The Norinco 54-1 to be exact.
This has been done before and I was itching to try it myself. The very strong design, the action and mag designed for the 1.350" 7.62x25TT round, and cheap 9mm barrels make this an inexpensive project. You use the 7.62x25TT mag (the one without the spacer) with the 38 Super/9x23 - too easy.
Not exactly drop in:
- needed a 9mm barrel that did not have a chrome bore (the carbide reamers you require for chrome are mucho expensive). So I found a source for non-chromed 9mm Tok barrels here on Gunnutz
- Brownells sells a reamer for less than $100 delivered. I chose the 9x23 Win reamer so that I could shoot both the 9x23 (with its thick, very strong, high pressure brass), or the much more common and less expensive 38 Super. After all was done, the chamber was on the "generous" side, which makes for easier chambering and extraction - accuracy and brass life are not prime concerns at this point. The 9mm Luger has the largest casehead size of the three, so the 9x23 came closest to cleaning it up.
- the reaming took at most an hour. Then I had to fit the barrel to the existing barrel bushing by removing about 0.005". The new barrel is a better fit than the one I replaced which almost rattled in the bushing.
- 9x23 and 38 Super now dropped in nicely, but when I tried a dummy round with the bullet in place, I found that the Brownells reamer cut a very short throat. Easy, but inelegant fix - I opened up the throat with a 23/64" (0.359") carbide twist drill and added about 0.150" of freebore. Now I could load my bullet of choice to near the mag length capacity.
- however, the bore slugged to 0.357", and 0.355" bullets were keyholing. So I tried a 0.358" bullet, but then the chamber was pinching the brass over the bullet, which is very bad. Again, inelegant, but a 25/64" (0.390") chucking reamer opened up the chamber to accomodate that.
- I had to "tune" the extractor a bit to get reliable chambering - another hour.
Now it shoots like gangbusters and is more accurate than before (but I did not say it was accurate
). The remaining problem is the recoil spring. The bugger sends out 125's at over 1300 fps and really slams the slide back, ejecting the brass about 25'. No-one I know of makes a stiffer recoil spring, so I'll just need to put up with it with the hotter loads.
This has been done before and I was itching to try it myself. The very strong design, the action and mag designed for the 1.350" 7.62x25TT round, and cheap 9mm barrels make this an inexpensive project. You use the 7.62x25TT mag (the one without the spacer) with the 38 Super/9x23 - too easy.
Not exactly drop in:
- needed a 9mm barrel that did not have a chrome bore (the carbide reamers you require for chrome are mucho expensive). So I found a source for non-chromed 9mm Tok barrels here on Gunnutz
- Brownells sells a reamer for less than $100 delivered. I chose the 9x23 Win reamer so that I could shoot both the 9x23 (with its thick, very strong, high pressure brass), or the much more common and less expensive 38 Super. After all was done, the chamber was on the "generous" side, which makes for easier chambering and extraction - accuracy and brass life are not prime concerns at this point. The 9mm Luger has the largest casehead size of the three, so the 9x23 came closest to cleaning it up.
- the reaming took at most an hour. Then I had to fit the barrel to the existing barrel bushing by removing about 0.005". The new barrel is a better fit than the one I replaced which almost rattled in the bushing.
- 9x23 and 38 Super now dropped in nicely, but when I tried a dummy round with the bullet in place, I found that the Brownells reamer cut a very short throat. Easy, but inelegant fix - I opened up the throat with a 23/64" (0.359") carbide twist drill and added about 0.150" of freebore. Now I could load my bullet of choice to near the mag length capacity.
- however, the bore slugged to 0.357", and 0.355" bullets were keyholing. So I tried a 0.358" bullet, but then the chamber was pinching the brass over the bullet, which is very bad. Again, inelegant, but a 25/64" (0.390") chucking reamer opened up the chamber to accomodate that.
- I had to "tune" the extractor a bit to get reliable chambering - another hour.
Now it shoots like gangbusters and is more accurate than before (but I did not say it was accurate
). The remaining problem is the recoil spring. The bugger sends out 125's at over 1300 fps and really slams the slide back, ejecting the brass about 25'. No-one I know of makes a stiffer recoil spring, so I'll just need to put up with it with the hotter loads.
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