OT, so shortly: I got it.

[Finn45]

Yeah, or should I say I got Her :oops:. Very nice!

[Oldfeller]

For those who have liked the general looks of the much-used Spanish 1916 short Mauser carbines but never saw one in decent shape, those tasty light short Mauser carbines that were armory-converted from the old 1893 7x57 Spanish mauser long guns and intentionally given a cartridge that was NOT the standard 7.62x51 NATO round, it was a much milder 30 caliber round intended for Spanish semi-auto CETME rifles and CETME light machine guns, a round that was called the 7.62x51 CETME when it came out (prior to the adoptation of the NATO standard round by Spain) then do I have a mystery gun for you.

It is NOT a Guardia Civil M1893 rebuilt into a M1916 carbine. It bears no crest at all. It has not been sanded or resurfaced to remove the old crest either. It has a DEEPLY stamped OT-5 digit serial number on each and every external part. There is no way these numbers could have been post processed into an old 1893 action unless they had been drawn back to dead soft and then sanded, polished, stamped and then reheat-treated. Fit and finish says these actions were never sanded. The guns have a generous gas port in the side of the action but follow faithfully the original M1893 Mauser pattern otherwise, complete with the flat bottomed early bolt face. The gas port was not cut in with a milling machine after the fact like the Guardia Civil rebuilds, it shows all the signs of being polished with the action, blended edges and all.

BTW, a bit of research shows the OT - marking is the Spanish military designation for the full power 7.62x51 NATO round. This gun was scratch built (using old or new parts???) by Olivido Arsenal after full NATO adoption by Spain. The guns are immaculate miliary dark blued on all items, including the bolt itself (all Guardias were buffed steel bolts). The wood is serialized and has never been sanded and refinished (the stock is bulky and all the fixtures are sub-flush to the wood (ie the wood is new). All the serial numbers match. The bore is a virgin with all the fine hook rifling marks still in evidence on all surfaces. There is no mercuric primer barrel pitting, there is no rust at all inside these tubes. The bolt face completely lacks the mercuric primer pocket ring around the firing pin hole too. These guns never saw corrosive primers.

Samco brought them into the country as M1916 Mausers, noting them not as CETME 7.62x51 nor even as NATO 7.62x51 but as .308 Winchester. They are functionally new looking guns, wood and all.

I bought one -- planning to see what could be done with the pretty little tube and a Lake City NATO case mounting a FAT 30 bullet. I won't likely ever shoot a jacketed slug in it, but I would not be afraid to do so as I suspect modern steel might have possibly been used in the construction of these firearms if the component parts were newly built as they appear to be.

This gun is beautiful and it makes a parkerized FR-7 or FR-8 look butt-ugly crude in fit and finish when compared to it.

Does anyone have a clue as to how this gun came about?????

Oldfeller

[crazy mark]

oldfeller,
Probably about 15 years ago I saw a lot of these and actually bought one. They were all sanitized as far as a crest went. A friend just had to have the one I had and traded me a Rem 81 in 300 Sav for it. It was a great cast shooter. I know where there is one in a gun shop and I'm watching the price slowly come down. I really think they were built of parts and the crest ground off. All the parts were then stamped with the serial number that was on the receiver. I have seen them with the old style and new style rear sights also. There has been a lot of ongoing discussions if these are safe to shoot with 308 Win. My answer is no. I use cast loads below 39K pressure. I have no desire to have a gun blow up on me. Mark

[Bob S]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v76/BobS1/Mausers/M1916guardia_civil.jpg

Resp'y,
Bob S.

[Buckshot]

.............I have no idea as to the provinence of those rifles. Whatever it was originally made for or converted to, it sounds like a nice shooter. So how much did it set you back?

There has been much discussion as to the worthyness of the action, or wiseness of converting a low carbon steel Mauser action, with selectively carborized surfaces to take a 52K psi cartridge. I was one who believed the Spanish government intended them only for the lower pressure CETME round.

However, as BobS has supplied a picture of the Spanish Government's booklet on them, the info does show that these were shot with and intended to use the NATO capable ammo. I have accepted that fact long ago, and also that the Spanish military officials must have done extensive testing to prove them safe for use and issue. Ditto the Chilean conversions done to their 1895's.

