What to do with a 7.62 chilean mauser.

N

nemesiss45

New member
I was given an 1895 chilean mauser in 7.62 nato a while ago and it has been sitting in my safe gathering dust. I was waiting to get through more pressing projects before looking at it. When I chamber a round in it, it leaves a nasty scrape on the cartridge, but seems to function well otherwise, though I have not attempted to fire it. I have read about the potentially hazardous chamber sleeve, so I am not sure I really want to use it in its current state.
I see 3 options, and would like opinions from some of you who know mausers better than I.
Should I:
1) keep it as is to preserve its historical integrety and just load up some powder puff loads for when I want to shoot it
2) rebarrel it back to its original 7mm while keeping its original style.
3) rebarrel and sporterize it into a hunting style rifle (also, what are the best chamberings for this route)

Thanks in advance for your advice.
 
I don't know how much "historical" value is in an arsenal re-barreled central or south American rifle. Where are you referencing a "chamber sleeve" I've never heard that one before? Though I don't know much about the 1895's.

Easiest thing to do is polish the chamber or have it done, and shoot .308 loaded down to .300 Savage levels or cast bullet loads out of it. Just keep loads down to around 50,000 psi and you'll be golden, a Lyman reloading manual would be a good reference to have since it has both cast and jacketed loads and list a lot of pressures for those loads.

Next cheapest thing to do would be to find a take off small ring 7X57mm barrel and have it installed and headspace checked. I'm pretty sure if you look around someone has NOS or reproduction military small ring barrels in stock. I don't know if I'd buy a used barrel unless I could return it for a refund.

Cartridges you can sporterize to are, .250 Savage, .257 Roberts, 6.5X55, 7X57, .300 Savage, 7.62X39, 8X57, 9X57 (.358X57), .35 Rem, and 9.3X57 as well as many others. Most people who do a 9X57 use a .358 caliber barrel instead of a 9mm(.356) due to the better selection of rifle bullets. I don't recommend this unless you can do most of the work yourself. A lot of gunsmiths don't want to take on these projects.
 
No need to rebarrel or use "powder puff loads". Most starting loads for .308 are within the pressure limits of the 95 action (45000CUP) and are as good or better than 300 Savage factory equivalent.
 
I think right now I am leaning toward either doing a 7x57 NOS barrel and keeping it looking how it does now I doing a 6.5x55 swede sporter conversion. I have a really nice swede already, but it would be nice to have one I could play around with.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top