Belgian mauser 89/36 in 8mm

[KSpainhour]

Hello,
I picked up what seems to be a 89/36 belgian mauser the other day. I am having problems trying to figure out what it is chambered in.

From what I can find it should be 7.65 mm Belgian (7.65 Argentine) BUT a fired 7.65 argentine round is way too short. The guy I bought it from said that a local gunsmith told him it was a "8mm mauser" so I tried a 8mm mauser round in the chambered fine. So I thought that was it until I checked the bore and it was small, way too small. I slugged the bore and the groove diameter .315! (which would be a worn 7.65mm)


All the numbers match on the rifle so I am assuming that it has not been rebarreled.

I understand that the 8x57j is a .318 and the 8x57js is .323 So i am thinking that its not a 8x57j because the groove diameter would be larger that it is.

Anybody have a clue why to have a 8mm mauser chamber with a small groove diameter barrel?

Take Care,
Keith

[Frank46]

Couple things to look at. Check the chamber to see if part of a case is still in there. If you have a argie f/l sizing die resize a case and then see if it fits. And what were the dimensions when you slugged the bore?. From what little I know (and I could be wrong) the early belgian mausers
were all 7.65x53mm. Frank

[frnkeore]

Can you post a picture of a fired case and measure from the rim to the shoulder and to the neck? The diameter of the shoulder would be helpful, too.

Frank

[220swiftfn]

I think that you have a perfect candidate for a chamber cast there........

No matter WHAT that rifle is actually chambered for, you're going to have to be careful, as those pre '98 Mausers are only recommended for @ 45,000 psi (If it WAS rechambered for a 8x57J, you're going to have to keep the pressures down.....)


Dan

[leadman]

It was not uncommon for the 7.65X53 to have a 30-06 reamer run in to make it easier to reload without have to form brass.

[frnkeore]

Now that you mention rechambering to '06, I remember reading that in some publication, I believe from a 1960's cira magazine. A 8x57 will fit in a '06 chamber, too. Very dangerous to pull the triger on that one, strong rifles have been wrecked that way.

The neck/shoulder junction of the '06 is 2.1, the same as the lenght of the 7.65x53 case. See if you can chamber a 'o6 cartridge in your gun.

Frank

[KSpainhour]

Hello,
I tried a 30-06 and it will not chamber. The chamber is clean. I cleaned and looked at the bore and chamber before i slugged it. The chamber doesn't look like a hack job on the inside.

I guess the next thing is a chamber cast. Who has the best deal on cerosafe now?

Take Care,
Keith

[KSpainhour]

Oh, I forgot to mention that a 7.65 argentine case goes almost all the way into the chamber. So the chamber is definitely longer that a 7..65 argentine.

Take Care,
Keith

[coyotebait]

Check out RotoMetals at the top of the page for chamber casting alloy.
coyotebait

[KSpainhour]

Thanks, its on the way!




Check out RotoMetals at the top of the page for chamber casting alloy.
coyotebait

[swheeler]

Oh, I forgot to mention that a 7.65 argentine case goes almost all the way into the chamber. So the chamber is definitely longer that a 7..65 argentine.

Take Care,
Keith
??
It is supposed to go almost all the way into the chamber, all but approximately .1 inch, leaving the extractor groove on the case head outside.

[KSpainhour]

It goes too far for the extractor. It seems to be stopping with only a little bit of the case head sticking out.

cersoafe is on the way. I will do a cast of the chamber when it gets here.

Take Care,
Keith


??
It is supposed to go almost all the way into the chamber, all but approximately .1 inch, leaving the extractor groove on the case head outside.

[swheeler]

It goes too far for the extractor. It seems to be stopping with only a little bit of the case head sticking out.

cersoafe is on the way. I will do a cast of the chamber when it gets here.
Take Care,
Keith

Sounds like a good idea, keep us posted as to the results.

[KSpainhour]

Ok, this seems to be going downhill :)

I got home from work early today so I decided to take a better look at the rifle.
I could almost get the bolt to close on a 30-06 full length sized piece of brass. It was just a tad large just behind the shoulder. I bumped it down a bit and it chambered. So annealed the brass and fire formed it to the chamber.

Thats when things started to go downhill. The neck came out .370 diameter and it had a rounded shoulder. (The barrel slugged at .315 groove)

It measures 2.212 to the end of the shoulder.

Anyway anybody have a clue what this might be??

The second picture is the case I formed beside a 30-06

Take Care,
Keith

[adrians]

the .315+/- could be a czech made j bore some of those were definately not .318 and i have heard of folks slugging their comm 88's and getting.316 dia.
if you can get a look at the barrel undressed see if you can find a "z" within a circle that will tell you it was a czech made barrel and quite possibly be a .316 j bore barrel , iirc most of those barrels went to south america,
but i'm usually wrong so take what i said with a grain of salt:veryconfu
:twisted::not listening::evil:
you did good getting some cerrosafe on the way ,it's great stuff if you follow the directions.

[frnkeore]

Very strange, The neck diameter should not be over .350 for ANY bullet that would be .316 - .323. .370 would be about right for a .338 bullet. With that neck dia. I don't know if it's shootable.

It will be interesting to know just how long that chamber really is and if theres brass in that case head to match what ever the length is, assuming that the neck reduces from that .370.

Frank

[KCSO]

Looks like a buba job to me. That would be a candidate for having a new barrel or a set back and rechamber.

[swheeler]

Looks like a buba job to me. That would be a candidate for having a new barrel or a set back and rechamber.

Agreed KCSO, in it's present form, looks like an accident waiting to happen.

[Multigunner]

That chamber shape reminds me of some of the European Drilling cartridges.
Could be some European owner of the rifle had it rechambered to use civilian ammo or reloading components he had easier acess to than the original military cartridge.

