muskeg13
05-22-2021, 10:17 PM
I recently restored a slightly sporterized gunshow treasure to mostly military configuration. This M94/14 Swede carbine was missing the upper handguard and bayonet stud/sight protector, and someone had cut back the stock halfway between the handguard band and muzzle. Defacing the stock was a tragedy, since the wood is quite nice. The bolt doesn't match the other metal hardware that has mostly matching numbers, and all the metal was in the best condition I've ever seen in a milsurp rifle. I located the missing parts online and spliced on a forward stock section from surplus walnut stock fragments I had on hand. Dealing with near senior eyesight, I removed the rear sight and installed a Redfield Series 70 with a Merit Iris Aperture. I also obtained a spare new condition bolt and modified it to cock on opening per instructions on this and the Brownell's website.
How does it shoot? I've attached photos of the second attempt with cast and jacketed bullet loads. I say 2d attempt, due to the initial shoot being curtailed by unexpected high pressure signs. After sighting in with a few very light cast/Unique loads, I had tried 2 supposedly moderate jacketed loads. These had proven accurate and safe in my M98s rebarreled to 6.5x55, 156 PPU RN over 44 grains of RL-22 and 140 PPU FMJ over 36 grains of Varget. I shot the 140 FMJ/Varget first, and after 2 shots with hard bolt lift and flattened primers, I stopped and switched to the 156 RN/RL-22 load. I blew a primer on the first shot and quit for the day at that point. Something was definitely wrong.
I pulled all of the bullets and salvaged the powder. Using Go/No Go gauges, the headspace checked out OK with both bolts. The first negative thing I discovered was that most of the loaded cases were over the specified maximum case length. I had failed to check this and trim them back before loading. Secondly, even though I had what I thought was a mirror bore (without borescoping), I encountered slight resistance in the last few inches when pushing a tight fitting dry patch from the breech to the muzzle. Under a bright light, with a magnifying glass, I could see copper color. This didn't look any different from the flash of copper you get when shooting a few jacketed rounds in a clean barrel, but my "looks" aren't calibrated. Checking for visual fouling is a bit more difficult due to the additional 3/8" false muzzle added to this short barrel carbine to meet ATF import requirements. I suspect that excessive copper fouling in combination with overly long cases was contributing to the unexpected high pressures. Another thing is that I had assumed that loads that proved perfectly safe and moderate in several other rifles would produce the same results in this "new" rifle, a very wrong assumption.
Another thing that seemed odd, was even with good headspace and no round in the chamber, there was slight resistance in opening and closing the bolt that I hadn't noticed before. I swapped back to the cock-on-closing bolt that came with the carbine and experienced less, but still felt unnatural resistance, like the bolt was binding on something. An internet search resulted in learning that Swedish Mausers sometimes are prone to the front face of the left/long bolt lug binding on the rear of the barrel tenon. A check with permanent marker confirmed that to be the case here too. So, a few strokes with oil and a stone relieved the binding problem. There's still a very slight bit of resistance, but it's much better now. Just to be safe, I rechecked the headspace again.
After checking and trimming cases, I worked up several cast loads and reduced the two jacketed loads by 3.5 and 4 grains. The PPU 140 FMJ over 32.5 grains of Varget proved exceptionally accurate with no sign of pressure this time. If I had taken more time, my cast load results would probably have been better, but I think they all showed promise, even the Lee 170gr Weebles (Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down). At least all of the Weebles stayed on the paper and were in the vicinity of the target even if they were yawing.
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How does it shoot? I've attached photos of the second attempt with cast and jacketed bullet loads. I say 2d attempt, due to the initial shoot being curtailed by unexpected high pressure signs. After sighting in with a few very light cast/Unique loads, I had tried 2 supposedly moderate jacketed loads. These had proven accurate and safe in my M98s rebarreled to 6.5x55, 156 PPU RN over 44 grains of RL-22 and 140 PPU FMJ over 36 grains of Varget. I shot the 140 FMJ/Varget first, and after 2 shots with hard bolt lift and flattened primers, I stopped and switched to the 156 RN/RL-22 load. I blew a primer on the first shot and quit for the day at that point. Something was definitely wrong.
I pulled all of the bullets and salvaged the powder. Using Go/No Go gauges, the headspace checked out OK with both bolts. The first negative thing I discovered was that most of the loaded cases were over the specified maximum case length. I had failed to check this and trim them back before loading. Secondly, even though I had what I thought was a mirror bore (without borescoping), I encountered slight resistance in the last few inches when pushing a tight fitting dry patch from the breech to the muzzle. Under a bright light, with a magnifying glass, I could see copper color. This didn't look any different from the flash of copper you get when shooting a few jacketed rounds in a clean barrel, but my "looks" aren't calibrated. Checking for visual fouling is a bit more difficult due to the additional 3/8" false muzzle added to this short barrel carbine to meet ATF import requirements. I suspect that excessive copper fouling in combination with overly long cases was contributing to the unexpected high pressures. Another thing is that I had assumed that loads that proved perfectly safe and moderate in several other rifles would produce the same results in this "new" rifle, a very wrong assumption.
Another thing that seemed odd, was even with good headspace and no round in the chamber, there was slight resistance in opening and closing the bolt that I hadn't noticed before. I swapped back to the cock-on-closing bolt that came with the carbine and experienced less, but still felt unnatural resistance, like the bolt was binding on something. An internet search resulted in learning that Swedish Mausers sometimes are prone to the front face of the left/long bolt lug binding on the rear of the barrel tenon. A check with permanent marker confirmed that to be the case here too. So, a few strokes with oil and a stone relieved the binding problem. There's still a very slight bit of resistance, but it's much better now. Just to be safe, I rechecked the headspace again.
After checking and trimming cases, I worked up several cast loads and reduced the two jacketed loads by 3.5 and 4 grains. The PPU 140 FMJ over 32.5 grains of Varget proved exceptionally accurate with no sign of pressure this time. If I had taken more time, my cast load results would probably have been better, but I think they all showed promise, even the Lee 170gr Weebles (Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down). At least all of the Weebles stayed on the paper and were in the vicinity of the target even if they were yawing.
283340 283341
283342 283343 283344
283345