It then has become a matter of personal preference on my part. If I had one I would not use full power commercial or military ball ammo in it. In that vein I also would not chamber any M98 military action into anything it wasn't intended for, on the hotter side. Since I am not particularly enamoured of any 'Magnum' cartridge I'm safe [smilie=l:. Neither would I rebarrel a Springfield to anything hotter then the 30-06, or provideing more thrust on the locking lugs.

..................Buckshot

[Oldfeller]

First, the throat report. I tapped in a .338 slug to get the neck and ball cone seat impression, then I tapped in a 8mm Max slug to get the ball cone seat again and the first quarter inch of the rifling.

Neck is .348"-.350" diameter. Ball cone starts at a reduction at the case mouth, starting out at a .325" diameter. This means there is a reduction at the case mouth of .0125" per side, so there is a nice "stop" to the case mouth.

Straight tapered ball cone seat is .300" long going out from the case mouth, starting at .325" diameter and ending up at a very clean, fully machining marked .307" wall diameter. No throat erosion is here on this gun. Land top diameter is a clean, unerroded .300" which gives us sharp edged rifling which is .0035" tall. This gun was not fired very much at all.

============================

The action major diameter where the crest is located on a M1893 measures 1.294" in diameter with the crest being a minimum of .005 deep and the serial numbers and proof marks being at least .010" deep into the steel. The same location on the OT where the crest would have been is 1.292" and there are no visible signs of the action surfaces being sanded down. Yes, it COULD have been sanded, it is possible but not very likely given the dimensional numbers and the consistent fit and finish of the outside of the action. I think this action was built this way from scratch.

The OT action has no wear on the bolt action surfaces nor at the rear of the action where the rear screw is located. Machining marks and bluing still exists on the firing pin sear engagement face and on the topmost edges of the magazine follower. The bolt bluing has mild wear marks where the ejector tracked across it and the edges and inner surface of the extractor hook on the bolt face is still fully blued as is the bolt face itself. The engagement areas of the bolt lugs are still 98+ percent blued so this thing didn't even get dry cycled very much after it was blued.

The M1893 early model bolt that I have (flat bottomed bolt face) is identical to the OT bolt except that it was polished and is well broken in. The OT is a finely sanded blued finish on all surfaces and is not as pretty as the old M1893 polished bolt in my opinion.

I think the Spanish arsenal that built the M1893 actions originally had kept the tooling and processes active (it was their military standard action for a long long time after all) and around 1967 time frame they could have still been making M1893 actions with some minor modifications for cost reduction. At that time they did start making the much cruder finished parkerized M48 action type and stopped making M1893 action type altogether. My gun was likely in storeage from that era in time.

I agree with Buckshot and many others on the net, shooting hot .308 Winchester reloads in these guns is maybe pushing things a bit. However, White Laboritory was given a series of 1916 converted Spanish Mauser carbines to test to destruction in an attempt to answer the perenial questions about M1893 Spanish actions and the older 1916 7mm long gun rebuilds and the NATO and .308 Winchester pressure levels. White Labs did succeed in getting lugs on some of the converted M1893 rifles to crack, but it was at 98,000 psi levels (which was more than the brass could take).

(what the heck did they use for powder, Bullseye or Unique?)

These guns have been sold for decades as ".308 Winchesters" and we know nobody had any CETME rounds to go hunting with during those 30-40 years worth of use. If there were large numbers of bolt lug set-back guns in this period of time I think I would have felt some of these as I have picked up at least a hundred of these guns over the years and worked their bolts and peered down their bores looking for a good one. There were a whole lot of very well used ones that I passed up on and then finally I met up with my pretty senorita this past weekend.

Gunsmiths in the '50s did do higher pressure conversions of the M1893 action to most case head suitable non-magnum calibers and cases. This was before the era of the fanatic lawsuit of course. I can remember being able to buy aftermarket barrels for M1893 small ring mausers for a variety of calibers, pre-chambered for screw in by the home gunsmith no less. I guess we did a lot of "unsafe things" back then, so chalk this .308 Winchester marked gun up to that age of innocence -- it probably applies to this Spanish senorita too.

