- Location
- Southern Vancouver Island
One could also go with the .375 Raptor as it has so much going for it performance wise and would function well in the M48 Yugo action.
Have a Yugo M48 Sporter. I want to rebarrel it to a "big bore"
- Thread starter The Kurgan
- Start date
Hmmmm, what's wrong with 8mm Mauser?
It should slam just about anything that you would want to hunt in North America and I'm a guy that owns a .375 H&H, 9.3 x 62, .416 Rigby, .458 Lott and a .500 Jeffy
Drop that barrelled action into a nice Boyds laminate if you want to beauty it up.
It should slam just about anything that you would want to hunt in North America and I'm a guy that owns a .375 H&H, 9.3 x 62, .416 Rigby, .458 Lott and a .500 Jeffy
Drop that barrelled action into a nice Boyds laminate if you want to beauty it up.
I agree, the 8x57 loaded to 2600fps, with 196 grain bullets is a mauler
Mind you, if the OP is just looking to have fun, go for whatever will fit and like.
It may be cheaper and more prudent to purchase a ready built rifle from Intersurplus than have one built.
Mind you, if the OP is just looking to have fun, go for whatever will fit and like.
It may be cheaper and more prudent to purchase a ready built rifle from Intersurplus than have one built.
Most folks just don't understand why the rifles were built with this bore size.
They couldn't get enough retained energy to reliably drop the animals they were hunting, at relatively close range, anywhere from 10-150 meters, with lighter bullets, up to 33 caliber. Many shooters couldn't handle the recoil generated by the larger calibers, so these "intermediate" calibers were designed and offered. They were well designed and still will do an exceptional job.
Most folks are all about speed today, for all sorts of reasons.
For those that have experienced calibers in the 9.3 diameter range or close, will attest, if your shooting requirements are under 300 yds, these cartridges offer some of the best real life performance available in light rifles, with acceptable recoil/energy/accuracy results.
When a bullet is well placed, the real results need to be seen to be believed.
When these cartridges were first offered, the bullet selection was limited at best and often "proprietary" to the custom builder, who often had the only tooling available to make matching ammunition to the firearms they built.
Not only that, the rifles were often custom ordered and after they became relatively popular and were offered commercially, it wasn't uncommon to encounter all sorts of dimensional variations and differing action strengths.
The same goes for both the commercial and proprietary ammunition/bullets/cartridge cases being offered.
They will all be close dimensionally but nothing like we're able to expect from recently manufactured firearms/ammunition/components.
I've spoken to folks who were in their 70s when I was 10. They had hunted Africa, SE Asia, Sweden, etc. They often lamented how difficult it was to get reliably accurate ammunition for their rifles and how much effort they had to put into keeping the rifles accurate enough for their purposes.
Today, a rifle shooting 8-10 cm groups would be considered unacceptable by most on this site and in truth, most shooters.
New tech has improved performance of most cartridges from what would be considered acceptable in the time period they were designed, well over 100 years ago, to phenomenal today.
Good quality components are now available and with a bit of TLC/Diligence, most of the century old rifles can be loaded to shoot well.
However, the purpose those rifles, chambered for hasn't changed. They are not and were never intended to be LONG RANGE shooters.
Some will get their hackles up over that, but it's true.
Many of the early custom and some semi custom commercial rifles had flip up, leaf style rear sights with heights set for different ranges, out to almost unbelievable distances. These sights were filed for a "specific load" to be acceptable at those ranges, for windage and elevation. With the advent of scopes, this was no longer a requirement, but depending on the intended purpose of the rifle, leaf sights were still prudent and the only sight options to be found on many of these rifles.
Bullet selection is not bad for these rifles today, but it still isn't anywhere near as good as it is for more popular diameters.
The trend for bullet weights tends to be on the "heavy" side, mostly because most people who shoot these relatively large diameter bullets understand what they were intended for.
250+ grain bullets driven anywhere from 2200-2500 fps are maulers right out to 300 meters but their best performance, both energy and accuracy wise, is 200 meters or less.
Right up close and personal, point blank, to 50 meters, there aren't any animals in most of the world that can stand up to a well placed shot.
They couldn't get enough retained energy to reliably drop the animals they were hunting, at relatively close range, anywhere from 10-150 meters, with lighter bullets, up to 33 caliber. Many shooters couldn't handle the recoil generated by the larger calibers, so these "intermediate" calibers were designed and offered. They were well designed and still will do an exceptional job.
