Mauser M18 Field Hunt Savannah
THE M18 has an entirely new action design, but although it carries the Mauser name, but owes nothing to the Mauser 98 rifle's heritage. Its origins make an interesting story. The M18 is a recent arrival, dating back to 1987 when Mauser bought Voere-Voetter & Co and obtained a rifle action that that Voere had developed - a tubular receiver with a one-diameter three-lug bolt that locked into a stellite insert in the receiver. Stellite is a super-hard, cobalt-chromium alloy and its most common use in firearms is with machinegun barrels to reduce heat and increase wear resistance. The material is so hard that it is used to make cutting tools for machining metal and for valves in aircraft and high rpm automobile engines. Stellite has high impact and cantilever strength and heating and cooling can be repeated indefinitely without any loss in hardness. It is resistant to corrosion and oxidation and has good tensile strength.
Mauser realized the advantages of the 3-lug action and realized the stellite insert had more to offer than just great strength. But four years earlier, in 1965, they had licensed the Gehmann short action which was a unique design in that it had the locking lugs seat into an extension of
