mosin 30-06

[cosmoline one]

Would it be safe to shoot with a 155gr boolit and 16 grs of 2400?

[Dutchman]

How could anyone give you a valid answer without handling & inspecting your rifle in-person?

I'll tell ya why....

These rifles in this caliber are considered junk. Nice Bannerman historical junk. Unsafe.

So, do you know the history of this rifle from the time it was made into .30-06? How many times has it been shot with factory .30-06 or something hotter? Have you had this rifle magnafluxed? Ya'know, for cracks? Have you visually inspected it yourself for cracks? Bulges anywhere? Headspace?

See what I mean?

Metal fatigue is cumulative. It adds up.

If'n it were mine I'd drill a hole on the underside of the chamber/barrel/receiver and weld in a bolt so it could never be chambered again and hang it on the wall.

The real key to surviving in this world is knowing when to walk away from something that's stupid, something that could get you hurt or worse. Everybody else falls into the Darwin category with their name on an ethereal list in the hand of some angel who gets to decide who's day it'll be as the bug or the windshield.

Let your wife know that "Dutch" is available to help assess and sell gun collections after the funeral. And let her know I've never been to the Caribbean so to give me a call when the insurance check comes in.

Dutch [smilie=s:

[NuJudge]

There have been a lot of articles over the years about how these rifles are unsafe. The one surplus arms retailer mentioned above was known for this conversion, and if I remember correctly, the body diameter of the chamber was left way too large, leaving a distinct possiblity of the cartridge blowing out to the rear. I once had some bad 6.5x54 Mannlicher-Schoenaur brass blow out on me in this fashion, and I would suggest you DeMil the rifle as suggested.

CDD

[6.5 mike]

When in doubt, DON"T.

[autofix4u]

I am going to say IF it is a Bannerman conversion then in no way shape or form is that rifle safe to fire. Having inspected and measured 3 diffrent examples I would NEVER pull the trigger on one.
IF it has been properly rebarreled with a NEW or TAKE OFF barrel that was NEVER chamber in 7.62x54r, Then Mabe it would be safe......
This from the guy that has a MN in 300win mag.

[Shiloh]

I've heard about these rifles but have never seen one. I wonder how many of these relics are still out there? As stated, leave it be. Plug the chamber and have a wall hanger.

SHiloh

[Multigunner]

There were some reasonably safe .30-06 conversions of the Remington Manufactured Mosin Nagants.
These were commissioned by an exiled White Russian count who took up residence in the US.
He had a small private army on his estates and armed them with the converted Mosin Nagants.

Later on when WW2 came along the old count gave most of these rifles to the State Guard as training rifles and for guards at strategic industries.

These conversions were done by shortening the barrel at the breech and rethreading, in order to cut a proper tight chamber.

Whether any other commercially produced conversions were done this way I wouldn't know, but I've seen the process recommended in the past and have seen gunsmith modified Japanese rifles converted in this manner, so it was a fairly well known process.

[PAT303]

So how was it they were made in the first place?.Surely they new about the chamber sizes before they sold them. Pat

[94Doug]

Was the question about a converted rifle, or is the standard 16gr load that is used in 30-06 ok to shoot in a moisin 7.62X54? I would think it would be.


Doug

[Multigunner]

I decided I better look into safety concerns of these conversions a bit more and found something I hadn't considered.

In cutting off so much of the breech to set back the original chamber , the barrel reinforce is also set back.
The longer .30-06 chamber is then less well supported, with much thinner barrel steel around the shouldef and neck of the chamber rather than a thick reinforce.

This could be a serious problem.

The mass of a reinforce acts to absorb radial stresses and provide more material to resist radial cracking at the chamber.
Without that extra mass radial cracks or craze cracking can reach the failure point much more easily.

[jonk]

The Mosin ACTION is capable of handling the 30-06. And if you were inclined to get a .30 barrel blank, chamer it, modify the extractor to the 06 case head, and accept it probably wouldn't fit the magazine and would be single shot only, you'd be fine.