Most folks are all about speed today, for all sorts of reasons.
For those that have experienced calibers in the 9.3 diameter range or close, will attest, if your shooting requirements are under 300 yds, these cartridges offer some of the best real life performance available in light rifles, with acceptable recoil/energy/accuracy results.
When a bullet is well placed, the real results need to be seen to be believed.
When these cartridges were first offered, the bullet selection was limited at best and often "proprietary" to the custom builder, who often had the only tooling available to make matching ammunition to the firearms they built.
Not only that, the rifles were often custom ordered and after they became relatively popular and were offered commercially, it wasn't uncommon to encounter all sorts of dimensional variations and differing action strengths.
The same goes for both the commercial and proprietary ammunition/bullets/cartridge cases being offered.
They will all be close dimensionally but nothing like we're able to expect from recently manufactured firearms/ammunition/components.
I've spoken to folks who were in their 70s when I was 10. They had hunted Africa, SE Asia, Sweden, etc. They often lamented how difficult it was to get reliably accurate ammunition for their rifles and how much effort they had to put into keeping the rifles accurate enough for their purposes.
Today, a rifle shooting 8-10 cm groups would be considered unacceptable by most on this site and in truth, most shooters.
New tech has improved performance of most cartridges from what would be considered acceptable in the time period they were designed, well over 100 years ago, to phenomenal today.
Good quality components are now available and with a bit of TLC/Diligence, most of the century old rifles can be loaded to shoot well.
However, the purpose those rifles, chambered for hasn't changed. They are not and were never intended to be LONG RANGE shooters.
Some will get their hackles up over that, but it's true.
Many of the early custom and some semi custom commercial rifles had flip up, leaf style rear sights with heights set for different ranges, out to almost unbelievable distances. These sights were filed for a "specific load" to be acceptable at those ranges, for windage and elevation. With the advent of scopes, this was no longer a requirement, but depending on the intended purpose of the rifle, leaf sights were still prudent and the only sight options to be found on many of these rifles.
Bullet selection is not bad for these rifles today, but it still isn't anywhere near as good as it is for more popular diameters.
The trend for bullet weights tends to be on the "heavy" side, mostly because most people who shoot these relatively large diameter bullets understand what they were intended for.
250+ grain bullets driven anywhere from 2200-2500 fps are maulers right out to 300 meters but their best performance, both energy and accuracy wise, is 200 meters or less.
Right up close and personal, point blank, to 50 meters, there aren't any animals in most of the world that can stand up to a well placed shot.
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What you will run into, if you decide to re-barrel your M48 to 9.3x62, is that unless you have the magazine lengthened & widened [otherwise you will only be able to load 3 in your mag.], is that most factory ammunition will not work, except Norma. That is because its magazine length is only 3.232", shorter even than the M96 Swede magazine length of 3.240", unlike the 3.315" of M98 standard [8x57 length] Mausers or 3.435" on .30-06 length M98's.
If you like the thumb-cut on your M48 & want to quick-load the ammunition in a clip [you must use 6.5x55 clips for the 9.3x62] for an iron-sighted rig, it gets even worse, as the stripper clip pushes the ammunition forward a bit.
If you like the thumb-cut on your M48 & want to quick-load the ammunition in a clip [you must use 6.5x55 clips for the 9.3x62] for an iron-sighted rig, it gets even worse, as the stripper clip pushes the ammunition forward a bit.
Simplest fix would be an intersurplus Mauser barrel pre chambered and turned, ready to go for the 9.3x62
https://intersurplus.com/collections/riffle-barrels/products/copy-of-remington-597-barrel-in-17-hmr
The url is ####ed (but does work). I can't get the correct barrel to copy. This next link will show the barrel it's $169
https://intersurplus.com/collections/riffle-barrels
I used one of the 458 winmag barrels for my 460 project.
https://intersurplus.com/collections/riffle-barrels/products/copy-of-remington-597-barrel-in-17-hmr
The url is ####ed (but does work). I can't get the correct barrel to copy. This next link will show the barrel it's $169
https://intersurplus.com/collections/riffle-barrels
I used one of the 458 winmag barrels for my 460 project.
