Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Is 7mm-08 safe in a single lug 93 action?

That occurred to me as well, but the OP didn't build it or offer it for sale, he's just buying it. If it were mine and I was going to sell it, I'd probably have the barrel stamped with "40,000 CUP" or something of the sort.

The Chuckhawks article referenced above had a good idea: make it into a .35 Remington or .300 Savage. It's not exactly in keeping with the cheap rifle theme, but maybe worth doing if the "donor" is as nice as it appears. Surely a '93 is as strong as a Remington Model 81!

for starters the 93 action is not a single lug action , secondly for many years there has been so called custom smiths who have rebarreled these soft actions to .243,.308 and other nonsense. They are low pressure capable only and doing such is playing with a live grenade. Oh and yes I have about 40 years building Mauser actioned rifles.

I think the shop owner was trying to tell me the 93 bolt has one less lug than a 98 action and he just misspoke and said it was single lug. This is the oldest shop in Hickory NC and they specialize in old military stuff.

Doing a little research I discovered the Spanish rechambered a bunch of 1893's to 7.62 Nato!

I believe those were intended for the 7.62 CETME round, which was loaded to a lower pressure.

Yes 93/95s were rebarreled to a number of other calibres after the countries that held them in war reserve sold them off.

I don't know how old you are, but from the 1950s to the 1970s, bolt action military surplus rifles were selling dirt cheap. Lots of businesses made money selling sporterized versions of the Mausers, Lee Enfields, MNs, Arisakas, etc.

Every once in a while we joked about buying milsurps out of a barrel at the gunshop for $10 to $15. I doubt we'll see those days again.

WRT rechambering the 93/95s to 7.62 NATO, that was a transitory step for many countries that could not afford state of the art military hardware, so they often bought someone else's war reserve cast offs or converted their own. That and the 7.62 CETME.

I remember being at the S.S. Kresge store, the chain that morphed into K-Mart, in Claremont, NH, in 1962/63 and getting cosmoline from a barrel full of 1894 Swedish Mauser carbines on my hands and then wiping them on my winter coat. Boy, was my Mother PISSED! I don't think that she ever got the cosmoline off that jacket and you can be sure that she dredged the memory up for several years after it happened. I don't think that she ever took me with her to the Kresge store again.

The only small ring military Mausers that I've seen converted to 7.62x51 are the Spanish 1893 that are commonly called the "1916 Guardia Civil" rifles. I believe that these were made at the Oviedo arsenal and have the Guardia Civil crest and the date of manufacture stamped on the top of the receiver ring.

Personally, you couldn't give me a 93/95 Mauser that was re-barreled to .308. Whoever converted the one in question here did a Bubba job on the bolt handle. Bolt handles are things of subtle elegance when done right, and shouldn't end up looking like the tail of a Dachshund...

There's really no reason to have rebarreled a 93 to 7-08. Kind of a "why?" kind of conversion. 7x57 is the ballistic twin and just as easy if not easier to get.
I rebarreled a Husky M46 in 257 Roberts. I toyed with the idea of 300 Savage or 7.65 Belgian/Aregentine which would both be fine to do if I wanted a 30 caliber bore.
Really, the only advantage to a small ring Mauser is coolness factor. It's easier, safer, and usually cheaper to buy a modern short action for the 260/7-08/308/358 family of cartridges i.e. Axis, Ruger American, etc.

There isn't much reason to convert old war surplus rifles these days. It was big business years ago, but with the advert of inexpensive Savages, RARs, etc, the allure has faded.

I would rather buy an Axis in 7mm-08, rather than convert an old Mauser. That said, there are people like me that enjoy reworking milsurp castoffs. Chacun à son goût!

Steve,
Like you I've rebarreled and converted a bunch of already "sporterized" Mausers because I can and I enjoy it. I agree that if you have to pay anyone for anything, just buy a new gun. People still want to do it, but it is neither practical nor economical unless you can do all of it yourself.

Even though this rifle could do more, it might be a cool cast bullet shooter.

I guess I could ream ît to 7x57 right?

The 7x57 case has a lot more taper than the 7mm08, I'm sure the reamer wouldn't clean up the chamber without setting the barrel way back.

Best advice I think is to shoot it with 7x57 pressure loads.

Ok. Thanks.