Another possibility is a rough boring out of the chamber to take a commonly available blank cartridge.
I've run across postings of a number of milsurp rifles found to have been reamed to use either theatrical blanks or common military grenade launcher blanks, and even ancient obsolete .50 Cadet rifle blanks.
If reamed out for a blank cartridge using the proper reamer for that cartridge would be secondary, and a generic chamber that would take a number of similar types of blanks would be preferable.

You might want to look for a studio prop dept cartouche on the stock.

[Mk42gunner]

Looks like a buba job to me. That would be a candidate for having a new barrel or a set back and rechamber.


Agreed KCSO, in it's present form, looks like an accident waiting to happen.

Sounds like time for a new barrel to me.

While there isn't anything wrong with a 7.65x53mm, those rifles make a pretty slick .35 Remington.

Robert

[swheeler]

Sounds like time for a new barrel to me.

While there isn't anything wrong with a 7.65x53mm, those rifles make a pretty slick .35 Remington.

Robert

Robert; I think that is some very good advice. Looking at the formed case(or semi formed from lack of pressure), It looks as if someone was trying to play Rocky Gibbs with a D reamer, they just didn't get it right, those would be some THICK necks. I don't know what the OP paid for the rifle, but hoping he did just fine for an action and stock.

[KSpainhour]

Well I pulled the barrel off tonight. It doesn't look any better :p
I didn't pay much for the rifle so there is no problem there.

I will try to get a picture of the chamber if I can. I'm still going to do a chamber cast and see what it looks like. It still looks like there is no throat to the chamber at all.

It just ticks me off that somebody would do this to a rifle with nice rifling and all the numbers match. They also tried to drill and tap for scope bases on the front ring and broke the tap off in the hole. I got it out though.

I thought of trying one of the rineland 45acp kits on it. Has anybody had any luck with those?

Take Care,
Keith

[220swiftfn]

Ok, this seems to be going downhill :)

I got home from work early today so I decided to take a better look at the rifle.
I could almost get the bolt to close on a 30-06 full length sized piece of brass. It was just a tad large just behind the shoulder. I bumped it down a bit and it chambered. So annealed the brass and fire formed it to the chamber.

Thats when things started to go downhill. The neck came out .370 diameter and it had a rounded shoulder. (The barrel slugged at .315 groove)

It measures 2.212 to the end of the shoulder.

Anyway anybody have a clue what this might be??

The second picture is the case I formed beside a 30-06

Take Care,
Keith

:holysheep:shock:


I have absolutely no idea what they did to that one.........


Dan

[Multigunner]

A friend has a rifle with action much like this. I'd thought it was a 1891 but I'm not so sure now.
The rifle had been bubba'ed, but I doubt it was restorable when this was done many years before my friend picked it up dirt cheap at a yardsale.

The bore was badly worn and pitted in the grooves. He had never intended to use the rifle as it was, intending to rebarrel it to 7X57.
Out of curiousity he obtained a few rounds of 7.65 ammo, and was amazed that the beat up old sporter printed very tight groups.
He decided to keep it as is, and took many deer with it, prefering it to his more sophisticated rifles.

The Mausers in 7.65 always had a reputation for superior accuracy.

[gew98]

These belgian rifles of post WW1 modification were all made in the 7,65 chambering. That someone has modified the chamber is obvious. Why ?...no telling. If this rifle stayed in europe long enough after WW2 many countries like france for example have laws that forbid the ownership of service caliber arms. Hence running a chamber reamer in them to a different OAL round - which could be one of many such european "wildcats". As well I have seen more than one german and or affiliated german used rifle that was brought home by veterans that ended up having their chambers popped out to handle 8mm/06. And there has been no shortage of rifles that use the base 8mm/30-06 brass that have had their chambers reamed out for movie prop use with M1909 blanks... I have encountered that alot . It's a shame this was done to this rifle as these belgians are fairly scarce if matching and all there , and more so if there is any german depot markings on the stock or metal as the germans reissued any rifle for occupation garrisons if there was enough ammuntiion for them on hand in the countries they occupied.

[gew98]

A friend has a rifle with action much like this. I'd thought it was a 1891 but I'm not so sure now.
The rifle had been bubba'ed, but I doubt it was restorable when this was done many years before my friend picked it up dirt cheap at a yardsale.

The bore was badly worn and pitted in the grooves. He had never intended to use the rifle as it was, intending to rebarrel it to 7X57.
Out of curiousity he obtained a few rounds of 7.65 ammo, and was amazed that the beat up old sporter printed very tight groups.
He decided to keep it as is, and took many deer with it, prefering it to his more sophisticated rifles.

The Mausers in 7.65 always had a reputation for superior accuracy.

I have encountered this with a good many 7,92 caliber 98k and gew98 rifles. Pitted bores don't always mark it as junk. I have one gew98 with a pitted bore and worn muzzle and it's a fantastic shooter with surplus pulled bullets and hornady 170 grain round Nosed SP's. I had a dispersal BSA 1940 No1 MkIII that had a trashed bore yet shot like a new rifle would . Looks can be decieving !.

[KSpainhour]

Well, it looks like the barrel is ruined. Can't really tell if it was done with a drill bit or a reamer, but here is the pic. Below the cast is the fireformed case and at the bottom is a 30-06.

Here is also a pic of the barrel with a 8mm dropped into the chamber.
I hate to think what might have happened if someone had bought this rifle and just dropped a round in a pulled the trigger.

I hope someone reads this and thinks twice about buying a old rifle and not checking it out completely before firing.

Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics.


I know the chamber cast looks bad, but I forgot to warm the barrel up before i poured in the cerrosafe. After looking at it I really didn't see the need in doing it again :p

Thanks to all.
Take Care
Keith