Saint Hubert Mausers?

[William Suter]

Anyone heard of these? I did some swapping and ended up with one. Beautiful rifle in a nice gloss walnut stock, Shilen barrel and Timney trigger, action is bed and pillared. Blueing is deep dark blue. Whom ever built this was a craftsman for sure. Caliber is 243 Winchester.

As for research, there isn't a lot out there or I haven't found it. Kinda resembles the FN Browning mausers. The bolt release is different than what you see on a 98. Supposedly or what I was told, the smith built a small few of these and even made the stock. That's coming from the gunshow dealer. He couldn't remember the smiths name so you just take it with a grain of salt. Claimed the previous owner said it was a 1/2 inch shooter. Well, it does a little better than that with handloads. With my 85 grain mystery bullets it shot a .211 three shot group at 100yds the first time I took it out.

 

[hm1996]

Pictures, Bill, pictures.
Back in the '50s lots of 98's and 03s wound up as donor actions. I was in high school and spent LOTS of time at a gunsmith friend and mentor's shop. He took me under his wing and let me rebuild a 92 Win. and was putting together the first .308 in the area while the T65 was in the works. He had a M 1917 Browning barrel screwed into the action and bedded in a block of walnut and offered to let me have it for what he had in it and he would "help" me finish it. I was working two different jobs (.45 and .75/hr) in spare time so couldn't afford it, but he insisted and let me pay it out "whenever you can but you have to keep the books!" What an opportunity. All of the machine work was done, so all that was left basically was shape and finish the stock, blue it and mount a scope under his watchful eye.
While the MG barrel was brand new and looked great, it didn't shoot all that well and I later rebarelled to 6mm Rem. with a 26" Shilen barrel which was a true .5 MOA shooter. Haven't shot it in a while, but still sits in the safe.

It shot so well that I took a Peruvian 98 action and built a 24" 6mm Rem for my son when he was 8 years old. It also shot .5". Since he was so small at the time, I used the military (laminated) stock, which was a white wood (elm?) added a maple Monte Carlo cheek piece and cut the stock really short. As he grew, we added maple spacers with intention of restocking it when he grew up. Never happened, he still has the old GI stock on it. He shot his first coyote & lots of deer with that rifle.

Some 30 years later, my grandson shot his first deer, hogs etc. with that rifle as well

 

[hm1996]

It also shot .5"

Gave my son his rifle on Christmas, 1968 when he was 8. That morning, he shot the first group and it measured 5/8". This was back when a MOA rifle was not nearly as common as it is today. I told him he'd have to shoot a long time to equal that and he followed up with a 1/2" group. I was so impressed, I pulled the M 1919 barrel, which would shoot a reduced load to about 1.5 - 1.75" and replaced it with the Shillen 6mm.

 

[AWS]

Herter's in Waseca MN imported a number of different Mauser actions, the Saint Hurbert(never owned one), J-9(mine was made in Czechoslovakia), I had another Herter's Mauser action a Santa Barbara made in Spain.

As mentioned over at the campfire the Saint Hubert is reported to be made by Heym, thus the "made in Germany"

Herter's put there name on a lot of things they imported. They were the blueprint for Cabela's Their advertising was much more fun than Cabela's.

Their 401 Power Mag pistol was made by JP Sauer and Sons

 

[William Suter]

I'm really just trying to find out if its a quality action or just a run of the mill. Its a lot tighter action than the FN I swapped for it and shoots like a champ. A little more attractive to the eye also.

 

[AWS]

I think you said it all. Heym is a top of the line gun maker.

 

[William Suter]

Thanks AWS. I know very little about the different levels of quality in a Mauser type rifle. And..there are so many variants that I am to far behind the times to figure it all out.