However, the conversions are, as said, dangerous. I wouldn't fire one at ALL with any load of any power. The possible exception might be with a hot glue bullet and like 1 gr of bullseye, but then wer're getting to the point of saying, what's the point?

[MtGun44]

The load in question is a low pressure load, and it would seem that at least one
test firing with the rifle held in a tire and the trigger pulled with a lanyard (how I test my
"new" milsurps) would give an idea if the case is likely to rupture.

A gun that may not be up to safely firing full power commercial 60,000 psi loads may
be a useful tool if carefully kept down in the 15-20,000 psi range or something
like that. Also, the bore will be oversized, so a .314 of .315 or even larger
boolit will be required to get good accuracy.

Maybe the 3 gr Bullseye type of ultra light loads would be the best use for this old
rifle.

Bill

[fgd135]

I own a Bannermans MN conversion to .30-06. It's a carbine, one of the two versions produced by Bannermans out of surplus US made Mosins after WW1.
I shoot it regularly with cast boolit loads without any problems what so ever. The headspace and the chamber on the carbine are fine. The bore on my Remington made barrel slugs at .311", so there is lots of room to experiment with various cast boolit diameters.
There is a lot of unfortunate misinformation around about these conversions. Suffice to say, Bannermans did cut back the 7.62x54r chamber, ream it to 30-06, rethread and reinstall the barrel. The bolt head was modified to support the .30-06 case, and an new extractor was made to fit those rimless cases. The Mosin magazine was also modified to fit the rimless .30-06 case, and a slight alteration was made to the feed ramp of the receiver for the longer round.
The magazine feeds .30-06 as slick as can be with no function issues.

Someone mentioned:
"There were some reasonably safe .30-06 conversions of the Remington Manufactured Mosin Nagants.
These were commissioned by an exiled White Russian count who took up residence in the US.
He had a small private army on his estates and armed them with the converted Mosin Nagants"

These rifles were the full length MN rifles converted by Bannermans to.30-06 and purchased right off the rack. They are no different mechanically than the carbine conversions. It was spelled out in the American Rifleman "America's Russian Fascist Rifles", Jul-92, p42.

If you have a Bannermans conversion, by all means have it checked out, but I think you will find it perfectly safe to shoot with cast boolits. I do hear what some have said about the new .30-06 chamber being cut into the smaller diameter of the barrel, and that is a valid excuse not to shoot full power loads, imho, but if you read that article I noted, you will read that the aauthor of it fired many many rounds of military surplus .06 thru his without incident.

In fact, over on another forum related to MN rifles, not one single person has been able to provide documentation, only hearsay, about .30-06 conversions blowing up. This rumor seems to have begun some time ago, when various "gun writers" needed something to say about a rifle that was "Roosian".


Fwiw, the Polish Army converted almost 80,000 MN rifles to 8x57mm in the 1920s and issued them without incident to mounted artillery and to some infantry units. The conversion work was almost identical to the Bannermans; the barrels were cut back rechamberd and the barrels rebored to 8x57, which in a military load with a heavy ball round has plenty of pressure.
Cheers!

[WILCO]

I've heard about these rifles but have never seen one. I wonder how many of these relics are still out there?

http://mosinnagant.net/global%20mosin%20nagants/bannerman.asp

[Multigunner]

Fwiw, the Polish Army converted almost 80,000 MN rifles to 8x57mm in the 1920s and issued them without incident to mounted artillery and to some infantry units. The conversion work was almost identical to the Bannermans; the barrels were cut back rechamberd and the barrels rebored to 8x57, which in a military load with a heavy ball round has plenty of pressure.
Cheers!

The 7.92X57 is a bit shorter than the .30-06 case which is 7.62X63, near 1/3" difference, so the chamber shoulder wouldn't be so far forwards into the taper beyond the reinforce.

I agree that the Mosin Nagant action, if in good condition, is plenty strong enough for the .30-06 in any reasonable load within SAAMI pressure limits for the 06.

I wouldn't put much faith in the "no documented failures" argument. When a recently manufactured rifle has a failure its big news and there'd be an investigation, when an old milsurp gives up the ghost unless someone gets killed the only thing the authorities would care to investigate is the blood alcohol content of the shooter.
I'd seen it claimed that there were no documented failures of Lee Enfield actions when using Milspec ammunition, but I found dozens of documented failures of the Lee Enfields in the records of the Canadian House of Commons and the British Parliment, all using fresh milspec ammunition on rifle ranges under optimal conditions.
Most such incidents never make their way into print, and those that do can be very difficult to dig up many years after the fact.

The possibility of radial cracking of old milsurp barrels after decades of abuse is a very real concern.
The American made Mosin Nagants were built at about the same time frame as the Springfields that suffered barrel cracking when sub contracted barrel blanks were substituted for Springfield manufactured blanks in 1917.
E. Remington himself developed the bumping up proceedure used to expand the shank portion of barrel blanks when he first went into business for himself.
I would expect Remington would have had better quality control on such bumped up barrels than others in the business though.

I've seen nothing that would convince me that the Remington Mosin Nagants were of superior metalurgy or workmanship than the British Contract P-14 or the M1917 and both have suffered barrel failures , like the 1917 manufactured Springfields due to bumped up barrel blanks, and none of those were altered barrels with thin sections at the chamber shoulder.
Hatcher wrote that the failure rates of the bumped up barrels were around three per one thousand, not many when you see it on paper but enough of a concern that you seldom see a 1917 dated barrel on a Springfield, most having been pulled and replaced by 1920.

Anyway while its not a obvious accident waiting to happen, considering age and abuse its enough of a concern that I wouldn't recommend ignoring the possibility.

Till I read of the concerns over the thin barrel section over the chamber I would have thought these conversions were perfectly safe, now I have my doubts.


PS
I think the major source of warnings that the Bannerman conversions were unsafe may have been due to the Banner Cadet rifles being issued without sights and broken firing pins , and sold as non shooters.
This could have suggested to some that the rifles had been demilled as unsafe.

[Andy_P]

I too own one and have shot it. So much misinformation by those who have never owned, examined and shot one, much less even seen one in person. We just keep rehashing what has been written and dare not challenge the accepted truths, the myths as it were.


In fact, over on another forum related to MN rifles, not one single person has been able to provide documentation, only anecdotes, about .30-06 conversions blowing up. This rumor seems to have begun some time ago, when various "gun writers" needed something to say about a rifle that was "Roosian".

Mine is a full-length military conversion that has had the barrel set back and rechambered - really a thoughtful conversion in my case, and not an altogether unusual gunsmithing job except that the barrel was set back about 3/4", which is more than usual. Here's a depiction of how the 7.62X54R cartridge sits in the new chamber, compared to before, and another "typical" 7.62X54R chamber.

You will draw your own conclusions, but I do not see an imminent breeching of the barrel.

http://www.pridham.ca/Bannerman_Chamber_Side_View_Comparison.jpg

[Dutchman]

The danger isn't how the barrel was chambered. The danger is in the chamber pressure in a 1891 rifle action design. Those who say the Mosin is strong enough miss the point. The .30-06 is a 50,000 PSI cartridge that proofs much higher than that. The Mosin-Nagant has NO gas escape feature. That missing ingredient can result in death to the shooter moreso than with a rifle that has abundant gas escape like the 98 Mauser.

I've had a Mosin apart, removed barrel and all. There's nothing inherently superior about it. It's an archaic action design that borrowed on earlier bolt action rifle designs, some dating into the late 1870s. This is not a place for a .30-06 cartridge no matter how much you respect the Mosin-Nagant.

Put a blower on a Model T engine. It'll go like h*ll for a while. Then it'll blow up.

This isn't a matter of continuing to repeat old information. The warnings are valid whether you've owned/seen/handled/shot one of these rifles. The real issue lies in the newbies and inexperienced shooters who read these forums and take away bits and pieces of information and build their own ideas from those bits and pieces and end up with trouble.

How many rounds of standard .30-06 will a Mosin take before it self destructs.... or at the least before it grows so much headspace as to be unsafe? Don't ever forget: metal fatigue is cumulative. It adds up. The Mosin-Nagant was never designed or intended for .30-06 use.

Mosin .30-06 = thin ice

It seems I'm always preaching prudence in this forum. The reason is: imprudence kills.

Andy - I know from our earlier discussion on the 8x58RD rolling block that you're not an inexperienced person and that you pay attention. This isn't much different than the 8x58RD issue.

Dutch

[Multigunner]

The danger isn't how the barrel was chambered. The danger is in the chamber pressure in a 1891 rifle action design. Those who say the Mosin is strong enough miss the point. The .30-06 is a 50,000 PSI cartridge that proofs much higher than that. The Mosin-Nagant has NO gas escape feature. That missing ingredient can result in death to the shooter moreso than with a rifle that has abundant gas escape like the 98 Mauser.

I've had a Mosin apart, removed barrel and all. There's nothing inherently superior about it. It's an archaic action design that borrowed on earlier bolt action rifle designs, some dating into the late 1870s. This is not a place for a .30-06 cartridge no matter how much you respect the Mosin-Nagant.

Put a blower on a Model T engine. It'll go like h*ll for a while. Then it'll blow up.

This isn't a matter of continuing to repeat old information. The warnings are valid whether you've owned/seen/handled/shot one of these rifles. The real issue lies in the newbies and inexperienced shooters who read these forums and take away bits and pieces of information and build their own ideas from those bits and pieces and end up with trouble.

How many rounds of standard .30-06 will a Mosin take before it self destructs.... or at the least before it grows so much headspace as to be unsafe? Don't ever forget: metal fatigue is cumulative. It adds up. The Mosin-Nagant was never designed or intended for .30-06 use.

Mosin .30-06 = thin ice

It seems I'm always preaching prudence in this forum. The reason is: imprudence kills.

Andy - I know from our earlier discussion on the 8x58RD rolling block that you're not an inexperienced person and that you pay attention. This isn't much different than the 8x58RD issue.

Dutch

Its always good to see that others are also concerned with safety and understand that the fine old Milsurp designs didn't always have the benefit of what are now considered to be very simple and obvious safety features.
The old pre 1898 Mausers were well designed so far as strength went but lacked some features that were soon recognized as necessary for safety, and in many cases retrofitted and/or included in later production of those actions.

I hadn't even thought of the gas escape qualities of the Mosin Nagant actions. I have had only limited hands on experiance with these rifles, though I've always been interested in the Finn sporter conversions as well as the stock military versions and historic use of the MN in the US as a sporter or target rifle.

Long ago I ran across an article written by a gentleman who had built a fine long range target rifle on the MN , even going so far as to alter the bolt and receiver to mount the bolt handle behind the bridge to allow use of an over the bore scope mounting.

A number of the old favorite milsurp actions do not have dedicated gas escape ports. Later production versions included a gas escape port, so its obvious that the governments that issued such rifles had learned the hard way that no matter how strong the action sooner or later a defective cartridge would show up among the millions fired by troops in the field, or a bore obstruction would bring about a cartridge case failure.

The Springfield 1903 Low Number receiver failures were most often due to a cartridge case failure and insufficient gas relief in case of a failure.

Some actions, like the US Krag don't have a designed in gas escape port, but the openess of the design allowed gas to escape fairly well in case of a burst cartridge.

The Metalurgy of the US manufactured Mosins seems to be pretty good, and the level of metalurgy of industrialized nations in the late 19th century was generally at a high degree of development, due as much to the locomotive and steamship building industries as anything else.

It would be nice if we knew more about the steels used to manufacture the MN rifles.

It took quite a while to track down reliable information on the exact alloys used for the Lee Enfields, but when I did I found it to be almost exactly how I'd figured it would be, a medium high nickel alloy.

A book on early balistic body armor did reveal that the Russians were using high Nickel content alloys before WW2, so its not unlikely that the MN rifles would have a significant nickel content, if not a true nickel steel.
Nickel. like other such additives used in gun steels reduces the action of crack propagation to slow down if not halt the effects of metal fatigue.

It would be great if some enterprising soul with access to the best testing equipment would offer a service for non destructive testing of antique rifle actions.
The older Crack tests run on receivers is a bit primitive and doesn't tell much if anything about what goes on under the surface.

[Andy_P]

The danger isn't how the barrel was chambered. The danger is in the chamber pressure in a 1891 rifle action design. Those who say the Mosin is strong enough miss the point. The .30-06 is a 50,000 PSI cartridge that proofs much higher than that. The Mosin-Nagant has NO gas escape feature. That missing ingredient can result in death to the shooter moreso than with a rifle that has abundant gas escape like the 98 Mauser.....

This has now taken on a completely new direction.

So the "problem" with the Bannerman conversions (at least the ones done "properly", i.e. the barrel set back and rechambered) has to do the the slightly higher SAAMI pressure of the 30-06, the poor gas handling abilities of the Mosin Nagant, dubious Russian steel, and an overall poor design?

Essentially that since all Mosin Nagants are dangerous, so are Bannermans?

10's of millions produced, and millions still in existence and being shot with surplus and handloads, and never have I seen a warning (that could be taken seriously) that they are inherently dangerous. The surplus ammo runs within 100 fps of mililtary 30-06 like it has for 100 or so years (Sniper ammo comes much closer) - but no warnings on it and it continues to be sold.

The 7.62X54R is essentially a 30-06 in different clothing, but the 7.62X54R has a larger casehead, so there'd be more backthrust than with a 30-06. Rechambering to 30-06 would lower backthrust and make it "safer" wouldn't it? At least allow you to run slightly higher pressure.

Heck I hear that some have been converted to 300 Win Mag! Check out the pressure and casehead diameter of the 300 Win Mag - way over the 30-06:


I am going to say IF it is a Bannerman conversion then in no way shape or form is that rifle safe to fire. Having inspected and measured 3 diffrent examples I would NEVER pull the trigger on one.
IF it has been properly rebarreled with a NEW or TAKE OFF barrel that was NEVER chamber in 7.62x54r, Then Mabe it would be safe......
This from the guy that has a MN in 300win mag.

See this too: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=93689

Yet I'm advised that unless I'm a fool, I must tag my Bannerman and never shoot it, even with light cast loads.

No stories of blowups, no warnings, not even "My cousin's friend knows a guy who's Gunsmith heard about a Mosin blowup (much less a Bannerman) from a guy at a Gun Show".

Is now the time for the Mosin Nagant to enter Gun Folklore as "dangerous"?

[fgd135]

I do know that I read thru all of the years of The American Rifleman from the 1920s and 1930s, including referencing all of the volume indices for those years, and at least in that publication there is no mention of any .30-06 MN conversions blowing up. I would say that is not a completely comprehensive search, as there were other gun magazines and publications during this time that I did not have total access...
Phillip Sharpe mentions nothing about this conversion in any of his handloading books.
So, who says there is proof they blow up?
Remington and New England Westinghouse Mosin Nagants were the only rifles used by Bannermans for conversions; no Russian-made rifles were used. Those early 1903 Springfield receivers were overheated by the workers at the arsenal, and Remington, et al, had nothing to do with ruining Springfield receivers.
Alvin Linden mentions in an article he wrote in AR in December 1927 regarding gunmithing the Mosin, a very popular pastime in the 1920s, that the American-made MN receivers were tough, but not brittle. Not a metallurgical report, but empirical.
Vonsiatsky's Bannerman rifles were fired with full power .30-06 by John Malloy without problems.
Mosin actions were proofed at the factories to 3600 atmospheres, about 53000 PSI. Phillip Sharpe noted that WW2 M2 ball was in the upper 40K pressure range. CMP lists LC72 and LC69 averaging 47.5k and 45.6 k psi. That is 10% below MN proof loads. Don't know what the psi was of prewar M1 heavy ball. MN service ammunition m1908 ball was supposed to be about 43k PSI.
Personally, As I mentioned earlier, I'd shoot a Bannermans conversion with cast loads all day long. In fact, I've done that. I don't think I would shoot commercial hot hunting .30-06 ammo, however. YMMV

