M44 rechambering?

R

rodo626

Inactive
any info on the possibility of rechambering an M44 for 7.62X51?..or even 7.62X39?...It would make this rifle much more useful.
 
First of all, welcome to the forum.:D
I doubt if it would be worth the cost if it could be done. Rimed cartrige vs imless so the bolt is way to big. 54mm chamber length vs 51 or 39, so the barrel would have to be set back. All very expensive, if even possible alterations.
Now, the most curious point of your post. What exactly is not useful about a surplus military rifle chambered in a powerful round that is very economical to shoot with an enormous amount of surplus ammo available?
Also several commercial loadings of soft point hunting ammo available. :confused:
 
The first problem with rechambering a Russian M44 for 7.62x51 or 7.62x39 is that the 7.62x54r has a rimmed case. The cartridges in question are both rimless. This would require modification of the extractor & bolt face. Second, the barrel would need to be set back or rebarreled. The 7.62x54r bullet dia is .312, &7.62x51 is .308 and 7.62x39 is .311 so accuracy would probably suffer. Add to that the question of whether or not the new & shorter cartridge would feed reliably from the magazine. This is not my specialty so I'm sure there might be other work involved as well. The cost of the work (if feasible) would be much more than the $100 rifle is worth. I'm sure Mr. Keenan or one of the other pro's on this forum can go into more detail about the feasibility of such a project but like I said, it would run more money than the M44 is worth.
 
As already said, you can't "rechamber" a large chamber to a smaller one, so the barrel would have to be set back. But the M-N bores are too large (almost .303) for the 7.62 NATO (.300 bore) so the result would be poor accuracy. The only feasible approach would be to rebarrel the gun. And then you would have to deal with the M-N's cutoff type magazine, designed to handle fat rimmed cases; it would take a fair amount of work to alter it for the 7.62 NATO, and more to change it to 7.62x39. And the bolt face and extractor have to be altered, again more so for the smaller round.

So, after spending, say, $500-600 minimum, you end up with an M44 firing a round (if 7.62 NATO) that is probably more expensive today than the 7.62x54R that it was designed to fire.

I am sure I will hear from a hobbyist gunsmith who has done that job, and produced a super rifle, but remember he was working for the fun of it.

Jim
 
As mentioned above, the 7.62x54r is a rimmed cartridge with a case head that is much larger than a .308 or 7.62x39 and would thus require extensive modification or replacement of the bolt head. I suppose you could feasibly re-do one to another rimmed cartridge like .303 British, .30-40 Krag, .45-70, or .444 Marlin but to do so would be rather pointless in the case of .303 Brit and .30-40 Krag (those cartridges offer nothing ballistically over 7.62x54r) and would require extensive modification or replacement of the magazine to be anything but a single shot in the case of .45-70 or .444 Marlin in addition to the obvious re-barreling (honestly, you'd probably have to re-barrel to get any sort of accuracy out of a .30-40 Krag conversion too).

I'm actually surprised that you don't see more of the opposite: rifles in other calibers being re-chambered to 7.62x54r. I would think that due to the abundance of cheap ammunition in that caliber it would be a rather appealing conversion.
 
I wanted to get a T/C Encore PISTOL in 7.62x54R but due to the steel core ammo that would make it a major legal NONO
 
Well, there is an abundance of cheap 7.62x54R ammo today. But it is really an obsolete round and when the current glut of milsurp is gone, it will be as hard to get as other ammo that was once common as dirt, like the .45-70, .30-40 Krag, and .303 British.

Jim
 
Modern manufactured ammo is readily available and is not going to be an issue until the factories shut down.

You'd spend a lot of time and money rebarrelling the T44 and for no reason or utility. If you're concerned about ammo availability, get a reloading outfit and make all your calibers.

As far as a conversion goes, I think you could make it into a pretty nice .405 or similar, but why bother?
 
Not like I have some sort of crazy connection with my M44. Its a cheap $150 rifle. If it goes away cause I got into reloading .30-06 or .308 so be it. :D Until them ITS TIME TO MAKE SOME NOISEEEEE!
 
I bet lots game has been taken with Mosin's... quite possibly HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of men have fallen to them, and without a doubt there are TENS OF MILLIONS of happy MN owners in the world. What else could you possibly want out of a $150 high power rifle that's EASILY capable of hitting a body at 200-300 yards time and time again, while only costing ~.23/rd to shoot.
 
Now that's funny, I don't care who you are.
Click to expand...

I agree.

However, I'll try to post a picture of my 9.1x54R tomorrow (.358" diameter).
It's no .35 Whelen, but is ballistically superior to .358 Winchester and .35 Remington.
Sadly, it does require magazine modifications (but only so far as slightly widening the forward 40% of the magazine).
 
^^^
Not that there isn't a 6.5X54R. It was used by the Soviets in a custom built Olympic Biathlon rifle based on a M/N action. It's just, if the OP thinks 7.62X54 isn't useful...?
 
Not to run it in the ground, but the Russian Cartridge is just as good as a 30 06 or .308 and it has the benifit of surplus ammo to practice with.
Whats not to like?
 
If you rebarrel and make a new bolt head it will feed 30-40 just fine. When it comes to wildcats, who knows. Years back I rebarreled one to 8mmx 54R and it was nothing to write home about. Read about the 8mmx54R in a Finnish reloading book and it was really played up. I was less than impressed. I'm with the other guys on this. With the availability of the ammo now days it is not really worth the money you would spend.
 
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