1912 Chilean in .308 After 5 rounds it becomes quite hard to pull the bolt back. It will chamber commercial and my hand loads no problem. I have done the steel wool in the chamber, it's clean and seems smooth. Is it possible that the chamber needs to be larger and if so is it possible to do by a gunsmith? The barrel is a U.S. 1903A3 with a pristine bore, a great shooter except for this problem. Thanks
Another Mauser question
- Thread starter lyman54
- Start date
No, I'm loading pretty mild. I should mention that even though it's 7.62N those have a hard time ejecting from the start.
My friend just received some of that. That would tell me a lot. Thanks
It may be the opposite is the case, the chamber may be a little oversize. The cases may be expanding too much and sticking to the chamber walls. The 98 Mauser has plenty of power for primary extraction in a correctly dimensioned chamber even with hot loads, if they are too warm you should see flattened primers. An oily chamber seems to make cases stick sometimes as well. My 2 cents.
Thanks Mike. I didn't think of a too large chamber. Primers seem to be fine, however some brass will come out with a dent at the shoulder. There is a part of the action just in front of the chamber that seems very sharp. I should try and file it a bit. Also I'll bring it to a smith and have it checked out. I did have the head space checked prior to shooting it and it was ok. Perhaps the Chilean armorer who did the swap from 8mm screwed up a bit.
Claven2 has it, of course.
Chambers MUST be DRY!
I'm thinking that if this is a Springfield barrel, now attached to a Mauser, starting off as a .30-'06 and now a .308, some work has definitely been done. Shoulder angles on the .308 and the '06 are quite different, as are neck length, so it is entirely likely that enough was whacked off the back end of the barrel to compensate for this, then the thing reamed to take the .308W. Reamers get dull and need to be resharpened. If the reamer was sharpened too much (or not carefully enough), you could have a slightly-undersize chamber. This would serve to boost pressures and give the results with which you are struggling.
Just load a bit lighter: the tight chamber will boost things back up for a net expenditure of zero powder. Are you using a chronograph? It's always much better to KNOW exactly what you are dealing with, than just to guess.
BTW, Chilean '95 Mausers took the rather mild 7x57 cartridge, which had a working pressure almost 10000 psi lower than the wonderful .308. Careful!
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Chambers MUST be DRY!
I'm thinking that if this is a Springfield barrel, now attached to a Mauser, starting off as a .30-'06 and now a .308, some work has definitely been done. Shoulder angles on the .308 and the '06 are quite different, as are neck length, so it is entirely likely that enough was whacked off the back end of the barrel to compensate for this, then the thing reamed to take the .308W. Reamers get dull and need to be resharpened. If the reamer was sharpened too much (or not carefully enough), you could have a slightly-undersize chamber. This would serve to boost pressures and give the results with which you are struggling.
Just load a bit lighter: the tight chamber will boost things back up for a net expenditure of zero powder. Are you using a chronograph? It's always much better to KNOW exactly what you are dealing with, than just to guess.
BTW, Chilean '95 Mausers took the rather mild 7x57 cartridge, which had a working pressure almost 10000 psi lower than the wonderful .308. Careful!
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