spanish 1916 mauser rebarell?

[autofix4u]

I have recently picked up 3 spanish mausers in 7x57. one has a very rusty & poor bore and needs a rebarell. I have been thinking 257 roberts, 7x57 or 358 win. Does anyone have an opinon of 358 win on this action or in general. Any help would be great. Thanks, Josh

[3006guns]

Well, the 7 x 57 and Roberts would be natural choices. I actually had to do a little research on the .358 and frankly thought it might be a typo and you meant the .348 Winchester, a rimmed cartridge.

Okay, I see the .358 is basically a necked up .308, so we get into the whole "is it safe?" discussion that's been going on for a long time with regards to this action. It's a personal call really. The only input I can give came from an old friend who knew the 1916 action well. When I mentioned they had been rebarreled to .308, his reply was "That's pushing it a bit". I've taken that as gospel ever since, even in the face of pressure tests done by one of the importers. I believe it was the quality or heat treatment of the steel that bothered him.

Again, a personal call.

[FWAddit]

I bought a 93 Mauser that had been rebarreled to .308--same pressure specs as .358. Because so many people say "that's pushing it," I use only cast in it, to keep pressures mild. But all the suggested j-bullet starting loads I've seen in handbooks that give pressure info are within the 45,000 CUP max specified for the action. So jacketed handloads are an option too, without pushing it.

The .358 route would be the one to take if you plan to hunt with cast boolits. I also have a Mod 93 rebarreled to .35 Rem. It's harder to get those cases to feed reliably than it is the .308s. But the .35 cast boolits have excellent terminal ballistics. Haven't tried .30 cast on deer yet.

[Multigunner]

Replacement 7mm barrels used to show up in shotgun news every so often, and I think the 6.5 model 96 barrels may have the same shank dimensions.

So long as you choose your ammunition carefully standard pressure M80 ball or equivalent 7.62 and .308 loads shouldn't over stress these actions, but some heavy bullet long range match or bear loads might be pushing the safety limits.

For that matter if I had a 90+ year old M-14 I wouldn't want to use max pressure loads in it either.