I picked up an 1909 Argentine at a gunshow a few weeks ago with a military barrel, and I'm scratching my head a little. The barrel was serialized to the receiver so I assumed it was original, but it was stamped 30-06. I thought the South American Mausers were originally 7mm so I asked the guy if it had been rebored. He said "no, it was an 8mm barrel that was reamed to 30-06."

"Oh," I responded, "so it is actually an 8mm-06?"

"No, it's a 30-06" he re-asserted.

"But if it's an 8mm bore, how can it be a 30-06, and not an 8mm-06?" I asked once again.

"You just shoot 30-06 ammo and there is some 'wiggle room' in the bore" was the answer.

Not one to let go so easily I came back with "But if you handloaded you could put an 8mm bullet in a 30-06 case and shoot it in this rifle, correct?"

He scratched his head a little but finally admitted that this would indeed be possible.

That's when I stopped asking those kind of questions...

Anyhow, I wasn't buying it for the barrel, and when I got it home I did a little research and was reminded that some were arsenal rebarreled to 30-06. I checked the headspace and it was just fine, but for good measure decided to slug the bore to be sure after the discussion I had with the seller. It measures out at .310 versus the anticipated .308.

Is this the difference between 7.65mm and 7.62 bullets? Will there be too much "wiggle room" in the bore if I shoot conventional 30-06 ammo with .308 caliber bullets?

Most (if not all) of the '09s that were converted to 30-06 were arsenal rechambered only, not rebarreled. Hence, the accuracy of the rechambered rifles was somewhat iffy, but apparently acceptable to the Argentine military.

So they were originally 7.65mm?

Yes, original chambering was 7.65 x 53 Mauser. The Argentines finally settled on 7.65 x 54 as their designation.

Try some 3006 ammo in it.
Finnish (.310-.311)30russian/finnish ammo, are made with .308 bullets.

quote:

Originally posted by montea6b:
So they were originally 7.65mm?

But... I don't believe the original bore was what you would know as a .308 cal bore. The 7.65mm would otherwise indicate exactly that (or close), but don't forget, there is more than one way to establish "caliber" - bullet diameter, bore diameter over lands, bore diameter over grooves etc.

As far as I know, the 7.65 Arg had a bore larger than .308, but (slightly) smaller thean .323.

- mike

quote:

I checked the headspace and it was just fine, but for good measure decided to slug the bore to be sure after the discussion I had with the seller. It measures out at .310 versus the anticipated .308.

Has has slugged it.

quote:

Originally posted by Nordic2:
Try some 3006 ammo in it.
Finnish (.310-.311)30russian/finnish ammo, are made with .308 bullets.

The 7.62x54(53)r w/ a .308 bullet was in fact since the Finns in there marksmanship rifles rebarreled to a .308 bore. All of the 7.62x54r ammo I buy is .311/12 bullets.

rebarrel to 9.3X62....

The 7.65 argentine use .312-.313 bullets, same as the 303 Brit. I have had a couple of these rechambered 30.06 Argies, and they shot very well with 220 gr. Hornadys'. After shooting a standard 30-06 round, measure the case mouth o.d. and i.d., both of mine were big enough to take the 303 bullets with no pressure problems. Just get a .303 expander ball for your 30-06 resizer die. The Argentine govt. did not rechamber them, some importer did them in the 60's to make them sellable in the U.S.

quote:

"You just shoot 30-06 ammo and there is some 'wiggle room' in the bore"

"Wiggle Room"...there's a new one! So can I shoot 30-06 in my 9,3x62 since "wiggle room" isn't really a problem? Seriously, I worked at a gun store once and routinely had guys coming in insisting that they needed 300 or 7mm Weatherby for their 300 Win Mag or 7mm Rem Mag (but Weatherby made) rifles. Sometimes we would get the opposite. These type of people are why I always sit at the far side of the shooting range away from pretty much everyone.

JPat"
Sako loads 3006 and 7,62*53r with the same productnumber bullet 236A S Hammerhead.

quote:

Originally posted by tendrams:

quote:

"You just shoot 30-06 ammo and there is some 'wiggle room' in the bore"

"Wiggle Room"...there's a new one! So can I shoot 30-06 in my 9,3x62 since "wiggle room" isn't really a problem?

