At one of the local gun shops on the semi-daily stop to see what components may have come in, this little rifle was on the 'Used Rifles' rack. Times being what they are, anything decent that's used just doesn't stay around long so there had to be more to the story.
It was an Interarms Mini Mark X chambered in 223. These are sometimes called 'Mini Mausers' but other than the bolt shroud, they are almost a duplicate of the little Sako L461 actions. They were imported in the '80's by Interarms, then by Charles Daly and finally by Remington as the Model 799. With the 20" barrel, it's a bit over 6 1/2 lbs.
Paul Harvey time now ("...the rest of the story"). When I tried to pull the bolt back, it hung up and really got tight. It had a nice, newer Nikon 3-9 in low cheapo rings on a Weaver one piece base so I thought the bolt might simply be hitting the power ring on the scope. Nope.
One of the sales guys stop by at that time and tells me about it. Seems like they took it in on trade for a new Christensen Arms double throw down, carbon fiber barrelled rig in some Creedmore KoolAide chambering and really didn't check it out. He says it shouldn't be on the rack and it's headed to their gunsmithing area to get checked out. Then he says he'd be really happy if it just went away so the shop charges wouldn't be assessed against it and get tacked on to the price before it came back out for sale. Guy must be a fly fisherman 'cuz he dropped that bait right in front of a fish that can't resist any gun that justs needs me to make it all good again. "Get it out of here with the scope and leave $419 at the register" was the final set of the hook. Had Jeremy Wade from River Monsters been standing there, I would have heard him say: "Fish ON!"
As it looked:
From working with some Sakos, I had a pretty good idea where to look for the bolt binding and sure enough, there it was. The guide bar for the bolt is retained by a small roll pin through the guide bar. The guide bar normally fits really snug in the raceway...maybe .003-.004 clearance. Around the roll pin area, the guide bar was bowed just slightly and had a raised area on both flat surfaces where the roll pin went through..making it tight in the rear raceway. A little light stoning and it worked smoothly. Here's the roll pin area:
The back of the barrel had some scratch marks and sure enough...the extractor was hitting the back of the barrel. Some careful work with a diamond file took it back to about .010 clearance. Pics not great but you get the idea:
Taking the barrelled action out of the stock showed a bunch of stress in the bedding as the barrel moved about 1/16" up at the front of the fore end when the actions screws were loosened. Pillars are in now and it will get bedded in a couple of days:
My plan is to rescue the little devil, redo the stock, mount some good, lightweight bases and rings, feed it some good hand loads and see if we can't end up with a handy little rifle for predator calling or for walk around 'dog whacking w/o a lot of dollars invested.
If there's any interest, I'll update this as it goes.
Good shootin'. -Al
It was an Interarms Mini Mark X chambered in 223. These are sometimes called 'Mini Mausers' but other than the bolt shroud, they are almost a duplicate of the little Sako L461 actions. They were imported in the '80's by Interarms, then by Charles Daly and finally by Remington as the Model 799. With the 20" barrel, it's a bit over 6 1/2 lbs.
Paul Harvey time now ("...the rest of the story"). When I tried to pull the bolt back, it hung up and really got tight. It had a nice, newer Nikon 3-9 in low cheapo rings on a Weaver one piece base so I thought the bolt might simply be hitting the power ring on the scope. Nope.
One of the sales guys stop by at that time and tells me about it. Seems like they took it in on trade for a new Christensen Arms double throw down, carbon fiber barrelled rig in some Creedmore KoolAide chambering and really didn't check it out. He says it shouldn't be on the rack and it's headed to their gunsmithing area to get checked out. Then he says he'd be really happy if it just went away so the shop charges wouldn't be assessed against it and get tacked on to the price before it came back out for sale. Guy must be a fly fisherman 'cuz he dropped that bait right in front of a fish that can't resist any gun that justs needs me to make it all good again.
"Get it out of here with the scope and leave $419 at the register" was the final set of the hook. Had Jeremy Wade from River Monsters been standing there, I would have heard him say: "Fish ON!" As it looked:
From working with some Sakos, I had a pretty good idea where to look for the bolt binding and sure enough, there it was. The guide bar for the bolt is retained by a small roll pin through the guide bar. The guide bar normally fits really snug in the raceway...maybe .003-.004 clearance. Around the roll pin area, the guide bar was bowed just slightly and had a raised area on both flat surfaces where the roll pin went through..making it tight in the rear raceway. A little light stoning and it worked smoothly. Here's the roll pin area:
The back of the barrel had some scratch marks and sure enough...the extractor was hitting the back of the barrel. Some careful work with a diamond file took it back to about .010 clearance. Pics not great but you get the idea:
Taking the barrelled action out of the stock showed a bunch of stress in the bedding as the barrel moved about 1/16" up at the front of the fore end when the actions screws were loosened. Pillars are in now and it will get bedded in a couple of days:
My plan is to rescue the little devil, redo the stock, mount some good, lightweight bases and rings, feed it some good hand loads and see if we can't end up with a handy little rifle for predator calling or for walk around 'dog whacking w/o a lot of dollars invested.
If there's any interest, I'll update this as it goes.
Good shootin'. -Al
Last edited:
