M-48 Yugo Mauser

P

pal-pal1961

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This is my second Question on this Forum. My first question was answered by a bunch of really good guys who were very well educated in firearms. My .30 Newton dies, brass, bullets are ordered and on the way. Thank You. I found a M-48 Yugo Mauser for 85.00 with a slick action, but dark bore that looks bad. My Question is, Since a .250 savage rim size is 0.473, the same as an 8mm Mauser, What would be involved other than installing a Pac-Nor barrel of this caliber? I know the issue of money is always brought up, and sometimes it is not finacially a great move, but this has always kind of been my dream rifle, A Mauser in 250-3000! Any help would be great. Thanks--Pal
 
Interesting!!

A .250-3000 Mauser M-48! Hah! Interesting thought.

The only potential problems I forsee involve feeding the rounds from the M-48's magazine.

(1) The lips of most magazines are carefully configured to handle the exact shape of the round for which the firearm was designed. I wonder if the shape of the .250-3000 case is similar enough to that of the 8mmJS Mauser round so as to feed successfully, or how much tweaking you'd have to do to the feed lips to get the replacement round to feed properly.

(2) How similar are the OAL's of the 2 cartridges--will the .250-3000 cartridge fit front-to-rear in the space provided for the 8mm cartridges in the magazine? Or would you have to severely adjust the .250's length in handloading it?

Anyhow, these problems, some of which may not exist except in my mind, are the type which attract dedicated tinkerers. If you are determined to own a .250-3000 Mauser M-48, I say, go for it!

Of course, on further reflection, there may be another problem: What is the max pressure for which the M-48 is designed, and is the max pressure generated in a .250-3000 round when fired, greater or lesser than the M-48 will easily tolerate? But this would be pretty easy to look up, and handload for, too.

I still say, go for it!
 
M-48 Yugo

Thanks for the reply Smokey Joe. In my old Jack O'Connor book "The Rifle Book", he had converted many Mauser actions to .250-3000 and 257 Roberts. This is why I wanted to do this. I found a barrel, stock, trigger, saftey, I just was trying to figure out what else I would need to do to make this work. Pal
 
Assuming that the pre-chambered barrel is also threaded all you will need to worry about is headspace. To do this you are going to need a set of go/no-go guages and a reamer for .250 savage. There are a few places online that will let you rent the reamer.

Evan
 
The M48 is an intermediate length action, which in some ways is a better choice than the standard 98 for shorter cartridges based on the 308 family. The 250-3000 doesn't have too radical of a shoulder, so it shouldn't be impossible to get it to feed.

The mag well in the 48 is quite a bit longer than your proposed cartridge. This is a good thing for handloading, as you can seat the bullets way out in the case to touch the lands if need be. You might need to fit a spacer behind the follower to keep the cartridges happy. I just finished a 24/47 in 7mm-08, and ended up grinding on the feed ramp considerably to get reliable feeding. It is possible, but it probably won't feed without modification. If you screw it up you are probably out 85$. You could reweld it, and try again, but you would likely have to heat treat the action, which isn't cost effective.

Good luck.
 
You may have to put in a magazine block or shoulder guides to keep the cartridges from nose-diving in the magazine. This is not a big deal, so don't get scared. It;s just something you might encounter. Commercial guns generally use a magazine block, custom guns generally have a shoulder guide soldered in place in the magazine in front of where the cartridge shoulder is. This keeps the rounds from moving forward in the magazine and causing feeding problems

About the only other problem you may run into will be in feeding the 250 Savage. The feed lips in a Mauser action are set up for cartridges with less taper than the 250 Savage, so if you try to feed it slowly, a round can occasionally slip out from under the feed lips and miss the claw extractor, resulting in a jam. Just remember to feed it positively every time.

Pressure will not be a problem. 8X57 operates at 52000 psi and the Savage operates at 42000 psi, IIRC.
 
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