Libercontrarian

Crushed between the wheels of capitalism and big government.

Scope That Mauser

Want to have a good time?

Try getting a Mauser mounted up all nice 'n purty with a riflescope.

Why?

It's a collossal pain-in-the-ass. The Mauser is one of those oddball military rifles where the inventors, Peter and Paul Mauser in this case (Messieurs Kalashnikov and Simonov are equally guilty, as is the Springfield Arsenal in the case of the Springfield Model of 1903 Rifle) elected to put the rear sight of the weapon IN FRONT of the chamber. This shortens sight radius (distance between front and rear sight) by about 10 inches, making the weapon somewhat more inclined to be misaimed by a rushed marksman - say, a soldier, for instance. The shorter the sight radius is on any firearm with dual-plane sights (a "front" and a "rear" you have to align), the likelier it is that a small error in sighting, which is less noticeable (duh), will have a big impact downrange where the bullet eventually strikes. The farther the distance, the greater the error!

When the rear sight is in back of the chamber, you have an ideal platform from which to hang a "no-gunsmithing" type of scope mount - it can arch over the chamber without needing to be tied down to the front. Furthermore, you can bring that scope far enough to the rear to provide the appropriate eye relief for a proper image in the glass. Forward-mounted ("scout" or pistol) scopes, however, are more difficult to mount and use effectively. The extended eye relief tends to cause scout/pistol scopes to be less forgiving of any sideways motion of your head when you peer down their barrel, as that motion tends to leave you looking at the inside wall of the tube when you deviate a fraction of an inch left or right of the optical "sweet spot." This is, of course, much less of a challenge on a rifle, where your head is attached to a nice wooden stock, but it does add complexity to an already challenging equation - cheek-weld, angle of head on stock, angle of scope to rifle, angle of rifle to target, etc, etc.

I have been searching for the Holy Grail of scope mounts for one or both of the Mauser rifles I have (yes, I KNOW I haven't put up the blog post on the refinished 6mm Remington conversion yet, I will get to it soon), and in typical Libercontrarian fashion, I have totally painted myself into a corner, specifying several solutions that are all difficult, or too expensive, or highly complex - or all three.

I will highlight them as I approach a solution. This post is but the first in a series that will document my efforts to successfully scope my Mausers, and it ought to be a fun-filled comedy of adventures, that's for sure!

posted by: underwhelmed at August 30, 2006 15:33 | link | comments |

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