I recently aquired a 7.92 Spanish mauser with the marking's, Fabrica De Armas, La Coruna 1945.
A friend said not to convert it to 338 cal because the steel quality was inferior and to soft to handle the pressure. The gun is in 80-85% condition. Is my friend's info correct? Thank's.

I have made them into 243win,270win,308win and some others.Have not seen those problems.

Me,

I'd sell it and buy a "good" action. Why dick around building on that action when for $25 more you can get a quality action? Just MHO.

Can you build on it, most likely, but why? If you do, set it up with minimum headspace.

Safety aside, consider resale, with the stigma attached, imagine resale of the Spanish rifle vs. a "known" action.

Thank's for the replie's. z1r, your comment make's good sense. Once in a while someone need's to wake me up.

It would be less expensive to just get another action, But you could send it out to be re heat treated. Jeff just did or is in process to send out a group of actions to get treated. $125 for the group Not bad in my book

quote:

Originally posted by kcstott:
It would be less expensive to just get another action, But you could send it out to be re heat treated. Jeff just did or is in process to send out a group of actions to get treated. $125 for the group Not bad in my book

In that case, I've got a deal for you.

KB

A few years ago, I decided to have a .308 mauser built on a Spanish Air Force 98 Mauser. The gunsmith put on a nice ex target barrel, and it worked quite well - no problems until about 300 rounds when the extraction became hard. I was shooting 150 gr Sierras with 44gr of Varget for 2750fps. Pulled the barrel and the lugs had set back. I had the gunsmith remachine the lug seats and sold it very cheap to a friend who intended to shoot it about 5 rounds a year - he reckoned it would do him for a while. I now shoot a Brazilian M98 1908 in the original 7x57mm. On the other hand, Parker Hale sourced most of their rifles including the high use PH 1200TX target versions from La Coruna - I presume they got the steel and heat treating right. Moral of the story - get a quality action and don't buy a pig in a poke.

quote:

Originally posted by KimW9:
Moral of the story - get a quality action and don't buy a pig in a poke.

And get it re-heat-treated if heavy usage is anticipated.
Regards, Joe

Thank's for all the information. It's gone!!