She is very pretty and she cost me $140 and I think she was worth it.

I checked my jacketed bullet supply and was please to see that I do not own a single jacketed 30 caliber bullet. The 193 grain FAT 30 bullet will work well in this one, given that I do have Mauser camming action to force the land top rider nose on into the rifling for any reasonable distance that the case neck grip on the bullet can support.

I like the FAT 30 bullet, BTW. It's downright magical in a Marlin 30-A. Maybe it can be magical in my senorita as well.

Oldfeller

[Bob S]

Just to clarify ... I don't own one; I might never own one. If I did own one, it would be a cast-shooter and wimpy jacketed loads only, just by my own personal preference. The reason I posted the cover of the Spanish manual is that there seem to be a lot of "expert opinions" handed out that the rifles were NOT INTENDED for 7.62 x 51 NATO, but the only official Spanish DOCUMENTATION that has surfaced indicates the rifle was indeed intended for 7.62 x 51 NATO.

I have had surplus 7.62 x 51 from many sources and it runs the full spectrum from "wimpy" to "downright hot". The best grouping lot is A-648 from Lake City, 1964. A-648 is loaded with stick powder and clipped in 8-round Garand clips for the Navy Mk2-1. This lot was issued for the Fleet and All-Navy Matches in 1985 and 86, and I think also in 87. It was also issued as "practice ammo" for us Team slugs. The remaining stocks on-hand at Crane went to the corn popper for high pressure in '88. This particular lot (and others) could be a problem in ANY Spanish rifle, I don't care how big the receiver ring is. They are ALL too soft for 50+ KSI class cartridges.

Resp'y,
Bob S.

[StarMetal]

Oldfeller

Think about it, when that rifle was made (even if it was already made and then turned into a 7.62 round) most militaries were going to something alot more modern then a turn bolt. So, my statement here, is if that action was made up new, why in the devil would Spain use a 93 action when the 98 would have been better? Don't tell me because they were equipped to produce that model action either.

Too bad Larry Gibson isn't reading this thread, as he's busy, unforturnately over there in Iraq, but he would have ALOT to say about the strength of the small ring Mauser actions. The pro-opponants argue that Mr. Mauser built his Mausers stronger then needed for the intented pressure range they were made for at the time. So say he had a 40,000 psi round and he then made the action strong enough for a 55,000 or 60,000 psi rating. I have to agree with Bob, that the 7.62 can go from a low pressure rating to some astronomical high pressure readings. So of these modern calibers today are running in the mid 60's, maybe even higher, so that means an action for them has to be rated alot higher. One popular gunsmith, I won't mention, said he would never use a 98 Mauser action as is without reheatreating it, even with rounds like a 243. On the other side of the coin take the Arisaka action. If I'm not mistaken I believe the action isn't quite a big as a 98 Mauser, and I know it's lighter,but yet it's one of the strongest old actions ever made. Would be nice if some modern 93's and 95's were made as they would make for a nice handy light rifle.

Joe

[Oldfeller]

Joe, the same Spanish arsenal did do a Mauser 98 style action in the late 60's one that they called the M48 action, they put it into the FR-7 and the FR-8 turn bolt 7.62x51 NATO cartridge rifles.

Why would they build up some "new" 1893 actions and rifles (possibly from a mix of old parts and new parts) shortly before that? Same reason the Russians, Fins and the Chinese built/re-built Mosin Nagants, AK47s and SKS rifles all at the same time. Cost and intended use for what it was to be put to.

You got to have a long distance main battle rifle in your inventory just in case you need it. I bet we still have some springfield rifles somewhere in our inventory for that very reason as well.

My unsupported theory is that the Spanish arsenal still had all the equipment and the tooling for making (or remaking) the M1893 small ring action. the same equipment that they bought and liscensed from from Paul Mauser originally so long ago. It was ALL THEY HAD for bolt gun building technology for a turn bolt main battle rifle at that time. Remember, the semi-automatic CETME rifle that they had just done was not built originally for a real NATO pressure spec'd cartridge -- it was originally designed & built for the lower pressure Spanish CETME cartridge AND it was not a long distance high accuracy piece either.

