only leaves two pieces in the chain, but I can not find a dimensioned drawing of 93 and 95 cocking piece.

IF it were 15-20 thousandths I would likely "grind to fit", but .110" is way outa whack and needs correct solution.

It is usually quite petty to pick on quirks of spelling, but hard soldiering is a Freudian slip to cherish.

It seems a shade much to go against Jerry Kuhnhausen, but I think that figure of the safety lifting the cocking-piece and0.030in. from the sear is intended for all Spanish Mausers with all kinds of users, and may make the safety sticky and noisy in operation. For the person who knows the metal is good and would notice any change in its operation, less might be better.

This drawing isn't to scale, but although it is the 95 it may give an idea from the shape of the parts which one is wrong. I think it is far more likely to be the cocking-piece or sear rather than the safety. If the sear still closely fits its little window in the bottom of the bolt way, you would be better adding metal to the cocking-piece rather than the sear, and I would do it by silver soldering in a piece of high speed steel toolbit, which retains its hardness, using something like Brownells Silvalloy 355 solder in a thin ribbon. I believe it would be possible to use 3mm. square and reduce it with a diamond hone or abrasive paper glued to something flat, before soldering.

[flounderman]

all you need to do is cut the cocking piece back until it engages. when it is cocked, the firing pin is stationary. The safety is stationary. If you look at where the safety touches the cocking piece, that is how much needs to be taken off the face of the cocking piece. It only has to come off the top, where the safety engages it. somebody probably tried to shorten the firing pin fall and ignored the law of unintended consequences. It isn't any big deal to take some off the cocking piece until it fits.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

The way the OP tells it in post 11, too much has been taken off either the cocking-piece or the sear already.

[TCLouis]

Thanks to all for hard numbers.
I found my Cerro Safe late this PM so will use the measurements from here and cast a chamber tomorrow for my other mystery project and post results.

[John 242]

At the risk of being accused of throwing parts at a problem...

If the OP checks the numbers provided earlier and determines that either the sear or cocking piece have been tampered with, why not replace the suspect part?

Numrich has Spanish 93 cocking pieces for $6.05 and sears are $6.65. Both are currently in stock. Soldiering or welding is all well and good, but with both parts readily available...
https://www.gunpartscorp.com/Manufac...127.htm?page=4

[John 242]

It seems a shade much to go against Jerry Kuhnhausen, but I think that figure of the safety lifting the cocking-piece and0.030in. from the sear is intended for all Spanish Mausers with all kinds of users, and may make the safety sticky and noisy in operation.

Maybe...
Gentry recommends .015 to .020 rearward movement of the cocking piece when their three-position safety is installed.
NECG recommends .012 to .016.
I forget what it is for a Dakota, but I think it's somewhere around there.
I realize that these are 98 safeties, but the concept is still the same; the safety should retract the cocking piece off of the sear. There should be enough clearance that the sear can move up and down (when the trigger is pulled) and not get caught under the cocking piece. If it does, the gun may discharge when the safety is moved from from safe to fire.

Kuhnhausen has an example in his book of .080 of movement. I'll paraphrase; he says that this is acceptable, but not necessarily desirable.
For the record, I don't worship at the alter of "Baron Von" Kuhnhausen. However, i find his books to be a good to reference when dealing with these things.

[405grain]

Something struck me, and I wanted to ask: is the bolt shroud screwed on all the way? The small ring Mausers don't have a locking mechanism on the bolt shroud like the '98 Mausers do. The bolt shroud can be accidentally rotated while the bolts open. If the bolt shroud has been unscrewed one turn, this might account for the safety not engaging the cocking piece. Check to see if the bolt shroud is screwed all the way on to the back of the bolt. Usually you would cock the bolt and put the safety on so that you could unscrew or screw on the shroud. In your case you'll need to remove the bolt, then pull or push the cocking piece back to engage the safety. With the cocking piece back and the safety on you should be able to rotate the bolt shroud. Rotate the shroud in the clockwise direction until the raised portion of the shroud that serves as the housing for the safety shaft fits into the recess that's milled into the back of the root of the bolt handle. There should be almost no space between the front of this part of the bolt shroud and the root of the bolt handle. If you look at your bolt, and there's a 1/10th inch or so space between this part of the bolt shroud and the handle root when the bolt handle is in the up (open) position, it means that your bolt shroud is unscrewed one turn. In this condition, not only will the safety not engage, but the tip of the firing pin isn't going to protrude past the bolt face, and the rifle won't fire.