Today, I was looking for something or another in my storage unit, and came across a gun case I had forgotten I had put in there. I opened it up, and inside was the first rifle I ever put together..a cheap Turkish mauser 98 with a Remington take off barrel chambered in 308 and stuffed in a Charles daily synthetic stock. I pulled it out and looked it over. 3 years ago when I decided I wanted to be a gunsmith, I had put this rifle in the closet after running into some problems I didn't know how to deal with at the time. It's been moved around and I had completely forgotten. It even existed.
Problem #1 was the trigger, and this I remembered about. It was a terrible 2 stage which, on occasion, would slam fire. I had plans to put a after market trigger in it, but never had the funds. I pulled it from the rifle today, and after a hour welding and filing, ended up with a very nice trigger, although it does have a bit of over travel. It is quite usable though, and will not go off, no matter how hard you same the bolt.
Problem #2 was one I had completely forgotten about, until today when I tried to mount a scope to shoot it. When I bought the action, it had already been drilled and tapped, and the bolt bent. I'm not sure who bent the bolt, but it sticks out a good ways from the receiver before going down. With the highest rings I have, the bolt still hits the scope. I'm gonna have to deal with this and will probably just buy a new bolt handle and weld it on, instead of trying to fix this one.
I'm sure the rifle will need bedded as well. I never did much with it, except for put it together. I know I have shot it but don't Remember how I made a scope fit on it 3 years ago, but I do know I wasn't really impressed with accuracy.
I believe in finishing what I started, so will be working on this thing as I have time and see if I can't make a decent rifle out of it.