Chileno Modelo 1895 - 7.62x51 Nato

[Dutchman]

This page at my Swedish Mauser website gets a very high visitor count consistantly. It concerns the 1895 Chilean Mauser conversions to 7.62x51 Nato. What has brought this page so much attention with Mauser collectors is the cut-a-way of the chamber showing the soldered insert. No less than John Wall, Mauser collector & researcher supreme routinely refer to this page.

http://dutchman.rebooty.com/1895Chile.html

I had purchased two of these 1895 Mausers from Century in one of their pallet sales for $65 each. Both were rather ratty but I wanted them for shop projects as mock up models and the like. Looking into the chamber one day I noticed this sliver ring at the end of the barrel and wondered what it be.. So, I removed the barrel and sure enough there was a silver ring around the chamber. Having a vertical milling machine at home makes jobs like this fun so I clamped it up in the mill and took a thin 3" x .062" thick cutter with side clearance teeth and sliced this puppy open. Imagine my surprise when this is what I found. Apparently nobody had made this discovery yet as there was nothing anywhere on the web or in any Mauser book about this. I felt like Columbus.

Over the years these photos have provoked a lot of discussion on the issue of 7.62x51 Nato in 1893 and 1895 Mauser actions. Many newbies refer to Samco Global's White Laboratory ~paper~ on the strength and safety of the general topic. IMO, its BS. These conversions were done as an expedient means of utilizing existing rifle inventories in a country short of pesos intended for 2nd line use. They were never intended to chamber and fire .308 Winchester ammunition.

One of the secondary discoveries isn't evident in these photos but involved an excess of copper fouling in the bore an inch or so in front of the chamber. The rifling in this area for about 2 inches was more heavily fouled with copper than the whole rest of the 29" long barrel. Why? I sat there in the shop and it finally dawned on me, something taught to me by the old Mexican blacksmith & welder in a Los Angeles rail shop decades ago.

Heat causes steel to shrink. The place where the excessive copper fouling occured was directly underneath the rear sight base and extended about the exact length of the rear sight base. When the rear sight bases were re-attached and soldered in place this one was overheated to the point that the bore dimension shrunk enough to tear off copper from the bullet as it was swaged down zipping through the barrel. I wonder what that did to chamber pressure and accuracy?

Wasn't hard to figure where the solder went from gaps in the joint. Powder gases were hot enough to melt and vaporize the solder. My eyes see a silver bearing solder. I've done a lot of silver soldering with 99.9% pure silver, also a subject lesson from Pete Jimenez long ago.

Some things you can learn from a book. This isn't one of them.





Dutch

[Ben]

Dutch:

Those are impressive photos ( someone is very good with a camera ) and a wonderful write up.

Very educational.

Thank you for your efforts.

Ben

[725]

Holy cow, that looks bad. Why would an insert like that be used? Bare with me here, I'm trying to learn. If the chamber had to be "drilled" to form the area to receive the insert, why not just ream a new chamber? Even if, because of the new cartridge size, you had to set it back a thread or two. I assume I'm looking at some type of silver soldered insert here. What gives? Also, this was just for the conversion, right? An original 7 Mauser chamber wouldn't have any of this going on, would it?

[Bret4207]

Very interesting! I've made a chamber insert before and silver soldered it in. Still works well today, but it's in 22 Mag. I really can't imagine why someone would do that. It makes no sense to me.

[NickSS]

The US did the same thing with garands to convert them to 308. They built a spacer that was inserted into the chamber and fired a 308 round in it this jamed the spacer into the front of the 06 chamber and wa-la instant 308 rifle. I know this because I had one several years ago. I shot the heck out of it and when the barrel was gone I had a new 308 Kreager match barrel installed and the rifle tooned by my favorit gas gun guy and used it for match shooting. He was the one who told me that my old barrel was modified like this. I beleave the US Navy did the mods.

[MtGun44]

The insert would be needed due to the fact that the 7x57 is 57mm in the
case and the 7.62 NATO is 51mm in the case. They would have had to set
the bbl back about 2 threads maybe 3 to get enough meat to recut the chamber.
It guess this would be fine with 10 gr Unique and a boolit or 16 of 2400, but
it would seem to be pretty 'sporty' to shoot a lot of full power .308 ammo in
one of these guns.

I have a really nice DWM 95 Chileano in 7x57, the finest fit and finish of any
military rifle I have ever seen.

