K98 7.62 NATO Conversions - any hands-on knowledge?

[Bigslug]

A few years back, I scored a Fed-Ord Mauser 98 that had probably been swapped over to a military profile .308 barrel back in the '80's. I expect little more than the barrel was changed because it's not the most reliably-feeding bolt gun you'll run across. Would like to get it behaving properly.

Anybody familiar with the Israeli and other 7.62 NATO conversions? Specifically what exactly was done in making the change? Fact, not theory please.

[Texas by God]

My brother had an Israeli .308 Mauser a few years ago, converted it to a Scout and traded it away.
I rebarreled a Czech/Turk 98/22 to .300 Savage; sold it to a nephew who had me rechamber it to .308. Both rifles fed fine- as have a 22-250 and .243 that I put on VZ24 actions. What kind of feeding problems does it have?

[LAGS]

I have a Mauser .308 on a Czech 98/22 action on a K 98 stock from Fed Ord or as it was when I bought it, Brickley Trading Company.
( I use to work just down the street from them in El Monte Ca.)
It only has feeding problems if you cycle the bolt slowly.
Slap it around like you were in a firefight, and it feeds perfectly.

[LAGS]

I have also rebarreled several Yugo 24/47's to .308.
They feed really good with the shorter action.
But some of the Brizilian 7mm Mausers that I rebarreled to .308, I had to reshape the magazine follower.
If you want to investigate what is causing your issues then pick up a copy of Jerry Kuhnhausens " The Mauser Bolt Actions "
But there may be a member here that can point you in the proper direction , if you can post pictures of exactly what the issue on your rifle is.
Like I said in the other post.
One of the rifles that I have , is a Frankinrifle from Fed Ordnance in the '80's
Who knows if they didn't swap out the follower or reshape the guides or follower.

[leebuilder]

I have a 7.62 Israeli conversion, same as one of Lags. Treat it like a red-headed step child and it works flawlessly. It loves155 HPBT j-thingys under a stout load of 4895 or BLC (2). As for the exact changes i am sure they just swapped the barrels and the rifle was remarked. Mine works well with an old 25 rd M98 trench mag, if the spring were new it would work flawless as well.

Be well

[Gtek]

Unscrew the firing mechanism from bolt and grab a few rounds and find a nice chair. I think the first coarse of action would be to slowly operate and find out where the nose is going. Possibly in pickup and just a little dressing of lower extractor face may help, sometimes a little polishing or making a radius can change things dramatically. Fast action cycling can cover tight or difficult areas that a slow bolt manipulation will hang on.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

I've got one of those! The Fed Ord .308 Mauser! It has an American Eagle Crest nicely stamped on the receiver ring, but not as deeply as I'd like. It was assembled from at least 5 different rifles and models, but basically is an M-48 Spanish. The barrel seems about brand new, which was the basic reason I bought it, but it really isn't that good of a shooter, just fair. I also put a scout scope on it in an attempt to improve its performance. It doesn't have any feeding problems, but I've never tried cast boolits in it.

However, I do also have two Israeli .308 Mausers made as such by FN with he Israeli crest. Excellent rifles in every respect!

[Bigslug]

I've got one of those! The Fed Ord .308 Mauser! It has an American Eagle Crest nicely stamped on the receiver ring, but not as deeply as I'd like. It was assembled from at least 5 different rifles and models, but basically is an M-48 Spanish. The barrel seems about brand new, which was the basic reason I bought it, but it really isn't that good of a shooter, just fair. I also put a scout scope on it in an attempt to improve its performance. It doesn't have any feeding problems, but I've never tried cast boolits in it.

However, I do also have two Israeli .308 Mausers made as such by FN with he Israeli crest. Excellent rifles in every respect!

Yours then would seem to be the brain I most want to pick. Any glaring differences in follower, mag box, feed lips, or extractor?

[Bigslug]

I've got one of those! The Fed Ord .308 Mauser! It has an American Eagle Crest nicely stamped on the receiver ring, but not as deeply as I'd like. It was assembled from at least 5 different rifles and models, but basically is an M-48 Spanish. The barrel seems about brand new, which was the basic reason I bought it, but it really isn't that good of a shooter, just fair. I also put a scout scope on it in an attempt to improve its performance. It doesn't have any feeding problems, but I've never tried cast boolits in it.

