Mausingfield VS TL3. Overall picture

[317millhand]

Suppose you want to build a rifle to swap between standard and short magnum type rounds. Anyone have experience with both of these actions?

I currently own a Mausingfield and it's been pretty solid for the past 6000 rounds. No problems to report thst weren't mag related. However, I was thinking of doing a Saum and I'm in complete sticker shock at the price of a bolt head and extractor to make this happen. So I'm thinking a second rifle may be in order. I may just keep my Mausingfield setup in 6.5x47 and get a TL3 switch barrel in Saum and 6 Dasher. It seems that parts are much less expensive and I can use AW mags. Also, I think the TL3 will accept Savage prefits without modification.

The TL3​​​​​​ wasn't available yet when I got the Mausingfield, or I may have chosen it. You can get the TL3 action with both bolt heads for less money than a Mausingfield with 1 bolt head.


What am I missing? Anyone own both these action and can offer a good comparison?

 

[Dlwheel]

I have the TL3 in a 223 & DASHER & 6x47 & 6gap 4s. I would not recommend prefit/nuts. Definitely get them shouldered. Changing is 10min. Repeatability is .1 mil, if that.

 

[Patty]

I have the TL3 in a 223 & DASHER & 6x47 & 6gap 4s. I would not recommend prefit/nuts. Definitely get them shouldered. Changing is 10min. Repeatability is .1 mil, if that.

Whats the reason you don't recommend prefits/nuts? My last two barrels (and have a third on the way) have been this and have all shot the same or better as anyone else with a shouldered barrel.

 

[spife7980]

Whats the reason you don't recommend prefits/nuts? My last two barrels (and have a third on the way) have been this and have all shot the same or better as anyone else with a shouldered barrel.

If I had a custom action that has tolerances like the bighorn where a barrel can be spun up without the action in hand then I too would opt for a shouldered barrel instead of one you have to set each time it comes on and off. The nuts are great for situation where the actions arent as consistent (like my 700) and you dont want to ship the action off for a conventional shouldered install.

 

[noisewaterphd]

If I had a custom action that has tolerances like the bighorn where a barrel can be spun up without the action in hand then I too would opt for a shouldered barrel instead of one you have to set each time it comes on and off. The nuts are great for situation where the actions arent as consistent (like my 700) and you dont want to ship the action off for a conventional shouldered install.

With a nut you can move barrels from action A (Mausingfield) to action B (TL3). Or the repeatability of a shoulder for just 1 action can be achieved with a little locktite. The whole shoulder vs. barrel nut debate is just over IMO. It's beating a dead horse. There is no real advantage to either one, so do whatever makes you happy.

As to the original question, I chose and currently shoot the TL3. I've had considerable trigger time behind a Mausingfield as well, and I don't regret the TL3 in any way vs. the ARC. They are both phenomenal actions and they both make me happy. But, as I've probably mentioned elsewhere I'm going back to Defiance next year. Or maybe Lone Peak.

 

[usmcmad]

As to the original question, I chose and currently shoot the TL3. I've had considerable trigger time behind a Mausingfield as well, and I don't regret the TL3 in any way vs. the ARC. They are both phenomenal actions and they both make me happy. But, as I've probably mentioned elsewhere I'm going back to Defiance next year. Or maybe Lone Peak.

What's driving you back to Defiance or Lone Peak? I was considering a Defiance and was turned onto both the TL3 and Mausingfield. I have become more and more interested in the TL3.

 

[Patty]

If I had a custom action that has tolerances like the bighorn where a barrel can be spun up without the action in hand then I too would opt for a shouldered barrel instead of one you have to set each time it comes on and off. The nuts are great for situation where the actions arent as consistent (like my 700) and you dont want to ship the action off for a conventional shouldered install.

Sure, that is true, but not a reason to not recommend a prefit.

 

[Ledzep]

AW mags are almost not a draw for me. I've seen too many people with issues with them. Not the best set up for a two-lug bolt, it's a very fine balance to get them at the right height that they feed reliably. The ARC mags aren't that much taller and have worked great for me so far.

Prefits with barrel nuts work and shoot just as accurately as anything else-- I have a Bartlein .260 Savage prefit and it hammers, they just look kind of fugly compared to a shouldered barrel. I'm running 6.5 SAUM in my M5 right now (proof CF, shouldered) and have no complaints other than SAUM magazines being hard to find-- I opened up the lips on some ARC .308 mags. The bolt head/extractor is expensive but a few months after it's said and done you forget about it. I've blown more money on alcohol and bad decisions... Certainly cheaper than a whole new action.

I don't have any TL3 experience, but I have built, handled, and shot a lot of TL2's. Bighorns are #2 in my list behind the M5. It's a hair splitter and it's all style points at that level. The M5 materials and little quirks/features trip my trigger. I've never felt the pull to consider anything other than a long-action M5 since owning my short action M5. The Bighorns are nice, I'm just spoiled and at the point where I want what I want and will save up for it if it's a little more expensive.

