1916 Spanish Mausers

[MosinT53Hunter]

Hello, I have been debating with myself for a while weather to order one of the gunsmith specials they have at J&G Sales. I really like the spanish mausers, but having read many of the reviews on J&G's website, I am still hesitant to pull the trigger on them. The 308 ones are $150, while the standard 7x57 Mauser ones are $120.

I know the benefits of getting surplus like this on the cheap while they are still available, and I wanted to know if anyone on here has gotten them, and what has your experience been. Thank you in advance to all.

 

[GunnyUSMC]

What J&G has is the bottom of the barrel trash that was bought up from when SAMCO went under. SAMCO had been selling those rifles since the early 80s. I picked up a nice one in 308 back in 85 for $79.

Now you may get lucky and get one that is worth saving, but then you may end up with a wall hanger.

 

[Mayvik]

I have considered one, but only 7x57. The potentially ringed bore has kept me from it.

 

[armoredman]

Mine was reworked several times by the gunsmith who got it me, and is now in 8mm Mauser, but due to the age of the receiver, I only fire cast bullet loads in it. I had a chance to handle a very nice one at that gunsmith's house - he's hanging on to it!

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

Save your pennies and get an FR8 if you want a shootable Mauser. These were made new at LaCoruna, were intended for the .308 cartridge and use the large ring receiver with a CETME barrel. Plus the rotating peepsight is neeto! You can amaze your friends when you unscrew the "gas piston" and.....out pops the cleaning kit! Lol

 

[dh1633pm]

I too have considered it.

 

[GunnyUSMC]

Save your pennies and get an FR8 if you want a shootable Mauser. These were made new at LaCoruna, were intended for the .308 cartridge and use the large ring receiver with a CETME barrel. Plus the rotating peepsight is neeto! You can amaze your friends when you unscrew the "gas piston" and.....out pops the cleaning kit! Lol

That rear sight will chew up your fingers like a mad squirrel if you don't watch what you are doing.

 

[boom boom]

Depends on what you are looking for--a fixup project, a wall hanger, or to own a piece of history.

You won't get a pristine rifle nothing like many of the Mosins brought here--expect well worn bluing, pitting in places like the buttplate, barrel bands and trigger guard, a battered stock that is grease soaked, and most probably a dark bore, perhaps even pitted pretty heavily. It will have open sights that are not particularly more accurate than minute of man and they represent the latest technology of 1890's. You can go to Gunbroker and see many of these being auctioned with pictures--yours will probably resemble those at the low end.

I would also recommend building in your budget a visit to the gunsmith if you are not familiar with evaluating old firearms for firing safety.
If no gunsmith around, then at least pick up the Mauser Shop Manual by Jerry Kuhnhausen who goes into detail with illustrated pictures the various pitfalls and problems with used Mausers. He also covers sporterizing options which are going to be limited in the Mauser 93 design due to the heat treatment of the receiver and wear and tear on the rifle. Be wary of going outside of the original specs that the receiver was built for regarding cartridge pressure. You can search the THR archives regarding sporterizing Spanish small ring Mausers or the 7.62 conversion for the Guardia. If you do, one cartridge that seems pretty popular is the .257 Roberts which the parent case is the 7mm Mauser--generally only takes a barrel change and should fit within the design parameters regarding cartridge pressure and feeding (Mauser magazines were purpose built for the cartridges used by that country's military).

 

[MosinT53Hunter]

What J&G has is the bottom of the barrel trash that was bought up from when SAMCO went under. SAMCO had been selling those rifles since the early 80s. I picked up a nice one in 308 back in 85 for $79.

Now you may get lucky and get one that is worth saving, but then you may end up with a wall hanger.

Thank you. My research has been pointing more towards that way, that they are the worst of the worst.

 

[MosinT53Hunter]

Save your pennies and get an FR8 if you want a shootable Mauser. These were made new at LaCoruna, were intended for the .308 cartridge and use the large ring receiver with a CETME barrel. Plus the rotating peepsight is neeto! You can amaze your friends when you unscrew the "gas piston" and.....out pops the cleaning kit! Lol

Funny you should mention the FR-8...have a project in the works for one. Will post pictures when its finished (Been waiting over 8 months for my brother-in-law's father to finish it)

 

[.455_Hunter]

My dad bought me one in 7x57mm for my first hunting rifle in the late 80's. The gun is Spanish Civil War vintage, I don't think it has a matching serial number on it. My appears to have excessive headspace, as evidenced by backed out primers, either from bolt head set back or just mismatched components. It's on very limited SHTF duty nowadays (w/ a bunch of milsurp FMJ) , and probably has not been fired in over 20 years.

Regardless of internet pontification, I would NEVER own or fire an M1916 in .308.