Nor was the complex CETME semi-auto inexpensive either. Now, why did they go crank out the crudely finished FR-7 and FR-8 main battle turn-bolt rifles just a little bit later? Cost and intended use.

I've got a Spanish Officers .380 pistol from before this same era, and it is the prettiest firearm I own, bar none. I also own a Star Super 9mm Largo from this same "built it our way" era and it uses a way underpowered 9x23 Winchester look-a-like case and it is built pretty well and has a few neat tricks to it.

Spain sold a lot of guns to Latin America at this period of time as well, so they may have been building the stuff to sell too.

I can't explain Spanish thinking -- it is beyond me. Why did they go build a short light carbine rifle to use the way underpowered 9mm Largo pistol round? Damn if I know, that one has never made sense to anybody, ever. Maybe we influenced them with our M1 carbine?

Dunno .....

Oldfeller

[Finn45]

Vow, I started this and was going to take few pics but got interrupted with ordinary family issues. Then I forget this until now when you're talking about Mausers, hehe, and still no pics. Well no problem there. My OT meant off topic as this is military rifles, not ex-military... (very clever...) and my new toy is definitely ex-military; I finally got that m39 I've been searching for. Almost "brand new" Sako made in 1943, very nice condition, new barrel, new stock work, fresh bluing, new sights, new screws, new bands, all looks like new. As good as it gets for sure and I hope it shoots good too. Now, keep it going gents, I'll try to find dies and some D199 and if there's no luck then it will be pure cast only from the beginning. Just gimme time my momma gimme time...

[NVcurmudgeon]

Not intending to throw an obnoxious substance into the punch bowl, but why would Spain build 7.62 NATO rifles on 1893 actions when they had the experience and equipment to build 1898 rifles? If memory serves, there was a Spanish 8 x 57 La Coruna Mauser. I think they called it a model 1943 and it was very similar to a German K98k.

[Buckshot]

.............Finn45, by saying you 'Finally' found a nice M39, you're saying that in their homeland they're hard to find? Or just hard to find cheap? [smilie=l:

Oldfeller, the chinned bolts and actions made for them was the first pattern small ring, intended to make feeding more positive. It was found to be of no benefit and was deleted in subsequent small ring actions. All those 1894 Brazillian small rings I have (1893's with no thumbcut) are machined for the chinned bolt, and the bolts I bought from Springfield Sporters to complete the actions DO have the square chin feature.

".............. the same Spanish arsenal did do a Mauser 98 style action in the late 60's one that they called the M48 action, they put it into the FR-7 and the FR-8 turn bolt 7.62x51 NATO cartridge rifles."

The FR-7 is a small ring action. The FR-8 is a 1898 large ring.

".................I can't explain Spanish thinking -- it is beyond me. Why did they go build a short light carbine rifle to use the way underpowered 9mm Largo pistol round? Damn if I know, that one has never made sense to anybody, ever. Maybe we influenced them with our M1 carbine?"

If you're speaking of the various 'Destroyer' carbines, these were National Police issue and not military. While the National Police is paramilitary, these carbines were intended for local gendarmeri and never accepted into military service.

Joe, you are right that Larry Gibson is a proponent of the Nato round in the small ring Mausers. We had ourselves a lively thread going on that issue a couple years ago. It has been a hot topic at Gunboards.com too over the years. The pamphlet that BobS posted the cover of was scanned and shown page for page with a translation. It is without a doubt a fact that the small ring Mausers were intended to utilize military NATO equivilent ammunition.

For a long time before that I refused to believe it so. I admit I finally had to concede the point. I had to make it a matter of my own personal feelings, that I would not rebarrel even a Swede M96 action (supposed best of the small rings) to a modern high intensity round, regardless of what has been done by individuals or governments.

Some seemingly odd things have been done over the years that just don't seem real smart. The old Numrich arms used to offer 45-70 and 444 Marlin barrels threaded for installation on the old #1 large martial and sporting Remingtom rolling block actions. The 45-70 seems plausible as ammo makers have held factory loadings to BP pressures since forever. Yet the 444 Marlin was a 45K psi cartridge from day one. When you consider that the early Rem RB action had been constructed of material not much better then wrought iron, their offering such a thing is amazing to me.

