Oviedo Mauser

[beemer]

I was given a 93 Oviedo Mauser that was made in 1904. It has been worked over by Bubba to say the least. The action is complete but the bolt is mismatched, the barrel will make a good goat stake. I need to remove the barrel to see how the lug surfaces look. I have several Mausers but know nothing about this one as far as quality.

I have read about rebarreling to 7.62 X 39. Has anyone done this and how well does it work ?

Dave

[BK7saum]

I also have one of those i was gifted. However mine has been rebarrelled but I haven't shot it to see how it'll do.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

It works just fine, assuming that the job is done properly. Nice thing about most of the '93 models is that they have a flat place on the bottom face of the bolt which is a great scooper of rounds from the magazine. But, since your bolt and receiver are mismatched, if your bolt face is completely round it's probably from a '95 model--will probably still work. About the only problem you will encounter in this conversion to 7.62.39mm is the size of the magazine box, follower and follower spring all of which were designed for the length of the 7mm Mauser. This will require some tinkering on your part. First you'll have to reduce the internal length of the box. If you set about to shorten the entire thing you'll be getting into some very expensive custom work, so I'm describing the easy way. I did it by putting a short piece of thin square shaped steel tubing in the back of the magazine box and spot welding it to the back of the box. This reduced the useable length of the box for the shorter cartridges. You need to shorten the area at the back rather than the front because there's no problem if the bolt has to travel over the modification to reach the cartridge, but if it was at the front you would have a very had time in feeding the cartridge across it. This does make for a long blot throw for a short cartridge. Next you have to shorten the follower to fit the shorter magazine area. Easier to buy ready made parts if possible, and there were some conversion parts available for awhile, but I can't remember who carried them. I'd try Gun Parts Corp. first and write a short letter explain what I was trying to do and they might come through for you. The new follower was plastic and was riveted to a spring similar to the original, but from a different gun. I made the steel original work with some extensive grinding and filing, and used a coil spring to power it. This was tricky because the spring only supported the follower in the center and it would sometimes tip to the front or back, so I had to make another part beneath it that had a short tail that fit into the spring and it reduced the magazine capacity by one round to four. You might be able to adapt the follower and part of the spring from a high cap magazine of some sort. I think the Oviedo version of the Mauser action is as good as any of that vintage. Of course, the '98 is the Mauser gold standard. Best wishes on your project.

[leadman]

I tried the barrel and feed kit sold by Numrich to convert a small ring to 7.62X39 but it would not feed out of the magazine correctly.I tried it with 2 different receivers. I epoxied metal shims to the feed lips on the action and got it to feed better. When I was shooting some new steel cased ammo I had one shot that the velocity was 300 fps faster then the previous 3 or 4 shots. Locked the bolt up tight and had to use a deadblow hammer to get it open at home. Did not hurt anything but I gave up on the idea and rebarreled it back to 7X57.
Rhineland has a kit with a new barrel set up with a barrel nut like a Savage. IIRC they are also working on a spacer for the bolt face. It will still need and extended extractor, I bought mine from Midway.

[beemer]

The rifle does have a nice 93 bolt, I figured the bolt was worth more than the rest of the rifle. Thanks for the info, might be more than I want to get into right now.

Thanks
Dave

[leadman]

I am going to install the 7.62 X 39 barrel on one of my 1891 Arg. Mausers. The shank is longer so will have to be cut back at bit. Then it is going to get chambered in 300 Savage. Even with the .310" bore it should still shoot jacketed good and cast will be sized to the bore.
Midway does still sell the Adams & Bennett small ring Mauser barrels in 7 X 57. Both of mine are shooters.