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

That rear sight will chew up your fingers like a mad squirrel if you don't watch what you are doing.

Maybe the first time, but you'll never grab the bolt that way again, lol. Seriously, can't speak highly enough of the FR8......though I'm intrigued by the new production Mitchell (Zastava) Mauser's. Supposedly you can get these in 30-06, 308, and .243!?! though internet reports are all over the place as regards quality. They had better be good considering what MM is asking for them. Anybody here have 1st hand experience?
For now I'll stick with my Basque beauty.
UPDATE: Looks like neither Mitchell's nor Zastava still offers the neat new-production M63 rifles.....a shame.

 

[GunnyUSMC]

Maybe the first time, but you'll never grab the bolt that way again, lol. Seriously, can't speak highly enough of the FR8..
.

I agree. I have two FR8s and love them. The OP should look into getting one if he wants a shooter.
Here is the ammo that will make for a nice day at the range with a 1916 Spanish Mauser.
Plastic projectile. 7.62 NATO - 308 Short Range Training Ammunition, accurate up to 100 meters / maximum range 300 meters. Non corrosive, made in Germany, milsurp from the 90s. WARNING *** not to be played with. this product can do serious harm to anything it hits. SHIPPING INCLUDED ON THIS ITEM!
At 19 cents a round, it makes for a low cost day at the range. Recoil is like shooting a 22lr.
http://www.dansammo.com/ammo.asp

 

[boom boom]

I agree. I have two FR8s and love them. The OP should look into getting one if he wants a shooter.
Here is the ammo that will make for a nice day at the range with a 1916 Spanish Mauser.
Plastic projectile. 7.62 NATO - 308 Short Range Training Ammunition, accurate up to 100 meters / maximum range 300 meters. Non corrosive, made in Germany, milsurp from the 90s. WARNING *** not to be played with. this product can do serious harm to anything it hits. SHIPPING INCLUDED ON THIS ITEM!
At 19 cents a round, it makes for a low cost day at the range. Recoil is like shooting a 22lr.
http://www.dansammo.com/ammo.asp
View attachment 758837

Ironically, I believe that this may have come from ammo came through SAMCO originally too--at least SAMCO used to sell it along with Swedish Mauser blanks/wooden bullets and other such oddities.

 

[GunnyUSMC]

Ironically, I believe that this may have come from ammo came through SAMCO originally too--at least SAMCO used to sell it along with Swedish Mauser blanks/wooden bullets and other such oddities.

Dan, over at Dan's Ammo is not only the owner of Dan's ammo, he is also a buyer for PW Arms. Dan was carrying the 7.62 NATO training ammo before SAMCO went under. I bought my first case from him about four years ago. Shooting water bottles at 100yds is fun with this ammo. Very low recoil, low noise and functions in most 308 bolt guns 100%.
It has a slightly smaller rim but feeds great in my 1916, one of my FR8s and my Ishapore 2A . The other FR8 will extract but not always eject the case. I could fit another extractor to it, but don't see the need when I have three rifles that it works in.
The 1916 Spanish was meant to shoot the 308/7.62 CETME round witch is loaded a little lighter then 7.62 NATO. This training ammo is safe to shoot all day in the 1916 and will shoot 2 to 3 inch groups at 100yds in a good rifle.

 

[Merle1]

Save your pennies and get an FR8 if you want a shootable Mauser. These were made new at LaCoruna, were intended for the .308 cartridge and use the large ring receiver with a CETME barrel. Plus the rotating peepsight is neeto! You can amaze your friends when you unscrew the "gas piston" and.....out pops the cleaning kit! Lol

Actually these were originally full size large ring rifles in 8mm Mauser. They were reworked/re-barreled to 7.62 as an intrim or auxiliary carbine when the CETMEs were not becoming available fast enough.

That's another long running debate - 7.62 CETME or 7.62 NATO.

Stick around, this and the safety of the small ring M1916s usually stirs up the troops!

 

[GBExpat]

Stick around, this and the safety of the small ring M1916s usually stirs up the troops!

Hahaha ... isn't that the truth!

Soon someone should stop by and reference the White Laboratory tests.

~15 years ago a buddy of mine in the Spanish military sent me copies of two pages of the Spanish version their reloaders "bible". The pages were for 7.62NATO and 7.62CETME. The interesting thing about those to pages was that they both showed the same max pressure, which is the primary argument of most folks against shooting 7.62NATO in the M1916GC.

<shrug> I don't take a position on the subject.

I play it safe ...I shoot 7.62CETME (I still have most of a 1k case remaining) in my M1916GC and both 7.62CETME and 7.62NATO in my FR8.