One of those things you can't go wrong, but my opinion leans towards the MF. I think a little more robust, design and materials.

 

[Dlwheel]

Whats the reason you don't recommend prefits/nuts? My last two barrels (and have a third on the way) have been this and have all shot the same or better as anyone else with a shouldered barrel.

I prefer not to worry over headspace. One less thing to deal with. I have two TL3’s. They all work together

 

[Dlwheel]

Whats the reason you don't recommend prefits/nuts? My last two barrels (and have a third on the way) have been this and have all shot the same or better as anyone else with a shouldered barrel.

I have two BugNut systems for a SA Savage & LA Savage. They are great for that application.

 

[Patty]

I prefer not to worry over headspace. One less thing to deal with. I have two TL3’s. They all work together

Why would you have to worry? You set it in the same amount of time it takes to screw on the barrel.

I'd be willing to bet money that in 2 years we will see more pre-fits/barrel nuts than we do shouldered barrels now.

 

[5RWill]

Mill, i've been going back and forth on these two actions for almost a month now and keep coming back to the Bighorn TL3. Despite really wanting a Mausfingfield. Since we're talking about having a barrel spun up without action in hand say via PVA. To my understanding the Toroidal lug design of the Mausingfield complicates things when wanting a shouldered barrel without the smith having the action in hand. Here's what Chad had to say on the subject.

The Toroidal lug system, as a consequence, means that the "in/out" distance between bolt face and receiver shoulder can vary slightly. What this means is tennon length will fluctuate, although very little, as a consequence.

What I did say is that pre fitting shouldered barrels on Mausingfields can be hit or miss. You can do it and stay within SAAMI guidelines on HS, however if your trying to split hairs and mitigate case growth, it really takes the action in your hand.

There's also Ted's own design of a "switchlug/barrel nut" that he seems to be looking at fielding once he and Chad see how they workout and if there is really a demand for them. Read this post here.
https://www.snipershide.com/shooting/forum/...99#post6626899

All in all though as far as i can tell right now the Bighorn just seems to be the more viable option for a switch barreled rig. Bolt heads are cheaper, PVA can spin up a barrel for you in the meantime while you shoot the existing or just have two barrels spun at once, and when you want, less i'm missing something you can torque and go with no gauges or hiccups. Even with Ted's new lug design i believe go/nogo gauges will be required IIRC from reading that post.

Action cost for the MF and it's accessories are a little bit above the TL3, kind of a wash if you were to Ionbond the TL3, though obviously the bolt heads are still cheaper. I really want a Mausingfield, they seem to be one of the smoothest actions on the market, and i honestly love the features the action offers along with it coming coated. I also wanted to try the 50/50 bolt lift if it was still available. Having said that i'm 100% set on a switch barrel rig for this intended build to circumvent the cost of another rifle. That way i can have a short maneuverable 6.5x47L at around 10lbs and a SAUM build with a carbon barrel for hunting trips, all wrapped within the same platform.

 

[spife7980]

Sure, that is true, but not a reason to not recommend a prefit.

It is for me. See that? Personal preference.

 

[Ledzep]

5R Will, I think you might be over-thinking the head space issue a little. If you have the smith barrel up your Mausingfield with both bolt heads (std. and magnum) present at the first barreling, then he/she can store those critical dimensions and run you barrels without the action present from there on out provided you don't change bolt heads again (I don't know why you would?). So except not being able to order piece by piece and torque on the first barrel yourself, it's an identical process to the end user.

All Chad is saying is (and don't quote these numbers, it's just an example) the MF maybe runs a 0.002" range where the Bighorn is maybe <.001". So in order to ensure a MF doesn't have tight headspace with a prefit, you have to aim at that GO+.002-.004" range with a sight-unseen prefit, which is longer than typical. Usually precision rifle smiths aim for GO to GO+.002" max.

Once you have YOUR action in hand, the numbers aren't going to change for YOUR action with the same bolt heads.... and that's all that really matters anyway, unless you want to try every flavor of gunsmith who will make a sight-unseen prefit's barrel work?

 

[5RWill]

5R Will, I think you might be over-thinking the head space issue a little. If you have the smith barrel up your Mausingfield with both bolt heads (std. and magnum) present at the first barreling, then he/she can store those critical dimensions and run you barrels without the action present from there on out provided you don't change bolt heads again (I don't know why you would?). So except not being able to order piece by piece and torque on the first barrel yourself, it's an identical process to the end user.

