My favorite one to shoot is the 10/22. No, no wait... the WASR-10. No, no... the SKS. I mean the M38... I mean...
Hehe, any of the four rifles I actually shoot (the top 4) are, in all honesty, equally fun but in different ways. The SKS and the WASR are pretty similar, but with the WASR you get to shoot lotsa bullets and with the SKS you get to use chargers. Fun fun. The M38 produces a pumpkin sized fireball each time you shoot it. Fun fun. And the 10/22 is incredibly fun for accurate, leisurely plinking. Fun fun.
I could not choose between the four because of the different "feel" of each one.
The Mas 49/56 is indeed French and rechambered. Unfortunately, it was rechambered by the... *ahem*... good folks over at Century Arms. They did nothing to compensate for the fact that .308 is a much higher pressure round than the 7.5 MAS. The 49/56 uses a direct gas impingment system (much like the AR-15) and as such pressure changes (let alone ones as huge as .308 from 7.5 MAS) don't go over well without proper compensation. So, you get your bolt flying back at probably twice the speed it should fly back at to extract reliably. This results in cases being left in the gun half of the time.
Add to that the fact that the chambers were reemed by dull equipment on many of the rifles.
Add to THAT the fact that the OAL of 7.5 Mas is longer than .308 and because of that it does not feed well from the magazines.
That gun pisses me off.