Royal Blood: Mauser M18 Review

In 1955, I was 12 years old and went deer hunting with my father in the dense forest of Minnesota’s northwest angle. After World War II, the USA was flooded with surplus military weapons of all kinds. My dad assigned me a German Model 98 Mauser in 8mm, which was the standard German military cartridge. It was my first rifle and it was on that hunt that I harvested my first whitetail. Model 95s in 7mm and make-over rifles chambered for 30-06,.45-70 and even.45-60 (large ring), all took up space in our old-school basement gun room. Even today, many years after the fact, I still carry a Mark X Mauser with a blue-printed barrel that is chambered in.224 Valkyrie. In July of this past year, after a call from my brand contact, I was quickly involved in the introduction of a completely new Mauser. It was German-built and engineered, from the buttstock upwards. After reading a few lines in an email that introduced the basic rifle, I was immediately hooked on another famous and solid brand name firearm. What’s in a name? The Mauser Model 18, also known as “Sauana”, is a hunter-style rifle. Upon receiving the rifle for testing and evaluation, I found the polymer synthetic stock design to be very appealing to hunters who cover a lot of terrain and cannot handle massive amounts of extra weight. The rifle is also available with a wood-stocked version, but the synthetic design has soft grip inlays and a buttstock storage compartment for small items. This is perfect for long-distance mountain hunters. Push-button storage lock buttstock. Small area to store muzzle cap, extra ammunition or other small items. This rifle stock is suitable for the M18, which is a rifle designed for heavy use and lighter handling. I found that the barrel was free-floated to the receiver ring at 22 inches and lacked any advanced bedding systems. You’ll soon find that this new Mauser offering is not out-shooting most general-purpose hunting guns. The new Mauser 18 is a light-porter with a carrying weight of 8 1/2 pounds, including a scope. It’s designed to be different from the current trend for heavy chassis rifles or other long-range offerings. The rifle weighs just under 10 lbs. when the GemTech Dagger suppressor is mounted. This rifle is available in a medium cartridge (.308/6.5 Creedmoor) as well as heavy magnum versions. Carry weight can vary depending on chambering, add-ons such as sight systems and sound suppression. The stock is designed to be lowered into a slim forend which houses sling swivels. It also contains a generous box magazine that uses an inline magazine. A button is located just ahead of the magazine well. It allows for easy loading by simply pressing the button. The magazine is flush with the stock. This is often where rifles fail: The magazine allows for a smooth, easy cartridge to drop into it. When installed back into the magazine well, this fit is perfect and maintains a solid locking. It’s not good to have a magazine fall into 6 inches powder snow while a trophy deer is looking down the barrel of the rifle as you are working the action. The.223 and.222 Rem. Mag. 7mm Rem. and.300 Win. Mag. The ever-evolving actionThe rifle’s new action is a significant change from the old Mauser-style turn bolts. This action uses a straight, clean, 0.805 one piece bolt tube with a rotating head and button extractor. It also has three locking lugs. The bolt handle will pivot when it is fully functional at 60 degrees in relation to an opening angle. This bolt was very fast and didn’t require any force to lift the bolt while shooting off-hand, or from a benchrest position, during a second shot. The action was smooth and the lockup was quick and solid with my 6.5 Creedmoor ammunition. Bottom line, I really like this rifle from a hunting perspective. Red pin indicates rifle is cocked. The bolt is designed for short stroke operation. The controls are simple and field-tested, with a thumb-safety on the right-hand side of the receiver housing. It’s a push forward firing-position design. The safety was a little noisy when I operated it with my thumb, but when I used two fingers to guide it, the sound disappeared. Bolt assembly–clean, one-piece and button extractor-ejection, and three locking lugs. The safety has three positions: full safe, ready to fire and fully secure. The action is locked when the rifle is in the full safe position. However, the magazine can still be removed if the rifle is positioned all the way back. The action can be opened by using the second position. However, the fire controls will