However, I do also have two Israeli .308 Mausers made as such by FN with he Israeli crest. Excellent rifles in every respect!

Yours then would seem to be the brain I most want to pick. Any glaring differences in follower, mag box, feed lips, or extractor?

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Is this going to hurt? (The brain picking?) LOL! Answer--none that I can see at all. It is essentially a large ring Mauser '98, and I see nothing unusual about the parts other than they no doubt came from the manufacturers of different countries. But generally those parts have a great deal of interchangeability. Something to bear in mind though is that Fed Ord's specialty was to create dollars from what others might consider as junk, and some of their creations were sort of "no two exactly alike". So, just because mine works with the parts it was assembled with doesn't necessarily mean that yours was assembled with exactly the same parts and will work as well. I kind of miss Fed Ord, because their stuff was usually a challenge and priced accordingly. I think I know where you're going with this (maybe), that most of the receivers were originally made for 8x57mm
Mauser, and that the .308 is shorter, so it's a longer feed. But what I mostly used in mine was PMC 147 gr. FMJ factory ammo (got a really great deal on a bunch of it one time) and I believe that the long pointed bullet had a lot to do with not having feeding issues. I will post a couple of photos of a 7.62x39mm (short) built on a Mauser '93 action. The magazine box was altered to compensate for the cartridges' overall length difference (7x57mm vs. the 7.62x39mm) by spot welding a small piece of thin channel iron into the rear of the magazine box and the using a custom made follower that is actually made from plastic. The follower is no longer powered by the accordion-type "V" spring, but rather by a coil spring attached to the bottom of the follower. If you like to tinker, this is something that might be considered in addressing your feeding problem (as also the use of FMJ or bullets of similar shape and length).
204161204162The rifle works quite well, but the bolt has to travel quite a ways to pick up the cartridge, and then again after extracting it. It works though.

[Bigslug]

Yep. . .the length is the tricky issue. While one could block off the back of the mag to move the noses closer to the ramp, I like and insist upon stripper clips.

Gonna try & burn some NATO ball through it Monday and refresh my bean on exactly what it's doing. . .

[RenoDave]

I took a FN action from a south american 98 in 7x57 and had a brand new Israeli barrel screwed on it. Feeds fine!

[bstone5]

Have a small ring Mauser, purchased several of the 308 barrels from Israel years a go from Shot Gun News. Installed the barrel and the action feeds any ammo that will go into the magazine.
Installed some of the same barrels on larger ring 98K actions all worked fine, over the years I have put together over 10 Mausers in 308, 243 and 708.

[Mauser 98K]

have rebarreled several mauser rifles to accept .308win or 7.62 NATO.. got a heavy barrel M98K and two M48 Yugoslavian mauser rifles. i like using the M48 better than the K98 as the action is shorter and feeds and ejects a lot better.. here is my girl Vera http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?340280-Mauser-M48-308-Target-Rifle

but a mauser can be made into a tack driver in .308 with a good barrel and a few alterations.. the problem i found with the long action K98 was not so much the chambering of a round but the ejection of the spent round. i had to extend the ejector on the one i put together to get it to throw the spent round out. you do want to make sure you push the round all the way to the back of the mag when you load it. but the biggest problem with the long action is that the distance is so far that exasperates the problem if the extractor claw does not grip the rim tight enough so it will drop the spent round back into the mag and fail to eject.

[Bigslug]

Burned about 60 rounds of NATO ball through it yesterday to refresh my memory with the issues. Predominantly:

1. Third round down (feeds from the right), will sometimes start to climb the ramp, but the back end of the round will go butt-down into the magazine, the extractor not catching the round. This jams up the rifle with the bolt being blocked by roughly the midpoint of the cartridge.

2. Round sometimes pops clear of the magazine in front of the extractor, which results in inability to close the action on it. Seems to happen more when feeding from the left.

Extraction and ejection of spent cases not really a problem. It tends to kick them a little more forward than to the right, so sometimes leaves a hull in the action if not cycled forcefully - this is the least of my worries now.