[Larry Gibson]

As many of you know I measure pressures via an Oehler m43. I have measured the pressures of several lots of US milsurp (M2, M72 and AP) in 30-06. I have also measured the pressure of numerous milsurp loads of 7.62x54R. Let me say this, without going into a long dissertation; US milsurp M2 ammunition of numerous lots dating from '42 to '69 have pressures that run from 38,800 psi(M43) upwards of 49,000 psi(M43). None of them attained the specified 2700 fps with most running from 2550 to 2650 fps out of 24" barrels. M72 which is very close to M1 ammuntion runs at 2630 - 2650 fps with 57,000 +/- psi(M43). Alsmost all of the numerous lots of 7.62x54R "L" (light ball) ammuntion and some "D" (heavy ball) produced the specified velocity and at psi's that exceeded all the M2 psi's. Some of them exceeded the M1's psi's. The test rifle for the '06 were a new M70 and a Newly rebarreled M1903. The test rifles for the 7.62x54R were a Finn M39 (Sako) and an Ishvesk (SP) M91/30 Sniper.

It would appear to me based on my own tests of pressure of both cartridges that '06 milsurp or equivelent loads fired in the Bannerman conversians are actually exerting less pressure on the barrel/actions than the original 7.62x54R cartridge would be doing. Quite frankly, given the quality of the conversions described I wouldn't hesitate to shoot regular '06 cast bullet loads in a Bannerman conversion any more than i would hesitate to shoot 7.62x54R cast bullet loads in either the Finn M39 or the M91/30 Isvesk sniper.

Larry Gibson

[Multigunner]

Remington and New England Westinghouse Mosin Nagants were the only rifles used by Bannermans for conversions; no Russian-made rifles were used. Those early 1903 Springfield receivers were overheated by the workers at the arsenal, and Remington, et al, had nothing to do with ruining Springfield receivers.
Alvin Linden mentions in an article he wrote in AR in December 1927 regarding gunmithing the Mosin, a very popular pastime in the 1920s, that the American-made MN receivers were tough, but not brittle. Not a metallurgical report, but empirical.
I never doubted the strength of the action.
I mentioned the failures of rifle barrels that had been bumped up at the breech causing action failures of both Springfields and P-14/M1917 rifles.
A crack in the chamber area of any high powered rifle barrel can destroy the action, even with standard pressure loads.



Mosin actions were proofed at the factories to 3600 atmospheres, about 53000 PSI.
Thats actually far lower proof pressure than other comptemporary infantry rifles.
The Gew88 was proofed at 58,000 CUP, the Springfields at first 70,000 CUP then later at 75,000 CUP.




Phillip Sharpe noted that WW2 M2 ball was in the upper 40K pressure range. CMP lists LC72 and LC69 averaging 47.5k and 45.6 k psi. That is 10% below MN proof loads. Don't know what the psi was of prewar M1 heavy ball. MN service ammunition m1908 ball was supposed to be about 43k PSI.
Yet M! Ball could damage a Winchester Model 1895 that had no problems with WW1 era .30-06 ball or equivalent loads.



Personally, As I mentioned earlier, I'd shoot a Bannermans conversion with cast loads all day long. In fact, I've done that. I don't think I would shoot commercial hot hunting .30-06 ammo, however. YMMV

My only concern is with the relatively thin section at the front of the chamber.
Any micro fractures would need very little propagation to reach the critical stage.


