MAS 36 in .243 ???

M

Magnum Wheel Man

New member
my buddy has a MAS 36 he wants to do something with ( gun is solid, but needs a new barrel ) Century used to do .308 conversions... he's thinking about adding a .243 barrel... trouble is, the .243 is higher pressure than military .308...

anyone ever heard of any other cartridge conversions on the MAS 36, other than the .308 ???

thoughts ???
 
Odd design, no safety, WHY BOTHER?????
I have a Mas 36, and 49/56 and enjoy shooting both as is , and for what they are. Unusual military surplus rifles.
BTW, why does his gun need a new barrel?
 
actually he is going to build his own trigger block safety, as well as I have seen talk of tang safeties on these rifles, so the safety is not a concern...

the rifle belongs to my retired tool & die guy, who has collected parts & parts rifles of milsurps for years... now he's just looking for interesting projects to keep his mind sharpe & keep himself busy...

he's a buddy of mine, so I try to help him out... he has tons of reference materials, tools, & parts... but doesn't play on the "puter"

trying to figure out if one of his dozens of take off barrels can be used...

he likes strange projects... for example, he put a 9mm barrel on an SKS 7 made all the dies & etc. for a 9 X 39 for his SKS... but he really loves working more on bolt actions
 
I guess it's a topic without much interest!
Normally, I'm against any attempt to "Bubba" a milsurp, but as you described this project, it's really creating something from junk. That I completely agree with. The pressures sound like it wouldn't be a wise conversion, but I'm sure he can come up with something interesting. Keep us posted.
 
Actually that seems pretty interesting... did you have to build a feed ramp to get the fat cartridges to feed ???

one he was considering was the 358 Winchester, but figured ( besides possible too high a pressure ) that the round nose ammo wouldn't feed without adding some kind of feed ramp ???
 
I did one for a buddy in 20 Gauge. Used a Mossberg rifled slug barrel. Added a safety and scope. Held 3 rounds, one in the chamber. Until I was done the only thing original was the receiver and that had a lot of modifications. I don't remember anyone converting them to .308. Are you sure you are not talking about the semi-auto rifle the French produced? Those semi models were converted commercially. The bolt action is put together pretty ruggedly and would probably be O.K. Over the years the most problems people brought to me were usually reloading related. If you like to load .243's real hot , I would forget about it. Rarely does a rifle fly apart on the first shot unless some thing really radical was done (wrong ammunition, double charge). Generally, there will be warning signs of a problem that gradually get worse. Take one brand of brass that was already fired and trim them exactly the same after sizing. Do about 20-30 rounds. Load them up near the high end with the same loads. As you fire them, check the OAL on each case. If the length is gradually increasing, you are getting set back and it is no good. The MAS 36 receivers are not case hardened. I never heat treated a piece of one to check, but would bet the are chrome molly like Arisakas. Therefore you will get stretching and compression long before separation. Good luck with your project.
 
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Read about MAS sporters at:
http://forums.nitroexpress.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=107184&an=0&page=0

The emphasis is on 10.75x68 but one in 8x60S is shown.
There are at least two different patterns of trigger guard safety shown.

I think he could barrel it to about anything that would fit the action IF the loads were kept down. Most of those .308 conversions were so rough they were probably not shot much.

There were a few of the French commercial sporters in 7mm Mauser.
I bet he could make it an 8mm Mauser, the mild American ammo and load data would be in its range of operation.
 
The rifle is plenty strong for .308 based cartridges, but I have to agree with Cheapshooter. I can't off hand think of a rifle that lends itself less to hunting than the Mle. 36. But then there doesn't need to be a reason for a project gun, does there?

Jim
 
I used the .303 Brit,Russian Bolt,Carcano, Krag, M-98, Enfield, and Arisaka to hunt deer in unmodified condition. Some of these guns are worse than a MAS 36.
 
"I used the .303 Brit,Russian Bolt,Carcano, Krag, M-98, Enfield, and Arisaka to hunt deer ..."

Sure, but the idea, like the conversion under discussion, was more to "see if it could be done" than to get the best rifle for the job.

Jim
 
"...the .243 is higher pressure than..." Nope. Runs about the same. However, as mentioned, a Mas 36 isn't exactly a hunting rifle. Mind you, neither is any other milsurp.
 
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