Seems like a beefier mag spring might help. Thoughts?

[frogleg]

I have had three k98 actions rebarreled to 308W and they have fed fine with no other modifications , so if the #1 and #2 cycle properly you may be on to something with mag spring .

[Tyguy95]

Could be caused by the magazine being too wide, i had a buddy who had one that way. You're it apart and put an L shaped piece of sheet metal in to snug it up a little bit

Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

[leebuilder]

Try a different mag spring. It should hold the rounds in snug, that's the problem with my trench mag.
Be safe

[Der Gebirgsjager]

If the mag spring doesn't do it, then perhaps a different follower. There is a variation in their shape depending on what cartridge the rifle they were designed for used.

[oldblinddog]

One thing that is critical to feeding of any cartridge in any Mauser box magazine is inside dimensions of the box itself. There is a formula to calculate these dimensions in Ludwig Olsen's book. Both base and shoulder must be calculated. This becomes obvious when you put an Ackley Improved cartridge in one of these boxes. The .308 Winchester is not an Ackley cartridge, but it is straighter walled than the 7x57 (for instance) which causes similar problems. The follower, as previously mentioned, may also need modification. Before you let a gunsmith "work" on the rails, ask him if he knows how to measure the box. If you get a deer in headlights look, go somewhere else.

https://www.amazon.com/Mauser-Rifles-Third-Ludwig-Olson/dp/B0031Q3RO6/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1506039049&sr=8-10&keywords=mauser+rifles+book

[Bigslug]

OBD - thanks for reminding me of the existence of the Ludwig Olsen book; been meaning to add that to the library for years. . .and now I have.

Brownell's has 10% stiffer mag springs for about 20 bucks, and that pretty obviously wants to be done regardless of what else might be going on, but at least now I'll be getting box spec requirements to factor in as well. Unfortunately, NO order to Brownell's is EVER as simple as getting JUST a magazine spring. . .:veryconfu

[kawasakifreak77]

I bought a Spanish FR8 cause I thought it'd be neat to have a threaded 308 Mauser. Long story short yeah it shot great suppressed but it almost always jammed up on the left side of the magazine. I think the 7.62 nato have less body taper than 8mm had something to do with it. Between that & thats sights not being that great I promptly traded it to my friend for a new Sig scorpion 938 which is my throw away carry piece.

My friend loves that stinkin' thing though so we both win.

[oldblinddog]

I bought a Spanish FR8 cause I thought it'd be neat to have a threaded 308 Mauser. Long story short yeah it shot great suppressed but it almost always jammed up on the left side of the magazine. I think the 7.62 nato have less body taper than 8mm had something to do with it. Between that & thats sights not being that great I promptly traded it to my friend for a new Sig scorpion 938 which is my throw away carry piece.

My friend loves that stinkin' thing though so we both win.

That indicates to me that the cartridges are/were being pinched at the shoulder. The solution is to open the box in that area. It is not to open the feed rails. You ought to advise your friend of this.

[Good Cheer]

A few years back, I scored a Fed-Ord Mauser 98 that had probably been swapped over to a military profile .308 barrel back in the '80's. I expect little more than the barrel was changed because it's not the most reliably-feeding bolt gun you'll run across. Would like to get it behaving properly.

Anybody familiar with the Israeli and other 7.62 NATO conversions? Specifically what exactly was done in making the change? Fact, not theory please.

On at least some of the Federal Ordinance rebuilds the 7.62x51 barrels have a .310 groove diameter with a 10" twist, which is really an opportunity after the initial "huh?" wears off.

[frogleg]

Please try the Spring before you do anything with the rails!! and let us Know.

[wl620]

I have one that is on a steyr 98 action with a 2 groove springfield rock island barrel chamber in 308 the barrel is dated 28 it has a reeeaaaallly loooong 30-06 throat i guess whoever did it just shaved the threads off cleaned it up with a 308 reamer re threaded it screwed it checked headspace and called it good. they left the original springfield front sight and drilled and tapped it for a lyman 48 witch it wears and shoots really good if you have a looooong boolit or bullet. I have a friend that calls it my "ugly ol' meatgetter" I like it.