Spanish M1916 Mauser in .308 - Safe/unsafe investigation

[Pancho Villa]

Hello all,

I am looking for CONFIRMABLE stories regarding Spanish M1916 mausers that were rechambered to 7.62 NATO and imported by Samco marked .308W going kaboom when used with commercial .308 winchester ammunition.

There has been much hoopla on the interwebz about how it is dangerous to fire .308win in these rifles but I have looked the last few days for actual confirmed cases of this happening. So far all I have is some hand loader loading up pistol powder in a .308 case, with the expected results. All the rest have been Swedish mausers of particular years known for brittle receivers, several of which were still in 6.5 x 55mm (and still, as far as I can ascertain, using hand loads hotter than is prudent.)

So if anyone has any substantiated stories on this subject I would very much appreciate it.

In the meantime I have emailed Samco, the importer of these rifles, asking 3 questions:

1) What year did you start selling these?
2) Approximately how many have you sold?
3) Have you received any substantiated stories of a catastrophic failure - defined as a ruined rifle and/or injured shooter - using factory .308win ammunition?

Samco has imported these for a while, I am given to understand, and they clearly mark the barrels as .308W, not 7.62 NATO. In our litigious society, an importer marking a rifle for ammunition it is manifestly unsafe to fire would seem to be a very easy target for a lawsuit. In addition, if substantial numbers of these have been circulating around, you would also assume that we would have a bunch of stories of people ruining rifles and getting injured shooting factory .308 ammo. I have seen none of these, but am certainly curious and would like to know more.

I will report back here with any information Samco gives me.

[gcrookston]

Good luck finding any confirmed story of a catastrophic failure of an M1916 as a result of shooting standard .308/7.62Nato. To my knowledge there has never been one documented.

I remember when the first batch of these came in back in the 80's. There was all kinds of talk / rumors about how it couldn't handle being converted from 7x57 to the "more potent" 7.62Nato. There was even one story going around that it had been converted and therefore only safe to shoot the 7.62 Cetme (an experimental round that was never adopted). None of these stories, especially the last one, were creditable 20 years ago and the new batch of rifles seems to have transformed the stories from the old "I have a friend who has a friend" to "I read it on the internet about a guy..."

These are extremely robust and well made small ring Mausers (M1893). They served the Guardia Civil for 50 years before being converted, then served for another 15 before being relegated to the dark corners of Spain's armories.

The 7mm Mauser (7x57) is dimensionally longer than the .308/7.62x51. Most of the conversions were undertaken at the Oviedo. The only way to convert this chambering to 7.62 NATO was to replace the barrel. This is how it was done.

Okay, now all that being said, the SAMMI pressure of the .308 commercial is higher than the 7.62 NATO, and the rifles are old.

As always, especially with C&R, it's best to shoot the ammunition the gun was designed and fielded to use, and I would recommend sticking with NATO ball.

[Pancho Villa]

Thanks gcrookson. That is the impression I get as well. On paper it looks like it would be unsafe. But that assumes that these were manufactured to just barely tolerate 7x57 "blue pills." Which is clearly not the case.

Anyway, hopefully Samco can shed some light on this. I doubt if I will see anything but a confirmation of my theory, but I am always open to new data being presented.

In the meantime I will fire non-hot loads out of my M1916 and be happy with it.

[2ndChildhood]

I'm still waiting to get some ammo for my new arisaka.
I got it cleaned up but am keeping it original finish etc.

[Pancho Villa]

Got my reply from Samco.

They sent me a Guns & Ammo article dated September 1987. I will reproduce the relevant part here:

"As mentioned earlier, the current batch of Spanish Mausers has been re-chambered for .308. As there was some concern about the guns' safety, the importer, SAMCO Enterprises, Inc., sent some of these rifles to the respected H.P. White Laboratory, Inc., for a thorough going-over. White put some pretty hefty loads through the test guns, successfully running pressures in excess of the SAAMI max of 55,200 psi for .308 Win. In fact, the guns were tested to destruction only after exceeding 98,000 pounds per square inch."

There you have it. Hope this settles the matter.

[CrufflerSteve]

I would use milsurp 7.62 NATA ammo in them and not .308 brass & loading, certainly not extreme ones.

I had one of these and fired 100's of rounds of milsurp with no issues. I sold it years ago since I really had no interest in Spanish rifles.

There are a few documented bad .308 milsurps I heard about.

One milsurp rifle to watch out for is the 308 #1Mk3 2A Indian Lee Enfields. They didn't blow up but stretched with real .308. When they were being imported a few dealers stopped carrying them because they were tired of returns. This was a civilized failure. They just stretched until you had to hammer the bolt open.

Century converted French MAS 49/56 to .308. In some, not all, there were problems. It looks like they opened up the chambers too much on some and there was enough unsupported area to have kabooms.

Steve