Bill

[Bob S]

The US did the same thing with garands to convert them to 308. They built a spacer that was inserted into the chamber and fired a 308 round in it this jamed the spacer into the front of the 06 chamber and wa-la instant 308 rifle. I know this because I had one several years ago. I shot the heck out of it and when the barrel was gone I had a new 308 Kreager match barrel installed and the rifle tooned by my favorit gas gun guy and used it for match shooting. He was the one who told me that my old barrel was modified like this. I beleave the US Navy did the mods.

The Navy rifle with the insert was the Mark 2 Mod 0. None were released to the public "several years ago", so what you had was either a bubba or possibly a Pakistani "conversion". When the Navy gave up on the project, a bunch of the inserts were sold as scrap, and you can still find them for sale. There were two varients of the inserts, the second slightly better than the first, but still not operationally effective and not operationally reliable. It was more cost effective to have the rifles rebarreled with new 7.62 barrels made at Springfield in 1965 and 1966. That was the Mk2-1 rifle (Mark 2, Mod 1). You can come by one of these honestly, as these were awarded by the Secretary of the Navy to USN and USMC Team shooters as "trophy rifles" for noteable accomplishments in competition, and lots of us sold them to finance our "shooting habit". I sold 2, but kept one and had it turned into a Match rifle by the armorers from Crane.

The inserts are not quite the same as the soldered in sleeves. The second variant was fire formed into a machined area in the front of the chamber with a "blue pill". They did not extract with the frequency of the first variant, but for all that work you got a used rifle with way too much freebore. The only real use the Navy found for the inserts was to "convert" M1903A3's to 7.62 for the Honor Guard so they could fire the 7.62 blanks at funerals. In that application, they proved satisfactory.

Resp'y,
Bob S.

[Bret4207]

The insert would be needed due to the fact that the 7x57 is 57mm in the
case and the 7.62 NATO is 51mm in the case. They would have had to set
the bbl back about 2 threads maybe 3 to get enough meat to recut the chamber.
It guess this would be fine with 10 gr Unique and a boolit or 16 of 2400, but
it would seem to be pretty 'sporty' to shoot a lot of full power .308 ammo in
one of these guns.

I have a really nice DWM 95 Chileano in 7x57, the finest fit and finish of any
military rifle I have ever seen.

Bill

Ah! Now I see. Thanks Bill.

[missionary5155]

The origonal Chilean Mauser rifles were 30-06 that were converted to 7.62 x 51.... not 7x57 converted to 7.62 x 51....

[GrizzLeeBear]

Missionary, I've never heard of a Chilean Mauser in 30-06. All the info. I have read says they were originally made in 7x57 with 29" barrels. When they adopted the NATO round, they were converted to 7.62 with the 29" barrel (set back and rechambered/rebored?) or rebarreled with set back, recontoured and rechambered 03a3 barrels. My 1912-61 (short rifle) has the 03a3 two groove barrel.
You sure your not thinking of the Brazilian, weren't they in 30-06?

[Bob S]

The Chileans (and Brazilians too) were 7x57. The barrels of the Chilean long rifles were not set back. The breeches were bored out, the sleeves were silver soldered (or brazed) in; the resulting assembly was rebored and re-rifled to .30 cal, and then chambered for 7.62 x 51.

The 1912/61 short rifles were made from M1912 long rifles. A US 03A3 barrel was set back and threaded for the large ring Mauser receiver, and turned to Mauser contour, and then chambered for 7.62x51. The chambering was not done with great care in all cases. I have a few chamber casts that show the chamber off-axis with the bore by a noticeable degree, visible with the Mk 1 Mod 0 eyeball. The long rifle stacks were shortened, and the band spring for the upper band had to be moved to the left side of the stock because of the very short distance between the upper and lower bands.



The original hole for the retaining pin of the band spring can still be seen on the right side of the upper band.



Most of the short rifles I have seen look like they were rode hard and put away wet. The only 7.62 short rifle that I currently own has a two-groove barrel with some light pitting, and an offset chamber, but it will shoot "tolerably well": about 3" groups fired prone at 100 yards, with 311291 and 13.5 grains of 2400. It won't win any "vintage" matches, but it's fun to shoot.

I own only one 7.62 M1912/67 long rifle at present, and it looks like it was put in stores as soon as it was converted. This one will shoot really well for a military Mauser. Groups at 100 yards fired prone are around 1-1/2" with either 311299 or A-171 Lake City Match.

After I saw Dutch's web sight about 5 years ago, and looked close enough to confirm that my long rifle has the chamber sleeve, I ordered a Gew 98 military contour barrel chambered in .308 Win from Lothar Walther, and when I get A Round Tuit, I will replace the barrel. I also have an old DWM sight leaf with 50M elevation stops and windage adjustment that I will fit to the rifle.




Resp'y,
Bob S.