All Chad is saying is (and don't quote these numbers, it's just an example) the MF maybe runs a 0.002" range where the Bighorn is maybe <.001". So in order to ensure a MF doesn't have tight headspace with a prefit, you have to aim at that GO+.002-.004" range with a sight-unseen prefit, which is longer than typical. Usually precision rifle smiths aim for GO to GO+.002" max.

Once you have YOUR action in hand, the numbers aren't going to change for YOUR action with the same bolt heads.... and that's all that really matters anyway, unless you want to try every flavor of gunsmith who will make a sight-unseen prefit's barrel work?

Gotcha, i was thinking about my situation specifically, which would albeit be more complicated due to using two different smiths. I was going to have one locally spin up the 6.5x47, in the meantime shoot it, and down the road order a prefit from Josh for the SAUM, so i could just swap it out, without having to send Josh the action, in the TL3's case. I see your point though and do recall Josh stating once he had the action in hand and as you said presuming said person doesn't change bolt heads it wouldn't be an issue.

 

[steve123]

Curious,

In regards to Mausingfield and a shouldered barrel, could a request be made to have the barrel chambered slightly long anyway?? That way the barrel could be ordered from a "good" gunsmith without ever measuring the action, meaning it wouldn't need to be sent to the GS. Yes perfect headspace is ideal but...

Am I correct that if the barrel is headspaced a thou or two long that a case will just fireform to the chamber so all that needs done is a resize bumping shoulder back .002 like normal??? Worse case we might have to seat the bullet in the lands for the first firing???

Any ill consequences to this?

 

[Patty]

It is for me. See that? Personal preference.

A recommendation is for someone else. The OP in this case. What you do with your own money is your choice.

 

[Ledzep]

Curious,

In regards to Mausingfield and a shouldered barrel, could a request be made to have the barrel chambered slightly long anyway?? That way the barrel could be ordered from a "good" gunsmith without ever measuring the action, meaning it wouldn't need to be sent to the GS. Yes perfect headspace is ideal but...

Am I correct that if the barrel is headspaced a thou or two long that a case will just fireform to the chamber so all that needs done is a resize bumping shoulder back .002 like normal??? Worse case we might have to seat the bullet in the lands for the first firing???

Any ill consequences to this?

Yes, if you're exclusively reloading head space is not so relevant if you take precautions like loading bullets long to fire-form-- call it your very own "wildcat". Obviously on the extreme end of things you'll run out of neck, and your die may not be able to size the base of your cases, but we're talking like 0.100" excessive headspace.

Where it really matters is shooting factory ammo. Accuracy will suffer, and eventually it will become dangerous.

In an ideal world, you give the smith the bolt face to receiver face, bolt nose to receiver face, and pitch diameter specs and have a pipe spun up sight unseen. Typically they like to see it in person for the first article at least, though.

 

[bohem]

steve123 there is not a problem hitting a headspace on a shouldered barrel. I have a friend that I cut barrels for out in WA state. I think barrel nuts are ugly as shit on a rifle that has a parts list totalling several paychecks. He wants his headspaces set to GO+2 thou when he gets a barrel. No problem, I have the specs, he tells me "Mausingfield SN xxxxxxxxx 6 Creed for 105 Hybrids, finish at 26", thread it and make it from an M24".

That's it. His barrel arrives in the mail a week or two later. In the past I've delivered TL3 barrels to him the exact same way.

I can tell you from yesterday alone I did 4 Mausingfield barrels on 3 different actions. There are a pair of "twin" barrels that share headspace to within 2 tenths. That receiver headspace was 1/2 a thou (5 tenths) under the design nominal aka 5 tenths short of nominal. A customer brought over 2 Mausingfields and we measured and cut them back to back. One was 2 thou long and the other was 4.5 thou long. The barrels from the first one were 5 thousandths different from the barrel on the 3rd Mausingfield.

If I had cut the headspaces to nominal +/-0.0002 like I target for custom fit barrels the difference here would be a barrel that wouldn't close on a GO gauge all the way up to a barrel that smoothly closes on a NOGO gauge. Is that dangerous? Not in the "OMG it's gonna explode" manner of speaking... but it's certainly not the quality point that I'm working to and I don't feel like having a barrel returned by a customer for "improper headspace" when the action variability is to blame. Anyone else here remember the gigantic shitstorm thread where someone had an AI barrel that ever-so-slightly closed down on a NoGo gauge? Those receivers aren't perfect and I have seen some that run the full spread of 4 thousandths from action to action.

Ted knows about this variation and he and I have probably talked about it a half dozen times in the last 3-4 years. He's taken steps to tighten it up and they've gotten better. Successive actions are trending towards being inside 3 thousandths band instead of 4-5 but it's still not to where I'm comfortable cutting shouldered prefits sight unseen. They shoot really really well, I just don't want to hang my business reputation or liability insurance premiums on the possibility of having an action barreled where the bolt closes on a NOGO...


