Long range Mauser M12

I was intrigued to be asked by the Mauser importers to take an off-the-shelf sporting rifle and see how far it could shoot accurately. To this end they supplied the synthetic stocked Mauser M12 Extreme (synthetic).

The M12 came in that classic calibre; the 6.5x55mm Swedish. With modern powders and none of the limitations of older and weaker pre-war actions, this cartridge has plenty of internal volume to fill up with slow burning propellants and drive those slippery 120-140-grain hunting or target bullets. With G1 Ballistic coefficients above 0.600, they will easily remain supersonic well beyond 1000 yards. Although the 308 is a great benchmark round, the Swede leaves its 150-grain projectiles well behind with similar muzzle velocities.

SO WHAT ABOUT THE GUN?

The M12 seems to tick all the right boxes as a sporting rifle for the UK user, with wood and synthetic stock options in both standard and magnum calibres. It comes screw cut, uses standard and easily available mounts and is a delight to handle!

Mauser has combined their superb barrels and Hi-Tec manufacturing capability with not only good engineering design, but superb ergonomics that work with the functionality of the humans who use the kit. Specific matters to note are the bolt function. It is a full diameter body, with a single underside groove to prevent rotation as it slides, with 3 paired lugs that are smaller than the bolt diameter. They lock into abutments in the barrel extension and as they have no bearing surface at all during bolt stroke, this movement is fast and smooth.

1% TOWARDS PERFECTION

Where Mauser adds that last 1% towards perfection, is in the length and position of the bolt handle. Hanging almost vertically (much like its big brother the M03), it can be easily flicked open with your fingertips. It is so subtle, yet perfect! It is perhaps most noticeable against the Sauer 101, which is a rifle of identical genetics. Here the handle follows the more usual laid back profile, sitting higher and away from the stock and although a superb rifle, that ergonomic difference is striking, especially for those with smaller hands or fierce factory ammo that initiates heavy bolt lift.

The Extreme has a synthetic ball at the end of the bolt lever, which remains grippy when cold or wet. To some, the 3-position, SRS wing-style safety might look a bit old fashioned and bulky but it does the job! It is accessible and tactile in gloves and can be operated silently; forward is FIRE, middle SAFE with bolt operation and rear, SAFE and locked. The gun carries well and rests flat on your back; so when fully locked, it is reassuring to know that loaded or not, the firing pin and trigger are locked too.

MODEST MAUSER

I’m not usually a lover of light polymer stocks and if I can pick only one fault with the M12 Extreme it’s that the forend is slightly flexible! The barrel floats fully all the way back to the reinforce; but if clumsily handled with excessive forend pressure, you may get some intermittent contact. The grey stock is tactile; a slightly rubbery texture to the surface fends off most dirt and damage, whilst retaining a warm and comforting grip. Chequering, or to be precise texturing, is moulded into the pistol grip and forend which fills the hands just enough and gives an assured feel during recoil.

Mauser has retained the characteristic boxy swell below the magazine well, which holds a 5- round, polymer box mag in standard calibres. Released by a small inset button to its front, it drops clear into your hand, full or empty, without fail. It can be top-loaded easily in situe, another excellent feature from the M03. Whether single or mag fed, all operations were faultless in this Swede, with no noisy clicks or scraping brass. Both primary and secondary extraction performed 100% by the claw in the upper right lug’s face. Very enthusiastic ejection was provided by twin ejector plungers, empties going at least 1 meter away!

LONG ENOUGH

Length of pull (LOP) at 14 3/8th” was more generous than normally found and a thicker recoil pad is available to add an extra half inch. The pad absorbs the modest recoil of the 6.5 well and with a flat comb, recoil transfer to the face was minimal, I liked the pattern on the pad matching the chequering on the gun, a tiny factor but one that adds to the homogenous look and feel. Reach to the deeply curved, smooth trigger blade suited my hands well and I found the grip totally neutral in terms of cast like the rest of the stock. It certainly filled your hands and like the LOP, just felt ‘full sized’. European/ Scandinavian rifles are usually a good inch longer in LOP than American fodder, but a grip that fills your hand was a refreshing change from having your little finger hanging down. The trigger broke at a beautiful, creep-free 900 grams. It is non-adjustable and doesn’t need to be and feels utterly predictable and repetitive!

Mechanically, the bedding system the M12 employs is simple but effective and repetitive. I always use a torque driver for action screws and releasing the M12 from its stock didn’t show any change in point of impact when replaced and shot again. Internally, the soft touch feel of the stock blends toward the underlying webbed polymer structure and provides the hard inlet for the action to bed onto, there’s a steel recoil lug too. To facilitate mounting a bipod, there’s a solid sling stud fitted into a reinforced boss below the forend, there’s one on the underside of the butt and one on the forend tip for maximum stability when using a regular sling.

SO HOW WILL A SPORTING RIFLE PERFORM?