As some of the Springfield actions had flaws of being flint hard all the way through, due to improper heat treating, many pre WW1 Mauser actions of various contracts have been found soft. Frank De Haas and Ludwig Olsen to name a couple, have tested 1909 Argentines and 1908 Brazilians on their bolt locking surfaces and found them to not even register on the 'C' scale. I have several articles from various sources where the debate has raged back and forth to the suitability of these actions being used for magnum cartridges.

One of these articles was written by the former QC inspector for Golden State Arms of Pasadena, CA. In the late 50's and early 60's they were using newly made Spanish Santa Barbara 1898 type actions for thier sporters. He said that they found the heat treatment to be so variable that they had to begin testing every single action.

Even more recent is the instance of Pedersoli's recreation of the Winchester Hi-Wall in various BP cartridge chamberings. Early samples used for reviews were found to have practicly no heat treating.

I strayed rather far afield here in this post:roll: sorry! I guess I'm just defending why I'm a ***** when it comes to reloading the old guns. Interesting to see now some of the pressures shown for 30-06 loads. The old 270 vs 30-06 crowd had always said the reason the 270 showed better ballistics then the -06 was because it had always been loaded hotter. I may be out of touch but I just noticed some 30-06 loads showing 57K psi? Maybe historic loads checked with direct reading pressure gauges?

...............Buckshot

[Finn45]

Buckshot,
Both I think, hehe. Well, they are available, but since army made their selling policy one step more than complicated they have been in the hands of greedy ******** so to speak. Military price is 200 euros for overhauled one (not necessarily with new barrel) and I paid 250 for this one. No need for writing applications and organizing papers for the army to prove that I'm using it for traditional reservist military rifle shooting, no need to wait for approval of the application, no need to pick it up personally from one single arms depot nearly 300 miles away with their schedule (office time meaning day off for me) allowing 15 minutes to choose the one. I've seen similar ones in the gun show with 600 euros price tag waiting for the fool to come. Deactivated mosin junk is presently sold at 100-200 euros and just and just working mixed trash at the same price closer to 200. Yes they are expensive, but life is...:rolleyes:

[StarMetal]

According to the book Military Small Arms of the World, Spain had tons of 7mm's in 1893 and 1916 short rifles left over from the Spanish Civil War, so they converted these to "7.62 Nato", so apparently the actions weren't made up new. Then they started making a modified version of the German K98, which in Spain, was called the Model 43 (I don't know where Oldfeller got Model 48 for these). So it was in the mid to late 50's that they came up with the Cetme, and in reality that's not too late compared to some other major countries.

Finn
I not to long ago picked up a real nice Sako M39.....God!!!!! does it shoot good and I'll tell you the cast bullet mine loves and that is the 314299 sized at .313.

Joe

[KCSO]

For a final word on the streangth of the Spanish 93 action I would paraphrase DeHass in "Bolt Action Rifles". "As to streangth the guns were built of excellent materials and properly hardened", "It is not the streangth of the action, but the lack of a safety lug and adaquate venting that would limit the conversion choices".

The 93/95 and the 96 actions will hold the preassure, they just don't have the extra margian of safety of the 98 action.

[StarMetal]

KSCO

Well neither do alot of very modern actions and even not some ones not too long after that. Sako's don't, don't believe Remington and Winchesters do either.
Talking about the extra safety lug here not the venting.

Joe

[carpetman]

Oldfeller--"You bet we have some old Springfields for long distance." There are .300 Win Mag Win model 70's in the arsenal. I know a guy on probably a Delta Force team that told me he practices with such.

[Buckshot]

Oldfeller--"You bet we have some old Springfields for long distance." There are .300 Win Mag Win model 70's in the arsenal. I know a guy on probably a Delta Force team that told me he practices with such.

The Weatherby 30-378 was also a long range sniper candidate that was tested. I don't know if it was accepted but it might also have been taken as a substitute standard.