In several hundred (not joking in the slightest, ask Bighorn if I'm kidding) Bighorns I track a max spread of 9 tenths min to max and if I pulled the top and bottom off those variations the other 250+something receivers fall inside 5 tenths. These are numbers where I am confident on the process control shown by Zermatt Arms to where I can cut barrels and hold the headspace at GO+5enths such that the max variability from action to action is dead-balls GO up to GO+.0015 inside of 3 sigma. Totally within industry certified standards and I don't have the risk of an improperly headspaced barrel.

 

[Hoser]

I have a TL3 set up for 300 Whisper, 223 Ackley, 22 BR and 243. I am very happy with the results. So happy in fact I have thought registering the rifle as a SBR so I can run a really short barrel on my 300. The 22 BR barrel is a coyote slaying machine.

 

[steve123]

steve123 there is not a problem hitting a headspace on a shouldered barrel. I have a friend that I cut barrels for out in WA state. I think barrel nuts are ugly as shit on a rifle that has a parts list totalling several paychecks. He wants his headspaces set to GO+2 thou when he gets a barrel. No problem, I have the specs, he tells me "Mausingfield SN xxxxxxxxx 6 Creed for 105 Hybrids, finish at 26", thread it and make it from an M24".

That's it. His barrel arrives in the mail a week or two later. In the past I've delivered TL3 barrels to him the exact same way.

I can tell you from yesterday alone I did 4 Mausingfield barrels on 3 different actions. There are a pair of "twin" barrels that share headspace to within 2 tenths. That receiver headspace was 1/2 a thou (5 tenths) under the design nominal aka 5 tenths short of nominal. A customer brought over 2 Mausingfields and we measured and cut them back to back. One was 2 thou long and the other was 4.5 thou long. The barrels from the first one were 5 thousandths different from the barrel on the 3rd Mausingfield.

If I had cut the headspaces to nominal +/-0.0002 like I target for custom fit barrels the difference here would be a barrel that wouldn't close on a GO gauge all the way up to a barrel that smoothly closes on a NOGO gauge. Is that dangerous? Not in the "OMG it's gonna explode" manner of speaking... but it's certainly not the quality point that I'm working to and I don't feel like having a barrel returned by a customer for "improper headspace" when the action variability is to blame. Anyone else here remember the gigantic shitstorm thread where someone had an AI barrel that ever-so-slightly closed down on a NoGo gauge? Those receivers aren't perfect and I have seen some that run the full spread of 4 thousandths from action to action.

Ted knows about this variation and he and I have probably talked about it a half dozen times in the last 3-4 years. He's taken steps to tighten it up and they've gotten better. Successive actions are trending towards being inside 3 thousandths band instead of 4-5 but it's still not to where I'm comfortable cutting shouldered prefits sight unseen. They shoot really really well, I just don't want to hang my business reputation or liability insurance premiums on the possibility of having an action barreled where the bolt closes on a NOGO...


In several hundred (not joking in the slightest, ask Bighorn if I'm kidding) Bighorns I track a max spread of 9 tenths min to max and if I pulled the top and bottom off those variations the other 250+something receivers fall inside 5 tenths. These are numbers where I am confident on the process control shown by Zermatt Arms to where I can cut barrels and hold the headspace at GO+5enths such that the max variability from action to action is dead-balls GO up to GO+.0015 inside of 3 sigma. Totally within industry certified standards and I don't have the risk of an improperly headspaced barrel.

Gottcha. No use taking a chance then and thanks for your knowledgeable advice.

Say I still had some life on my Mausingfield barrel but wasn't planning on shooting with the rifle for a month. Would it work out for me to send you my action for you to measure and then return it to me within a short timeframe? Then in 6-9 months or so, whenever I'm ready, I could order a shouldered barrel from you made to fit and before this one totally kicks the bucket. What I mean is I can stand a month without the action but more than that I might as well wait and have the action rebarreled when this barrel fades, especially if you have a lengthy backlog which might mean months instead of weeks.

 

[bohem]

Gottcha. No use taking a chance then and thanks for your knowledgeable advice.

Say I still had some life on my Mausingfield barrel but wasn't planning on shooting with the rifle for a month. Would it work out for me to send you my action for you to measure and then return it to me within a short timeframe? Then in 6-9 months or so, whenever I'm ready, I could order a shouldered barrel from you made to fit and before this one totally kicks the bucket. What I mean is I can stand a month without the action but more than that I might as well wait and have the action rebarreled when this barrel fades, especially if you have a lengthy backlog which might mean months instead of weeks.

Yup, we can always do that. I have records here for AI's that I have not yet cut barrels for but guys sent me actions over last winter to document for future use. Cost to do it is just return shipping and we hold the dimensions as our work product.

 

[steve123]

Isn't that cool!

Thanks again, this is a very appealing solution!