M-48 Yugo Mauser question

[Rich K]

I recently obtained a Yugo Mauser, M-48 in 8mm. I didn't spend a lot of money on it ( less than $200.00). Since I have wanted a custom Mauser rifle since I was a kid, what would be a good round to convert this rifle to?

It is going to be a graduation present to myself for finishing Nursing School, so I am looking for some ideas.
Thanks in advance.

 

[kfranz]

.22. Cheap to shoot, which will be good since you'll be spending a fair bit of money trying to make the Yugo something it is not.

 

[Mr_Pale_Horse]

1. The M48 is an intermediate length action. That means 57 mm cartridges and shorter function best. 30-06 length (63mm) and longer will have feeding issues.

2. It is a safety breeched Mauser, meaning the the barrel is inlet for the extractor. This adds an extra step in setting up the action and head spacing, adding cost and hurdles to the process.

I recommend leaving it as an 8mm. Hornady, Nosler, and Norma have some awesome loads, if you do not handload.

If you simply have to re-barrel to a sporter contour, then 7x57 or 6.5x57.

 

[JHansenAK47]

You are aware that the Yugo M48 uses a widearc bolt and will hit a scope if you mount it over the action. The bolt itself is not interchangeable with standard mauser 98 bolts(slighly shorter) so finding a bent replacement bolt is not a snap. Probably will have to modify your existing bolt. Also your safety may or may not hit also.

 

[telecaster1981]

.45 ACP! No, seriously, there are some conversion kits out there that include a barrel and mag well that accepts 1911 magazines. Rhineland Arms made them, as I recall. The barrel utilizes the Savage style 'nut' and makes headspacing a breeze! I would build one if I could still find one of the kits...I think they've mostly dried up, at least as far as the Mauser conversion is concerned. There's an Enfield version as well.

 

[Rich K]

Thanks gentlemen.

 

[vzenmn]

8mm Mauser is a very good round as is so I would'nt see a real advantage spending money and time puting a new barrel on it unless it is worn out.
Now what I would like to ask you is what does the rifle look like. If it is a an ordanary one of ten million beat up m48 with mismatched serial #s and bad barrel it is perfect for costomizing. But if it is in exellent to new condition all matching with nary a stratch on it your gonna get flamed to ashes by every C&R nut on this forum. I'm not telling you what to do with your rifle but you might want to see if it is of any real collector value before screwing with it. To many collectable firearms have been reduced to scrap metal by people who dont research what they have before just thinking it is nothing of importance and playing with it.
For example I once saw my dad buy a Spanish FR8 Mauser for 70 bucks and then hack the s%$# out of it. He cut off the bayo lug and oil bottle attachments and forend ferral, took the flashhider off and hacked off the threaded part of the barrel, sanded the stock into something that looked like it fell out from between Rosie ODonnald's crack, Drilled out the peep sights to make them bigger, and then since he want to spend 50 cents on mauser stripper clips he took a drimmel tool to the stripper clip guide to make it fit springfield stripper clips. The result is a now collectible 450 dollar rifle reduced to mabye 50 bucks.

+1 on the Rhineland arms 45acp conversion. If you do that I would like to know how hard it was to do.

 

[highorder]

what would be a good round to convert this rifle to?

.257 Roberts.

 

[vzenmn]

Oh. I know a guy at my range who has done a few mausers. One that I saw was a Czech vz24 he rebarreled it to 35 Whallen, put on a bent bolt, put a nice Houge synthetic stock, refinished it with some sort of spray on finish, drilled and tapped the reciever, and installed a Nikon scope. The thing really accurate and just beutiful. This was the first one he did and was taught how to do it by some guys on some other forums and some even lowned him the some of the needed tools such as the chamber reemer. The last time I saw him four months ago he was working on barreling a Turkish mauser to 6mm Ackley Improved. Try searching for a forum dedicated to costum mausers and mabye even some surplus sites such as surplusrifles.com and see what you find. There is probably more info out there then you want to know.

 

[cracked butt]

The barrel utilizes the Savage style 'nut' and makes headspacing a breeze!

Excepth that you cannot headspace a M48 that way- its different than other mauser 98s. The M48 barrel has an extractor groove cut in its breach face.


I think a really good custom caliber for the M48 Yugo would be 8x57

 

[telecaster1981]

Excepth that you cannot headspace a M48 that way- its different than other mauser 98s. The M48 barrel has an extractor groove cut in its breach face.

Ahhh...I wasn't aware that there was any difference! Thanks for the heads up in case I DO find one of the Rhineland kits. I'll probably just try to score a Mauser 98 action.