remain locked. The rifle is now operational with the safety lever fully forward. The system is perfect for use with rifle scabbards on horseback or in vehicles. The bolt will not open in full safe. This has been a problem in the past for mounted hunters in Western States. A red pin indicator protrudes from the rear of bolt when the rifle is cocked. This red pin will recede into the rear of bolt face after firing or releasing the cocked-bolt. This rifle has many features that will appeal to hunters. What can’t be hit cannot function. Mauser M18 is not one of those rifles. This rifle shoots. It was time to test the rifle on the first try. After mounting a 3-18x50mm Zeiss Conquest v6 over standard Remington Model 700 base using a pair of six-screw sniper-grade rings of 30mm, it was time to find out what made it tick. The rifle handled like a charm right away. I own much more expensive big game rifles that do not have the smoothness and control of this gun. The M18 was tested with a wide range of ammunition. The rifle liked all the ammunition, but heavier bullets produced a tighter group. One bullet hit 3 inches above the target center and 3 inches right. This was from the basic bore-sighting round. It was sight-correct and on to round two. The bullet was spot-on after the second round of firing. Setting click adjustments with the 1/4 MOA Turret Adjustments. I was pleasantly shocked when the bullets hit within a 1-inch group, despite the fact that the barrel and rifle were both green. It was a sign to me to get serious with the next round downrange. I have found that rifles can alter their points of impact depending on whether the suppressor is in place or not. It should be noted that the first runs returning MOA and a quick 0 were results of a suppressed gun. Easy load magazine – no hard push, fast loading under hunting conditions. The rifle shot the 130-grain handloaded ammunition like a champ, using a database DOPE had developed during a previous hunt with 6.5 Creedmoor. When the rifle was suppressed, it hissed air out beyond its barrel and the bullet hit steel with a loud thud. The turret twisted a bit when I was selecting steel at different ranges. For example, a shot of 300 yards, followed by a second shot of 500 yards. But, I began to trust the rifle’s performance. The 3-pound, single-stage adjustable trigger was a joy to use. It was easy to use the 3-pound trigger, set to a solid wall without any creep. Just depress it, release the trigger, and wait for the bullet to strike steel. Bolt latch rear receiver. Targets included 100 yard group shooting and full-size coyote silhouettes at 200 to 400 yards. The rifle has clean lines. Observed and measured, the push-feed Mauser bolt-action rifle was trimmed of the old-school mountings for the long-extractor, safety via a 3-position design directly on bolt rear face and a long lift bolt handle. The gun did not return anything more than 1 MOA. These results included 10 different brands and types of bullets throughout my accuracy rangework. Bolt head with three locking latches. The bolt head is strong and part of a system that produces results close to benchrest with most ammunition (6.5 Creedmoor).Final observationsDuring the testing of Mauser M18 I was told by some circles the rifle’s bolt would tend to bind when closed with a live cartridge chambered. This was true, but only in cases of questionable rifle case sizing. The Mauser M18’s chamber tolerances are so tight that only a perfectly metered cartridge can fit into the rifle chamber. There is no felt contact between the chamber walls and the cartridge. As a consultant in the ammunition manufacturing industry, I will state that even though the COVID mess is behind us, poor supply chains, lack of materials, and sources that diverge from the normal channels have led to inconsistencies in major name-brand manufactures. Don’t blame the gun too quickly. The Mauser M18 has a nice turn-bolt for big-game hunting. The Mauser M18 is a nice turn-bolt big-game rifle. Editor’s Note: The original version of this article appeared in the January 20, 2023 issue Gun Digest the magazine. More Bolt-Action Rifles NEXT STEP Download Your Free Storm Tactical Printing Target Pack62 Printable MOA targets with DOT drills – Rifle range in YARDSThis impressive pack from our friends at Storm Tactical includes 62 printable targets for rifle and handgun ranges. The grids and bullseyes are measured in MOA. Subscribe to the Gun Digest newsletter and we will send you your print-at home target pack immediately. Enter your email below.