Mas 49 to cycle???

[abunaitoo]

Anyone have a load that will cycle a MAS49 with cast bullets?????

[challenger_i]

Shoot! I had to go to high-midrange loads for the 7.65 Argentine to get mine to cycle with jacketed bullets! As a matter of fact, I have had pure H@#$ getting French mil-surp to cycle reliably. And, this was with three different rifles!

If you can get another main spring, you might try twiddling with the tension, to get the action to cycle on low-power loads.Just do it in small increments.

[StarMetal]

I have a MAS 49/56. As you know these are of the gas impingement system....moving piston to speak of. Mine functions fairly easy. I have no trouble with jacketed loads functioning at all. Now with cast it takes a little more to get it to fully cycle. My AR15's, for example, function on pretty anemic cast loads. The MAS on the other hand takes more then just anemic. You'll probably have to resort to rifle powders to get it to operate fully instead of pistol or shotgun powders. My rifle is also rechambered to the 308, but you can shoot the same bullets out of the original chambering as it's basically a tight 30....although some will mic out like 308's. I've shot the Lee 312 155, the Lyman 314299, and the Lyman 311284 from mild to stout loads. My most used load is with 4895 powder and the Lee bullet. I haven't really sat down and rung it out yet as to what it really likes. I recently scoped it.

[crazy mark]

I used 30/40 Krag loads and worked up carefully in a 49/56. I have a load that almost throws brass as far as the military round go. I also used the lee reduced loads formula for powders like 4831 and that worked fine. I also used unique, 2400 and 4198. 3031, 4895 and 748 are on my list to try. I might even try BLc-2.

[abunaitoo]

IMR 4198
Lee 155gr 310di GC
24.0 to 28.0
No cycle.
28.0 smash shell.

IMR 4198
150 comdom
28.0 to 29.0
Cycles, but will not lock back.

I'm going to try IMR4895 next.

[StarMetal]

After I found my load I made an adjustable gas valve for my MAS that replaces the grenade cutoff valve with an adjustable one. One can barely tell the modification. My rifle now throws the empties a few feet away instead of 20 feet.

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg51/starmetal47/MAS-1.jpg
Original off/on valve only on left, adjustable on right.