 

[boom boom]

The so-called CETME round generates a lot of talk with a few hard facts and a lot of opinion-
What we know, is that the FR-7 training rifle was made from 1893/1916 small ring Mauser receivers to prepare troops for the CETME regarding sighting and weight. The FR-8 (better known) using large ring 1943 Coruna Mauser receivers was developed for the Spanish Army as training and transitional rifles to prepare troops for the move to the under-development CETME rifle. In its earliest model B version, the CETME rifle was not designed to take full bore 7.62 NATO rounds but rather a de-rated one-the so-called CETME 112gr round. But, it appears that Spain began production on 7.62 NATO ammo two years before the CETME round and from some sources, it appears that the conversions of the FR-7 and 8 was in the 1960's (part of the confusion is that the FR-8's retained their original production date stamps while the FR-7's were scrubbed). Franco's secrecy did not help either.

Here is a highly technical post on a discussion thread by Kyrie (it is down a bit) with quite a few citations.
http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?381954-Latest-Mauser-Spanish-1916-in-308

Anyway, Kyrie notes that Spanish arsenal production of the 7.62 NATO cartridge began in 1955-64 which was two years earlier than the 7.62 CETME production (1957-63) taken from primary source "Cartucheria Espanola"

The Guardia (which is a paramilitary organization with arrest authority--mix the police with the National Guard) is a separate organization which is where the 7.62 NATO conversions come in. A 1967 version of the 1916 Guardia manual pictured below does not mention CETME cartridges in any part. In the past when researching this, I downloaded the full manual at one time but can't seem to find it offhand. I also got a U.S. Army manual that described 7.7 Arisaka conversions to .30-06 by the U.S. Army in Japan to arm Koreans which I need to locate. The attachments below are from what I remembered as parts of the original document (in Spanish).

The first page attached below via a posting on the NE Shooters forum is the title page of the m1916 manual which clearly designates 7.62 NATO as the ammunition, page 2 describes the ammo, and page 3 is a diagram of the firearm.

I suspect that the Guardia got whatever the Spanish Army did not want and these firearms were carried as a badge of office and used little but I haven't seen a history of the Guardia Civil in english either. Logistics also dictate that a single cartridge used universally is better than multiple rounds which would naturally cause the Spanish to gravitate toward the NATO round, especially as late B and subsequent models of 7.62 CETME's used the full bore NATO ammo.

 

[GBExpat]

Plastic projectile. 7.62 NATO - 308 Short Range Training Ammunition ...

I bought a case of that from Dan many years ago, but I have never fired any ...

... must be in one of the ammo piles (read: carefully inventoried, marked & shelved cases of ammunition).

Off I go to find it ...

 

[GunnyUSMC]

I bought a case of that from Dan many years ago, but I have never fired any ...

... must be in one of the ammo piles (read: carefully inventoried, marked & shelved cases of ammunition).

Off I go to find it ...

I have a case and a half, 1500 rounds. If yours is still in the original box it should be in a cardboard box with a blue stripe like the one on the top of my cans.

 

[GBExpat]

Thanks, Gunny!

I think that I have discovered evidence of an O.L.D. attack. I can find none of that blue practice ammo anywhere downstairs. I know that I was planning on buying a case and was on the page planning the purchase ... something (a shiny gee-gaw, perhaps) must have interrupted me and I never got around to ordering the stuff.

I will correct that OOPS when I finish this post.

My search, however, was quite eye-opening for me as I discovered some things (several cases of ammo) that I had forgotten that I had.

All of my .30/.50/.50tall ammo cans (36, 50 & 6, resp) have labels on them IDing the ammo contained inside. I can tell what is in all of the 12 battlepacks, but the contents of some (many) of the 41 wooden cases & spam cans is a mystery. I should have labeled those when I bought them. (Repeat after me, "Poor baby!", Poor baby!" )

After I place that order at Dan's, I am going to have to pull out my Invoices File and see about IDing (and then labeling) those mystery ComBloc milsurp cases.

<sigh> Poor baby! Poor baby!

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

Actually these were originally full size large ring rifles in 8mm Mauser. They were reworked/re-barreled to 7.62 as an intrim or auxiliary carbine when the CETMEs were not becoming available fast enough.

That's another long running debate - 7.62 CETME or 7.62 NATO.

Stick around, this and the safety of the small ring M1916s usually stirs up the troops![/QUOTE
Well, I will say this- google Spanish Mauser kaboom and you'll see several grenaded small ring '91s and '93s, just one poor FR7, but no blown FR8s. Also, the 7.62 NATO vs CETME question is probably moot these days as you're not gonna find much 7.62 FMJ on the shelves at Wally world.....I think the real question is are these safe with modern factory commercial .308 loads- the photographic evidence would tend to say yes for the FR8, not so much for the others. My 2 cents.