Was the Mauser 93 (Oviedo) action made for black powder???

I'm no expert, but, I don't believe that the 7x57 was ever a blackpowder round.

Roger

quote:

Originally posted by Rojelio:
I'm no expert, but, I don't believe that the 7x57 was ever a blackpowder round.

Roger

This is what I think as well...but just had a knowledgeable gunsmith tell me that my 93 Oveido action was made for blackpowder and it was not safe to shoot with smokeless.

Any thoughts here???

The 93 mauser was developed around cartridges that generate 45,000 PSI like the orginal 7x57MM loads. Many of today's loading manuals list loads for the 7x57 that were developed in stonger modern actions that could cause problems with a true 1993 mauser actions. There are some very good cartridges that can be safely loaded for these actions. The 7x57 being one.

Lane check your PMs.

Lane the 1893 was developed for smokeless powder just not loaded to as high a pressure cartridges as we try to use today. Spain first used it agaist the US in 1898, it was our first military action agaist smokeless powder.

Lowell

Here is a link you will find interesting

http://www.spanamwar.com/spanishmauser.htm

Lowell

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:

quote:

Originally posted by Rojelio:
I'm no expert, but, I don't believe that the 7x57 was ever a blackpowder round.

Roger

This is what I think as well...but just had a knowledgeable gunsmith tell me that my 93 Oveido action was made for blackpowder and it was not safe to shoot with smokeless.

Any thoughts here???

I don't think the gunsmith is very knowledgeable at all.

What Craigster said.
Regards, Joe

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:

........

Any thoughts here???

Yeah, the smith is an idiot, find another.

I got an 1891 Argentine mauser that was chamber in 7.65 X 53mm and it is ballistically equal to a 7.62 nato.

The 7.65 is loaded to 50,000 psi And is a relatively strong action considering it age.
But I can't rechamber it to .308 and hope it holds together. As the .308 win is rated at 55,000 PSI and would be just to much for this action.

Oh and it shot smokeless powder loads back in the day.

Rifle is currently undergoing a rebuild that is near completion .220 swift was the rechambering

quote:

This is what I think as well...but just had a knowledgeable gunsmith tell me that my 93 Oveido action was made for blackpowder and it was not safe to shoot with smokeless.

You can tell your gunsmith that i said he's full of shit!
Paul B.

Thanks all!!!

FYI the 8X57 was created in 1888 and the 7X57 in 1893.

Both as far as I can tell were never loaded with black powder.

Both are rated at 57,000 PSI and my 7.65 Arg is rated at 56,565 PSI

So if the rifle is able to shot those rounds it will handle any moderate pressure modern load.

That guy is no gunsmith, knowledgeable or not

Do you really believe that your 91 Mauser is
rated for 56565 PSI?. Or is that the average
pressure of the cartridge?.
Good luck!

Why wouldn't it be??? That is the design spec from Berlin in 1891. Now I know velocity doesn't equal pressure. But if you compare the original bullet weight and velocity it's not too far off from loadings offered by Norma.

All I ever shot out of that rifle was Factory ammo As in mil surp ammo and it handled that for ten year till the 100 year old barrel finally gave up. Worn out not a headspace problem.

See the thing is, Not all small ring mausers are created equal. I'm not saying I can load mine to High pressure and expect to keep it going for a long time. But I have no doubt that 50,000 psi is not over board.

You need to remember what the rifle was originally chamber for. My 1891 was chamber for the 7.65 Arg. that sent a 174 gr bullet @ 2300 fps
That's just 400 fps short of the original .308 rated at 62,000 psi

If it was chambered for 6.5X55 then I'd be concerned

But the funny thing is Saami list a 7X57 with the same bullet weight and velocity on two different pages of a test resulst PDF I have and one set lists 46K and the other list 51K PSI????
Same bullet same velocity?????

It is truly remarkable that in 1891 they could
measure 556565 psi accurately, let alone design
a rifle to handle that exact pressure.
Good Luck!

FWIW I've been building and using these pre-98 small-ring Mausers in various chamberings for almost 40 years. My favorites are the Loewe-made 1891 Argentines and 1895 Chileans, they make up into splendid little sporters with almost any short- or medium-length cartridge. My personal deer rifle is an 1895 chambered in 280 Rem, built it back in the last century sometime(G) and have had no issues whatsoever.