You bet! The gas escaping from the barrel just pulls the bullet along the way a race car will draft in the wake of the car ahead of it. I would actually anticipate a slight increase in velocity from this friction-free set up.

quote:

These type of people are why I always sit at the far side of the shooting range away from pretty much everyone.

tend ....

Another loner at the far end of the range? Funny, I do the same much of the time.



The above not for you but rather for .....

quote:

guys coming in insisting that they needed 300 or 7mm Weatherby for their 300 Win Mag or 7mm Rem Mag (but Weatherby made) rifles. Sometimes we would get the opposite.

As mentioned above, you have a 7.65mm Argentine rechambered for 30/06, but the bore remains the original nominal .311. This simply means that while you CAN shoot 30/06, you will have accuracy issues. No problem, you just need to reload, either, (1) pull the bullets from 30/06 ammunition and substitute the same weight projectile as made for the .303 British (a .311 projectile) or (2) as suggested by LEE440 above, substitute a .303 British expander ball in a 30/06 die and use .303 British projectiles. Oddly enough, an acquaintance of mine here in NZ has a similar rifle and does the same thing.

If you did the reload route with .311 bullets in your 06 cases AND you also own an 06 I would recommend you clearly make the .311 rounds. With the bullets being that close in diameter you might be able to chamber the .311 in the REAL 06 and that might be a painful mistake.

Remember what the neck and troat is made for 308 not 311.

I had one of those several years ago, and indeed it was not accurate with 30-06 ammo. I messed with it for a while, and spent some money on it, rebarreling, trigger, safety, new bolt handle, etc. and the darn thing set back. By that time I was so disgusted with it, that I sold it cheap to a guy who just loved thoes 1909s and wanted it even with the set back.

If I had one of those things, I would find that dog a new home, and get something you can count on. Apparantly they got away with such soft receivers because the 7.65x53 Mauser cartridge is such low pressure, but when you step it up to 06 pressure, the bolt sets back in the lugs.

Of course this will start the old argument about re-heat treatment & re-carborizing, whatever tha means. My advice is there's plenty of guys who will throw good money after bad, and buy this POS from you. Heck you might make a profit. Take it and buy something worth messing with, save yourself some trouble. The action may look pretty, but it's a sows ear, IMO.

There's plenty of "experts" who will disagree with me. So, sell it to one of them, if it makes them happy. They can be right, and you can take your profit and get something made to withstand modern cartridges, with proper metalurgy and proper heat treatment, made for sporting use at the factory.

The fact that this thing has been re-bored to 30-06 with a .310 barrel ought to be your first clue. I'm giving you the rest of the story. Your best bet is to make it a history story.

KB

Thanks for all the inputs. I originally thought I'd keep this as an open sighted sporter with this barrel, but it may not be worth it. I could probably part it out and get more than the $235 I paid for it, heck the hinged bottom metal alone is probably worth more than half that. Maybe I'll just hang on to it for a future project...

One suggestion, more on the positive side, is I'll bet a 9.3x57 would work great in one of those 1909 actions. If it's not already set back, seems to me that if you kept the loads really low pressure, you could get a lot of use out of the action. I believe the factory loads are low pressure too.

I know there are guys out there who will say he or his brother-in-law has a 1909 barreled in a magnum loud-n-thumper, and has shot it thousands of times over 20 years, and never had a problem. Well bully for him. Set back is still ruination for an action, and plenty of the 1909s will set back.

The ones I've seen are nicely machined actions though, and it would be nice to put them into good service. I can't think of a better cartridge for that than the 9.3x57.

KB

Good point. Or I could carburize it and not have to worry. I've got some thinking to do.

No hurry though, several other projects in line ahead of this one. It was an opportunity buy. Like I said I knew I could always part it out and cover the cost if I wanted.

Hi,
This rechambering is very common here in order to use some heavy machinegun 7,65 spare barrels that surface from time to time.
I have a friend that have both a .312-06 and a .312 "Win.Mag." He loved both even thou he have to reload.
Bullet changing is very easy in order to use those original Mauser barrels. Try them before rebarreling. While I was waiting for a .35 Whelen barrel I rebarreled one of my rifles with an old 7,65mm barrel. After trying it at the range, I never did any other rebarreling on this rifle.
JMHO
MArtin