Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Mausers and Military Rifles 7.62x39 Carcano project thread

Give a stranger $500 to kick you in the nuts.
Sane end result and you’ll save a LOT of time.

Well, life’s had me pretty busy the last week or so between the triple whammy of a sinus infection, inner ear infection, and outer ear infection, college, and a few other odds and ends. Picked up the drill press (finally) Friday night, went ahead and cut the barrel behind the rear sight mounts, and drilled and tapped the barrel stud tonight. My drill press moves just a tad fast to do threads that way I learned pretty quick, but it did a good job of going 3/8”-1/2”-11/16” drill bits through the stud. Threads were done pushing the press down on the tap lightly while I turned it with a wrench after I opened up the very front a tad too far attempting to cut the threads with my drill press. Barrel threads will have to wait for me to pick up either a new saw battery so I can cut up some 4x4 or a couple pieces of 2x4 to hold it straight. Either way, progress!

I geuss it is your vision of what you want.

Imo you coulda bought some new 7.62x 39 bolt rifle on the market for what your putting money and time wise into your project..
Not slamming your project just strikes me as strange based on a caranco of all things....
But I understand winter projects completely.

Why aint you making that wood part out of filed and sanded smooth aluminum???
Makes no sense to me you spent time fitting a chunk of wood when you could have done the same with aluminum ...
I would take the time and fashion a aluminum part and schit can that peice of wood.
Just makes no sense to use wood to me.


Good luck with it all.
👍👍👍

Had the wood on hand, I was going to create a CAD file and 3D print it but I got impatient. Perhaps with the next one if I do more

A 3d printed mag block would be neat, would make Carcano conversions much simpler knowing that the magazine conversion is as simple as inserting a 3d printed block!

I don't see what the big deal is about using wood? It is much easier to work with and in this case gets the job done fine. Plus its been used in other Carcano conversions in the past too, cost effectively.

Can't wait to see if the feed works well once the barrel is installed, after that should just be tinkering with the sights.

I’ve still got to install my interrupter too don’t forget lol

This is the most ambitious do it yourself gun project considering the potential successful end result, IMO, I've ever heard of. Got to give you credit, you're hangin in there and doing a lot of, to me, relatively complicated work yourself. Best of luck, hope you get what you want out of it.

Alright, so been a bit but I do have updates. First off, the interrupter slot has been “machined”, albeit poorly. I do not recommend replicating this and instead using the M.95M Yugo style insert. A flat relief was cut for the 88/05 spring, and a hole drilled; however, I did not tap the hole as it ran into the ejector hole.



Im relying on the wood to hold the spring in place against the receiver, as I had cut it a bit for a relief.



Fully assembled magazine area:



Notice that one side had to be bent in a bit, also another reason I’d suggest the M.95M Yugo approach over the Gewehr 88/05 interrupter.

Now for the final photo of the night, the barrel joint. This was very slowly built up with flux welds, tacked to prevent messing up the metal. I’m still in process of reshaping it.



I do need to install sights still, is there a good way to be sure these are done straight in a diy fashion?

Receiver, magazine, and barrel will be hit with high temp engine paint once I’m satisfied.

Well, barring any unpleasant surprises, I believe we are at the end of the road with this project. It will feed reliably if you work the bolt like a man under pressure, sights are affixed at least temporarily, everything is refinished. All that remains is to take it to the range and see how accurate or otherwise this rifle is with cheap steel case. Here’s a couple photos of the end result, I ended up shortening the bubba stock another 2 inches before I sanded it down and slapped it with a good oil based stain.





She’s a little rough around the edges but for being a first time project and a Carcano, I’d say it turned out alright

Nice!

You got it all together super quick haha, was about to ask how the feeding was working but now I see that feeding is working pretty well.

Can't wait to hear about your range report.

Should be able to report back Friday evening, as me and a few buddies are headed down to the local public range to see what we can figure out. I’ll make sure to have photos of the target afterwards

Great, let us know how she shoots.

Well, she goes bang pretty consistently with Tula steel case, but the epoxied sights fell off while I was trying to get it sorted. Going to have to take it to a professional to get those mounted it looks like, then try again.

Brownells has some good low temp silver solder that works great for sights.
If you haven't done that before, clean top of barrel and base of sights, apply Flux, heat and tin both surfaces. Hold sight in place with camp or jig, then heat both surfaces until the solder flows...

It’s actually going to be headed to a friend, but I’ll keep that in mind when I convert the next Carcano.

This is one of those projects that will end up being priceless in terms of knowledge gained, so who CARES. I gathered a handful of wrecked SKS carcasses back during the Chinese flood and I'm still learning from them.

You go, fellah!

Love the look of the end result!

Able to get the sights fixed? Curious to see how she groups.

I had trouble getting it on paper, but it turned out the sights still weren’t on straight. It is no longer in my ownership because someone offered me $450 cash for it at the range and I wasn’t going to turn that down, but last I heard he was waiting on his gunsmith to get through his backlog so that the sights could be mounted by a professional this time.