As I may have mentioned earlier documentation of any firearms failure of this sort can be difficult to impossible to find a generation after the fact.
Another thing to consider is that once warned of a possible problem the vast majority of civilian owners of these rifles were a bit more careful of what ammo they did use, and its not unlikely that someone buying a cheap converted rifle was not likely to be able to afford any great amount of ammo to run through it.


The profile of the MN reinforce meant a much greater reduction in the safety margin of the barrel breech than I'd have expected.
If the Bannerman type conversion was considered perfectly safe I suspect the US Military would have considered converting the US Rifle 1916, which was in fact the surplus undelivered Russian contract Mosin Nagant as used by the US Army as a training rifle.


Now all that said a light low pressure cast Boolit load isn't likely to blow one of these rifle barrels out, but I would suggest a through examination of the chamber shoulder area and leade to be sure no cracks have formed from previous shooting of full power loads.

[Andy_P]

This has got to be the only gun on the "dangerous list" without a single recorbed kaboom.

Yet another twist with a new point of failure identified - all we had before was the "rear of the cartridge case disintegrating". Even though there are no documented cases of any of the many thousands of Bannerman conversions "blowing up" (to use the vernacular in gun circles for something bad happening), we now have the certainty of the barrel breeching ahead of the chamber, because it's "dangerously thin".

A few questions:

- where in the barrel is pressure the highest? What percentage of max, is the area 1-2" ahead of the chamber where most barrel profiles typically become "dangerously thin"? How thin is dangerously thin? I have a sporter profile 300 Win Mag that I run full-house loads in, and I don't want a kaboom. Should I watch for cracks?
- cracks? Where did you hear that? Do you have any pics? Reliable sources?
- how did you discover that these guns were not shot much? None of them were? If a few had, wouldn't there be reports of injuries and/or deaths?
- the US Army has always kept excellent records. Did they dismiss converting the Mosin Nagant to 30-06 because this kind of conversion would be dangerous?

I don't don't need to be correct, in fact I don't actually mind being wrong, but I need to be proven wrong. I even played with the idea of running a few hundred max published load rounds through mine with frequent inspections, but I know that would do nothing to change anyone's mind and only consume lots of time and money on my part. We can look at this scientifically. Does anyone have anything to offer aside from recycled rumours and conjecture?

[fgd135]

The US military never converted those Mosins to '06 because the rifles were primarily training and drill rifles for units in the USA, much like the Ross rifles that were also purchased for that use. For marching in parades, manual of arms, etc., the usual basic training stuff. There was no need for them to be fired.
The US made Mosin was issued to US combat troops in North Russia, primarily because it WAS in the original caliber, and the US hoped to use the stockpiled ammo for it that we already shipped to the Russkis.
The US also shipped em to the Czech Legion thru Vladivostok, for the same reasons. But I digress.
The Army immediately disposed of all of these rifles immediately after the war ended, never having any intentions to keep em and convert em to '06. Why would they do this when there were millions of 1917s available?
There was, however, a Petersen device designed for this rifle.
The NRA got the vast bulk of the Mosins, and sold them for $2.90 plus shipping. Ammo was $5 per thousand round case. By Dec 1928 they were sold out.

I suspect Bannerman's bought some surplus Mosins and did those conversions to make a quick dollar, but once again there seems to be no written records of one blowing up that I can find.
Bannermans MN .30-06 carbines and infantry rifles sold for about $15-$18? iirc.
Krag carbines were much more expensive at the time, as were many other rifles, and I think Bannerman saw an opportunity to offer an inexpensive Krag carbine look-a-like in a more popular caliber than 7.62 Russian with his conversions.
If it's your rifle and you want to have it magnafluxed or xrayed because you might be worried about stress fractures, etc., go right ahead, but I am just continuing to shoot mine with cast boolits.

[Multigunner]

- where in the barrel is pressure the highest? What percentage of max, is the area 1-2" ahead of the chamber where most barrel profiles typically become "dangerously thin"? How thin is dangerously thin? I have a sporter profile 300 Win Mag that I run full-house loads in, and I don't want a kaboom. Should I watch for cracks?
- cracks? Where did you hear that? Do you have any pics? Reliable sources?
Radial cracking at chamber neck and throat is a common wear pattern of any heavily used firearm , you can find photos of this in US Military studies on barrel life.



