Spanish 1916 Mauser Boly Action SHORT RIFLE, 7.62X51/ 308,

I am surprised that any reputable outfit would sell these dangerous rifles just waiting to blow up.

You know, now that I think about it I have never heard of a small ring 98 in 308 actually blowing up. Can anyone offer a case history of such an incident?

On a related topic, I purchased 3,000 rounds of military surplus 7x57 about 20 years ago. Dated 1970 it uses a 139 grain bullet at a clocked 2925 FPS. This ammo just feels very warm when shooting it. However I have never had any trouble in my small ring BRNO 98s.

BTW- this ammo is amazingly consistent with a variation of less than 10 FPS and seems to be very accurate.
 
I am surprised that any reputable outfit would sell these dangerous rifles just waiting to blow up.
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You know, now that I think about it I have never heard of a small ring 98 in 308 actually blowing up. Can anyone offer a case history of such an incident?
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That would certainly add credibility to the claim. If any real life examples can be found.
 
Who said anything about "Blowing Up".

The most likely problem would be a very short life due to lug setback.
 
dakota.potts has it right, kinda. People always start talking about better steel and heat treating. #1, the Springfield is it's own piece of crap, and really can not be compared to anything else. #2 until somebody tells us what type of steel was used in the Swedes and Spanish Mausers, it is a moot point. #3 Mr. potts is absolutely correct. The rifle designed to HANDLE abnormal failures is stronger because of it. I doubt that a '98 Mauser built during or before WWI is heat treated any better or used better steel than a Spanish Mauser of the same time period. The difference is the design.

As most people have mentioned, the set back situation can happen. If not addressed before case head separation, then the real trouble starts. Even an un-heat treated action will usually withstand a few common rounds. I remember helping another gunsmith cut apart (I had a surface grinder and thin radaic wheels) a Swedish Mauser he built for a guy. It was mushroomed together like you would not believe, but no case head separation. It was a .264 Winchester Magnum. The other guy was a lot older than me and knew his stuff. He said the guy may have underloaded it and gotten extreme pressure. I don't know, but it steered me off using hot cartridges in early Mauser style rifles, Model 98 or not. There is no controlling the guy that reloads.

Who would sell an unsafe rifle conversion? Anybody remember the Moisins converted to 30.06 by a U.S. company?
 
Read some of the posts after the pictures. I would have to agree with the cause being something major, like a reload problem. The Swedish example even states it is a reloading issue.
 
gunplummer said:
Read some of the posts after the pictures. I would have to agree with the cause being something major, like a reload problem. The Swedish example even states it is a reloading issue.
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I did read them, and I realize that the problems were more than likey issues with ammunition/reloads. However, just do a quick search of the forums here for firearms that "blew up". There is actually quite a few, some were reloading mistakes, some were the wrong ammunition, and some were unknown. There is a certain amount of risk that you take when discharging any firearm, while lug setback is the most likely to happen it isn't the only thing that can happen.

I've been rolling most of my own ammunition since 1997, and I've had some minor issues like accidentally making a squib load. I actually once had to drive a bullet out of the barrel of a .44 mag because it didn't have enough powder to push the bullet out a 5.5" barrel. I've never had a cartridge blow up on me, but I've had a pierced primer from factory .204 Ruger ammo.
 
Reloading does provide a convenient scapegoat for rifle failures.

However I've seen the aftermath, and held it in my hands, when a 308 Win was set off in a 7mm Mag chamber (don't ask me how the thing fired in the first place, but it did) of a Mauser 98 hunting rifle.

In the pictures of the Swede 96 that failed and the Spanish 93 that failed, notice that the top of the receiver ring is the point of failure. It separates, and goes away. This isn't the only way that a receiver can fail, but it is the most common for small ring Mauser designs.

The large ring M98 actions, have a much thicker receiver ring to address this very issue, along with better gas handling safety features (flange on the bolt body to redirect gas, gas ports in the bolt to direct gas down into the magazine).

If you have a small ring Mauser, always keep your loads light. In my opinion, 45k CUP is on the hot side for a small ring Mauser, and that is below the starting loads for some modern rifle rounds.

A lot of folks really like those old Spanish small ring Mausers, and they handload the 308 down to 30-30 levels and have dandy little hunting rifles. But I wouldn't feel safe putting some 60k PSI loads through one.

Jimro
 
I can tell you how it fired. The claw extractor held it to the face of the bolt. I did this once and saw it done a few times by other people. It was a stupid mistake and I got away with it because the bullet diameters were the same. The other people were lucky too. There is a huge difference between the wrong ammunition and a hot load. I can't argue with you about the lighter design, but most gun blow ups are not gun failure, but shooter/builder/or ammunition failure. Back when Russian ammo was first being imported, I was shooting some wolf 7.62x39 in a bolt gun. With all the close firing and muffs on, I thought I had a dud round. When I jacked it out I saw it roll across the table and it had no bullet in it. The inside of the case was clean. Apparently only the primer was enough to jam the bullet up into the barrel. Had I loaded another round and fired, things could have gotten exciting. If you shoot enough, things are bound to happen. Any receiver can have flaws. I remember seeing a photo of a blown Model 70 Winchester receiver in one of P.O. Ackley's books. It was determined it was a flaw in the material. All you can do is be careful and research what you are going to shoot.
 
Gunplummer,

That's what I figured happened, the 308 slid up into the chamber and rested on the bottom, providing some support for the case, even though the smaller case head wasn't held very firmly by the magnum bolt face on the Mauser. The firing pin hit 0.029" off center because the 308 wasn't centered, just resting on the bottom of the chamber. The off center strike was enough to detonate the primer instead of overcoming the inertia of the cartridge to send it spinning loose up the chamber wall.

But when you look at a magnum bolt face on a Mauser...there isn't a lot of meat there to grab a standard cartridge, so I'm still amazed that it fired.

Jimro
 
The British arsenals relieved the barrel tenons a bit and used calibrated washers to set the headspace on SMLEs during the '50s and '60s, when they were using up assorted spares and recycled parts. Nothing wrong with a washer as long as your headspace and clocking comes out right.
 
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