............Ray, the 300 Win Mag was been in the sniper's arsenal for awile now. I know that the SEALS had been using it for some time.

...........Joe, Oldfellers 'M48' slip was probably just that. They're a bit more common then EX-Spanish M43's, plus I think he has one.

............My 03 Springfield that blew up naturally had the safety lug, and it USED IT:rolleyes:. And afterwards, it was well and truly vented.[smilie=p: I really don't think that any littel factory venting holes would have made a difference. I think all that venting is for is pierced primers or a hard brittle casehead that might crack at the extractor groove or in the primer pocket. I doesn't seem to me that common action venting I've seen will do much about a catastrophic casehead failure!

............Finn45, SA marked M91/30's are going for $79 on sale here. I don[t know what that is in Euro's. Probably twice that much I'd guess. One of these days I'll have to take a photo of a mid 90's Century Arms catalog page. They had 2 pages of M-N's for cheap then.

...........Buckshot

[Bob S]

The "middle" sniper round (to bridge the gap between the .300 Win Mag and the .50 BMG SASR (or the Barrett, if we could get them)) was based on the .50 cal spotting round (not BMG) necked down to .338. That was the "hot" item when I retired in 1993. I know the Brits adopted it, or a variation of it, and I think Lapua markets it. I am aware of no RDT&E that was done with ANY Weatherby cartridge, unless it was done after 1993.

AKAIK, all of the Model 70's that were in the inventory wore out long ago (circa 1987) and were replaced by McMillans. The Army could have some squirreled away someplace. I know we (Navy) had a few 300 Win Mags built on Remington 721's ... I know because I was issued one and kept it for several years after the McMillans came online. They had some problems the first year.

That's how my (fuzzy) memory remembers things.

Resp'y,
Bob S.

[Oldfeller]

How could I screw up M43 & M48 and the FR-7 still being a small ring?

Heck, that's easy, just pull up the stuff up out of your old feeble memory bucket .....

One of the many things that suck about being a modern Paladin is that your reference books are all at home (where all your guns are too). Out in Paladin Land you have to wing it with what you got without any backup paper reference material other than what you can tease up out of your internet connection.

But then again, I could still manage to screw up at home too, so what else is new?

=======================

I just finished setting up all2easy.net on my laptop and the change went amazingly well (it actually worked on the second try).

Once I was in the network connection portion of XP working on it I also noted that XP had cranked itself up a background instance of my old dial up connection method so XP could continue to suck it's chain of ongoing updates off the net while I was technically "off line" (as far as I knew I was off-line anyway). The damn thing was sucking data when I discovered it, and I was off line too. If the phone cable was connected and the computer was on, I was sucking up "updates", Apparently it did this when I was at home, because the old dial up number was my old Fayetteville number.

I find this irritating, like I am not in charge of my own computer any more, so I killed it manually. grrrrrrr.

I now have an explaination for some strange, not made by me long distance phone bills that I had contested to have removed from my phone bill. I went off line in a hotel room somewhere and Bill wanted to suck in an XP update so he cranked up his private dial-up connection .....

I now have yet another reason not to like Microsoft and their "attitude".

I don't use Bill's sorry Explorer for internet access, I use Firefox -- so Bill goes and automatically makes his own private dial-up internet connection hidden up inside his damn operating system.

Makes you really wonder about letting XP automatically upgrade itself, doesn't it?

What Will Bill Do Next?

Oldfeller

[Finn45]

Joe, somebody else suggested 314299 as well so it must be good.

Buckshot, $79 is about 61 euros. My 250 euros is $323 http://castboolits.gunloads.com/images/smilies/icon_eek.gif, it includes 22% vat. Now let's not talk about the gasoline pricing...

Bob S, there's .338LapuaMag which is based on to Rigby case directly. I think they have .300LM as well.

[Bob S]

Hi Finn
I guess the Lapua cartridge is not what we were evaluating in the 80's. Ours was based on the .50 cal spotting rifle cartridge, which is a little shorter than the Browning Machine gun cartridge. The .50 spotting rifle was what we used for ranging on the 81mm mortar mount on PTF's (Nasty and Osprey).

Resp'y,
Bob S.