spanish mauser .308?

[badgerben]

I found a spanish mauser in .308 for sale and I'm wondering what you guy's think of them? the barrels are short 21" I think it is a m 1916 short rifle. any info on these would be great. ben

[PaulS]

badgerben,
Some of these mausers are .311 or .312 bore diameter. They are rechambered to 308 and sold with the original barrels. They are safe enough to shoot but some are not as accurate as a sling shot.

PaulS

[Mikey]

badgerben:  PaulS is right about the accuracy of those rifles.  In addition, there was a lot of pretty frank discussion about the use of sporting 308 loads in those rifles and the general opinion is that they are safe enough for the 7.62x51 NATO round but some of the sporting 308 ammo is loaded to much higher pressures, making some question the safety of the rifle.  I think most of those posts can still be found lower down in this forum.  They might help you decide.  Hope this helps.  Mikey.

[John Traveler]

Badgerben,

I've seen and examined dozens of the M1916 spanish mausers in both the original 7 x 57mm and the .308 re-barreled calibers.  They were all Spanish military arsenal manufactured (marked Oviedo, La Coruna, etc).

LOTS of them have shown excessive headspace from bolt set-back and even from those that were properly gauged with replacement bolts at time of re-barreling.  Even in the original chamberings, many of these surplus rifles have seen so much abuse and firing with the hot military loads that they show excessive headspace.

In short, it's probably NOT a good idea to think about shooting one of these in .308 Winchester caliber.

[Oldtimer]

I had one for a while.  It was rebarrelled by the arsenal in the 1950's for the Spanish 7.62 CETME, which has the same dimensions as the 7.62 NATO, but is loaded to a lower pressure.  The bore was slick and I thought mine shot pretty well, after I replaced the front sight with a taller sight.  I took one deer with mine.  I loaded it with the lowest loads in the manuals, and tried to stay with loads under 40,000 cup.

[S.S.]

Here is the lowdown on mine.
Bore is .309 and is Quite accurate.
The OAL of a .308 Win is shorter than
a .7mm Mau. so it jams the bullet between the
chamber and and the top of the receiver with
every thing factory except 147 gr. pointed
FMJ rounds. There was a headspace problem
when I purchased the rifle, but it was easily
corrected.  The original front sight was very
fragile so it too is now replaced.
I like the gun NOW!
but I would not recommend purchasing one unless
you are willing to do some work on it.