Other than a bipod, nothing was to be done to modify this rifle but the optical pairing would be critical. Most sporting rifles of decent accuracy will provide great fun at longer ranges on targets (if the operator respects their own input of course) but what can often let you down is the scope. You don’t have to be shooting bughole groups on tiny targets in partial darkness, but you do need plenty of mechanical adjustability in the scope to dial out to longer ranges. Tracking reliability for the scope to return exactly back to zero, as well as adjusting laterally for windage, is crucial too. I was keen to stay away from adding target rifle equipment, especially optically and interestingly, this specification of a hunting scope, with long range ability to suit the rifle’s breeding, is one of the fiercest points in the market right now. After adding a Recknagel Picatinny rail to the action for multiple scope changes, paired with Tier-One rings, my first call was to Zeiss for a 2.8-20x56 V8, a scope that really had knocked my socks off and set the standard for this arena.

WHAT AMMO?

Ammunition choice was going to be critical! I knew there was a difficult trade-off between the short range, flat-shooting speed of the 120-grainers, versus long-range wind stability of the 140’s. To assess the baseline ability of the gun and iron out any wrinkles, I went with some 2735fps (quoted), 140gr SST Hornady Superformance ammunition, whose ballistic tip offered a 0.515 B.C. This shot well and would have been totally suitable for any UK hunting opportunity but when chronographed through the M12’s 22” barrel, produced 2579 fps giving me a calculated ballistic drop of 8.7 mRad (87 1cm clicks) to the magic 1000 yards ‘on-paper’ with 1125 yard supersonic flight envelope.

I use ballistic apps daily, although always prove everything in the field before truly trusting results. When researching possible load recipes and variables in comparative terms they are unbeatable and I have yet to be disappointed. After initial zeroing, I was only left with 7 M-Rad (70 clicks) available from the scope (24mRad full internal range) so to have gained the best results from the combo, a 10 or perhaps 20 M.O.A. inclined rail would have assisted me here.

I would have been able to free up a lot of the scopes internal adjustment and still had my 100 yard/metre baseline zero but, that was another complication I didn’t need! The 890 yards on offer were more than capable of trying out the gun, which was happily able to strike a 6” plate at 550 yards with little difficulty when wind was accounted for. But I wanted to try the magic 1000, either yards or better still metres!

Experimentation into handloads soon proved my ‘old faithful’ 6.5x55 stalking load of a 120-grain Sierra soft point would happily shoot sub-1/2” on 100 yard paper, with plenty of ¾ M.O.A. groups onto steel at 400 yards, with 2850 fps provided by Ramshot Hunter powder. I’m normally a HPBT user at long range but a part box of 123-grain Hornady A-MAX in Lapua brass with Vihtavuori N160 showed some real potential and with speeds that surprised me given the shorter barrel. A little secondary load development soon had 3-shot groups (I don’t like getting a light barrel too hot) every time below ½ M.O.A. with 2950 fps on the clock it seemed too good not to take further. So back to optics. A Swarovski Z6i 2-12x50 with ballistic turret had performed admirably at 400 yards but the chance to use the latest X5i was too good to miss and paired with the rifle/ammo’s 1300 yard suggested supersonic flight envelope had me scurrying off to WMS Firearms in Wales for the longest shots.

‘BOARING’ AT 1000 METRES

A long day working through multiple ranges with the M12/X5i combo had shown reliable results and was as always, far more accurate than my first call on the windage. Finishing off at 1100 yards/1010 metres, I had 35 M.O.A. (9.9 M-Rad or 99 ‘cm’ clicks if the V8 had done this) dialled in with plenty left over to have taken me well beyond the 1300 yard supersonic flight envelope.

Aiming at a life sized, steel, boar target, I had between 15 and 17 Minutes of windage dialled in for winds gusting over 20 MPH and after a couple of sighting shots, struck the steel. The four remaining (5+1 loaded) rapid fire shots, taken off a grassy hillside across the flat fields far below through relatively clear airspace showed a group, or ‘beaten area’ spotted visually, to be approximately 15” high and 20 “ wide. Now 1.3x1.7 M.O.A. groups at 1100 yards might not win you the world F-class championships, but with a lightweight sporting rifle, shot in real field conditions, with no wind flags or target accessories, well my smile lasted for hours!

CONTACTS

Hornady ammunition - Edgar Brothers, 01625 613177
Sierra bullets and Ramshot powders - Henry Krank, 01132 569163
Vihtavuori powders and Lapua cases – Hannam’s Reloading, 01977 681639
Tier One Scope rings and Spartan III sound moderator – Tier One, 01924 404312
Recknagel Picatinny Rail, Alan Rhone - 01978 660001
Swarovski X5 scope – Swarovski UK

Blaser Sporting Ltd,0207 6222116 www.blaser-sporting.com, www.mauser.de

PRICE: £1,411