If you are skilled at metalworking and woodworking this may be a worthwhile effort for you to try yourself. If you are not so skilled and must depend on a gunsmith to do the work, you may very well be able to have an outstanding rifle built but it will be much more expensive than just buying a modern hunting rifle. If money is an object look on the used market for a modern sporting rifle.

As mentioned in a post above, unless you handload you won't get good ballistics; all the US manufacturers are worried that you'll stuff their ammo into an old Gewehr 88 Commission rifle with a .318" diameter bore, blow it up and sue them. If you handload you gcan make a kick-butt round that will do anything the '06 will do, it'll just do it with a German accent.

Unmodified Mausers are not impossible as hunting weapons but if you plan to stick with open sights and US loaded factory ammo, there are better choices.

Another choice to consider if you like military surplus rifles is the Swedish Mauser. The 6.5x55 Swedish Mausers are excellent rifles and the open sights on them are pretty decent. Factory ammo is usually a 140 grain bullet loaded to around 2400 f.p.s. This sounds mild and in terms of recoil it is, but the bullet penetrates very well. Accuracy potential for these rifles (and modern sporters chambered in this caliber) is exceptional.