- how did you discover that these guns were not shot much?
Considering that all US .30-06 milsurp ammunition of the era was corrosive bore condition should give a clue to whether any particular rifle was shot very much.
When I was much younger old milsurp rifles were seldom shot very much in any case. Ammunition cost money and it wasn't wasted.
There were no doubt those who could afford to blaze away on the weekends but they could usually afford something better than a converted MN to spend their time and money on.




None of them were? If a few had, wouldn't there be reports of injuries and/or deaths?
How do you know for a fact that there aren't such records?
When some were claiming that there were no recorded incidents of Enfield actions failing when milspec ammunition was used I did some through searching and found dozens of documented cases hidden away in the records of the Canadian House of Commons, the British Parliement, and British guntrade journals of pre WW1. This sort of official document and trade journal can be found online because the copyrights long ago expired.
Had any of these still been under copyright I'd never have found them.

The Converted MN rifles were relatively rare compared to any other milsurp rifle, so not a great subject of conversation or correspondence.
absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
I don't have to know of a specific inciodent of a underinflated tire causing and accident in order to recognize the possible hazards of driving on underinflated tires.


- the US Army has always kept excellent records.

In what alternative universe?
The vast majority of the US militaries paper records were destroyed around 1970 and shortly afterwards the first of many major computer malfunctions destroyed huge blocks of data saved to magnetic tape. Besides the completely lost copies millions of documents can never be traced and retreived.

In Great Britian they had a similar "slaughter" of Ministry of Defense documents in the 50's resulting in loss of most of the data on military fire arms development.
A lot of this data has been reconstructed from stray copies of documents kept by former officers, but much is lost forever.





Did they dismiss converting the Mosin Nagant to 30-06 because this kind of conversion would be dangerous?
I'd say that since they don't seem to have considered it at all says something.
If they considered it at all they apparently didn't act on it.
The low number Springfield failures had already made the Ordnance dept leery of issuing suspect weaponry. If any converted MN rifles suffered a failure moral would plumet and some officer would end up crucified by the newspapers.
They had a hard enough time convincing the public that converting "The British rifle" was a good idea.




I don't don't need to be correct, in fact I don't actually mind being wrong, but I need to be proven wrong. I even played with the idea of running a few hundred max published load rounds through mine with frequent inspections, but I know that would do nothing to change anyone's mind and only consume lots of time and money on my part. We can look at this scientifically. Does anyone have anything to offer aside from recycled rumours and conjecture?

I can find a PDF on barrel life that explains the micro fracture problems, possibly with photos, and find a few sources on crack propagation and metal fatigue.
If you can find a source for the exact alloy Remington used for MN barrel steel and whether they used bumped up barrel blanks in MN barrel production.

If you recommend any firearm , especially a radically altered one, as being perfectly safe you can't afford to be wrong at all.
If proving you wrong requires that someone lose an eye, a hand, or becomes disfigured by a barrel failure thats too high a price to pay.


PS
Still looking for best source of info on barrel fatigue life studies. Found several but these deal with cannon rather than small arms. Another deals with the same factors in small arms but its not a free download.

One thing did come to mind. Someone asked where the greatest pressure is when a rifle cartridge is fired.
Well It occurred to me that every swollen chamber on a centerfire rifle barrel I've run across was a "Jugged Chamber", swollen at the shoulder portion of the chamber. Sometimes the chamber can become so swollen that the case has to be beaten out with a steel rod, other times its just hard to extract.
I've seen more jugged chambers on revolver cylinders and derringers ( a .357 double derringer I ran across was the most extreme example) than on any quality centerfire rifle. The more mass at the barrel reinforce the less likely a chamber will swell, revolver cylinders don't have enough metal to resist jugging should the load exceed the strength of the cylinder walls.