22-250, 243 Win, 6mm Rem, 6.5-257, 6.5x55, 270 Win, 7x57, 280 Rem, 308 Win, 7.65 Argentine, 8x57 and 9x57, I've built and used them all in these little actions with full loads and with no trouble. Yes, these actions are soft, as soft as most 1898s but also like most 1898s, they give no trouble unless the headspace or the load is excessive. JMOFWIW but I have 40 years' empirical evidence with these in some fairly hot loadings.
Regards, Joe

What I believe is the issue is liability. And that is why no one will make a "drop in barrel" for a small ring in a modern chambering. There are just to many variables involved to try to control that are not in your control as a company. So just build barrels in calibers that you know are safe and the only way someone could hurt them selves is if they made a mistake in reloading.

And reloading would almost always prevent any kind of liability law suit.

The other thing is I would not sell one of these rifle to someone I did not trust to load properly.

Just as with a 98 you can over load a 7X57 and have some issues quick but if you keep the loads on the mild side and not try to push things right up to and past factory loads there should be no issue. But as with all hand loaders, my self included. We try to squeak every bit of performance out of a cartridge, With out thinking to much of the consequences.

But there is nothing preventing someone from buy a large ring barrel in .220 swift and turning off the threads, rethreading to small ring and head spacing to the action. Yep I'm guilty But I know what the rifle is capable of and will not exceed that because it's my face behind that bolt. Not that I think anything is going to happen but just a healthy dose of respect.

I respect Joe's opinion and experience and he's back up by other evidence that confirms his findings Parker Ackley Blew up evry action known to man just to see where they would fail. That takes balls for one and show a real interest in his kraft. Every gun nut out there traces the strength of an action back to Akley one way or another.

Akley never reported on the 93 Mauser.
Small ring Mausers have little metal left
over the locking lug. A blown case can take
the side out of the receiver. Thats why the
Springfield, and the 98 were beefed up.
Good luck!

A serious question for all here:

Have you ever seen a blown-up Mauser, of any ring size or type?

Was it shattered or bulged or if not, just exactly what happened to it? Was the bolt blown out of it?

I'm talking about actual visual up-close-&-personal sightings, not second-hand stories from someone else's experience. And yes, I've had such an up-close-&-personal sighting myself, a 35 Rem cartridge fired in a 270 Mauser about 10 feet behind me at the range.

I'll tell you all about it if you'll tell me about yours. If any of you've ever actually SEEN a blown-up Mauser, that is.....
Regards, Joe

I have seen photo's of small ringmausers with
the metal over the right lug blown out.
The only bolts that I have ever heard of that
came out of the action were Weatherby's.
Good luck!

So then explain to me why they chambered the 1891 Argentine in a cartridge that is damn near identical to the 7.62 NATO, And for that matter why is a 7X57 considered a small ring chambering when it is only offered in ONE pressure lever. Unlike the 45-70 that comes in three loading from the factory. You have falling block and trapdoor pressure, lever action, the the ruger #1 and bolt action rifles. But the factory doesn't seem to be to concerned with the 7x57???

Like I said I shot the rifle for years with FN made surplus ammo. If it was to hot It would have set the lugs back on the soft action. NO SUCH SET BACK OCCURRED.

And I'm sure Germany didn't have a means to accurately measure pressure down to the gnats ass like that I'm sure that was a some kind of mistake but that the number I have from my library of book and documents

quote:

Originally posted by hawkins:
I have seen photo's of small ringmausers with
the metal over the right lug blown out.
The only bolts that I have ever heard of that
came out of the action were Weatherby's.
Good luck!

I'd be VERY interested to learn the source of the photos! I've been eagerly learning about action blowups since the 1960s when a friend blew up a bunch of them when experimenting with hyper-velocity stuff for the DoD. Of course almost everyone has seen the FUBARs pictured in Hatcher and Ackley including the shattered pre-64 M70 receiver, but I'm seeking further info, similar to John Buhmiller's blowup attempts as shown in Dick Simmons' Custom Built Rifles. Any source of info would be greatly appreciated!
Regards, Joe

Thanks, Bobster! More info is always better. There are several interesting things to consider in that incident and the resulting posts.

The photos tell the major part of the story and, to me at least, don't point directly to any particular design weakness in the action itself. The failure mode is evident, it was a blown case head IMO due to lack of support at the web. The receiver ring was apparently cracked already and had been cracked at least long enough to become discolored. And the load was unknown so....

The photos are interesting since they illustrate the ductility of the steel. If you'll notice, there is no shattering as there would have been if the steel had been brittle; certainly the right-side wall is weaker than the left-side one because it's thinner, but is it thin enough to cause problems? To me, this question is not answered by this incident since there were the instances of presumed cracking and the use of questionable ammo.

The photos and posts are VERY interesting, thanks for posting!
Regards, Joe