What happens if a 7.92mm Mauser is fired in a 30-06?

[Vern Humphrey]

It's not perfect but this is a fairly accurate rendering of how the cartridge (black lines) and the chamber (red lines) would fit.

I note the drawing shows a round-nose bullet -- which favors the cartridge NOT chambering. A spritzer with a long ogive would be a different story.

In any case, the fact is, people HAVE chambered 7.92X57 cartridges in .30-06 chambers and fired them -- often with unhappy results.

 

[Kleanbore]

If I recall correctly,and I may not, blow-ups in .30-'06 Winchester Model 95 rifles, which led to a serious problem with the gun's reputation for safety, were sometimes attributed to the firing of 7.92X57 cartridges in those guns.

 

[Jim Watson]

I'm not talking about the bullet.
The mouth of the 8mm case will have to be driven into the .30 chamber neck by about .12" requiring brass and bullet to be squeezed down in the neck, not the leade.

P.O. Ackley said that swaging down an oversize bullet would not increase pressure much IF there was enough neck clearance to let the brass expand and release the bullet. Our old buddy Clark refers to that failure as "bullet pinch."

I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm saying that it will require enough effort that a reasonably experienced shooter will know something is wrong. But there are a lot of inexperienced and unobservant shooters out there, look at all the bulged pistol cases from wrong loading.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

I'm not talking about the bullet.
The mouth of the 8mm case will have to be driven into the .30 chamber neck by about .12" requiring brass and bullet to be squeezed down in the neck, not the leade.

In some cases, yes. But it isn't uncommon to find a chamber a bit oversize and a case a bit undersize. In any case, it HAS happened.

P.O. Ackley said that swaging down an oversize bullet would not increase pressure much IF there was enough neck clearance to let the brass expand and release the bullet. Our old buddy Clark refers to that failure as "bullet pinch."

That's exactly what I would expect with a 7.92X57 cartridge in a .30-06 chamber.

But I point out that there are plenty of documented cases of a rifle blowing up with a slightly oversize bullet -- Ross Seifried showed pictures of the results of firing a 7mm Weatherby Magnum in a .270 Weatherby chamber.

 

[Jim Watson]

I think a .284 in a .277 would be a serious case of "bullet pinch" before the bullet had time and travel to be resized.

PO talked about running a .35 Whelen reamer into a .30-06 barrel, saying he expected the bullet to come right out sized and elongated with no problem. I don't know if he ever DID it, though.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

I think a .284 in a .277 would be a serious case of "bullet pinch" before the bullet had time and travel to be resized.

In any case, the picture showed the bullet jammed in the barrel, right beyond the throat.

PO talked about running a .35 Whelen reamer into a .30-06 barrel, saying he expected the bullet to come right out sized and elongated with no problem. I don't know if he ever DID it, though.

How shall I put this . . . ? P.O. Ackley wrote a lot of STRANGE things. About 20 years ago, I came into possession of a custom ’03 Springfield in .35 Brown-Whelen, the most radical form of the Whelen. While looking for loading data, several other people who had .35 B-Ws warned me not to use P.O. Ackley’s data, one of them saying he had fired ONE load with that data, “And you could have reloaded THAT case with a shotgun primer!”

 

[rdmercer]

I can verify that it can be done. My 18 year old grandson took my Pre 64 Model 70 30-06 out for some target shooting. When he got back I noticed 2 of the casings were 8mm Mauser rounds. He said a couple were hard to chamber and we had a long talk about it. I took the rifle to the gunsmith and he saw no apparent damage but advised not doing it again. He said it gave new meaning to case form firing.

 

[Deaf Smith]

Well guys, when I was a teenager I had a 6.5 Carcano. I could not figure out what ammo so I got 6.5 Japanese. Turns out the semi-rimmed round will, with a bit of effort to get the rim to slip under the extractor, it will fire. Happily being both 6.5 mm it just fire formed the case and the gun went bang. Still not a wise idea!

Fast forward to just a month ago. I had my Marlin/Glenfield half magazine 30/30 shooting and I TRIED to chamber a round. Would not close. In fact three of the rounds were no-go. Turns out they were 303 Savage. I still have them.

Anyway, in another thread in the revolvers here they were talking about plugging up the barrel of a pistol so the bullet could not even move, and then firing the gun. They opined the chamber pressure would stay normal cause the same amount of power was being burned reguardless. I tried to tell them the VOLUME where the power being burned would matter and if the bullet could not move (and hence the volume not increase) the pressure would go way up. I used the example of the 7.92x57 in the 30-06.

Apparently you gents have shown that weaker actions will maybe blow but some VERY STRONG ONES will take the hit and not blow. That surprises me.

Interesting!

Deaf

 

[Steel Horse Rider]

All of this testimony leads to the conclusion that you should always wear your glasses, be sober when shooting, and know the caliber of your weapon and ammunition......

 

[Jim Watson]

Party pooper.
I bet you wouldn't even hold my beer while I demonstrated caliber interchange.

 

[tark]

Any 06 chamber that will allow an 8MM Mauser round to chamber has got to be the sloppiest 06 chamber in the world. I have three 06s, a Garand, a 1903 and a Madsen. I have one 8MM Mauser and several kinds of 8MM ammo, including that weak, 170 gr roundnose Remington ammo. NONE of the 8MM ammo will chamber in ANY of my 06s. Not even close! Not even with all the force I could apply without resorting to a hammer. All I succeeded in doing was jamming the round in the chamber so hard I had to pound it out with a steel rod.

As an aside, get a copy of Frank DeHaas' "Bolt Action Rifles". In the chapter on Jap Arisaka's he tells the story of an idiot who ground down the pilot on an 06 Chamber reamer and re-chambered......a 6.5 Jap Carbine!!! The bore was still .264! Then he shot it and actually killed a deer with it! The .308 dia. bullet was swaged down to .264 and the rifle withstood it! He complained that the bolt was hard to open and took the gun to his gunsmith, who was suitably horrified at what he saw. He bought it off the guy and sent it to the NRA. They fired several more rounds through it (30-06 !) with no more damage than flattened primers and stretched cases. This is NOT my actual experience, I just read it in the book.

The point of all this was: Bullets can be swaged down considerably, often without disastrous results, while firing. But I wouldn't want to try it. A lot of the old M-88 Commission rifles has their barrels altered to shoot .323 dia. ammo. An "S" was stamped over the chamber. Don't know how well that worked, but I doubt the Germans would have tried it without testing if first.

 

[macgrumpy]

All of this testimony leads to me to conclude that the average shooter is pretty stupid. In simplest terms, you would be trying to fire an 8mm bullet through a rifle built for a 7.62mm bullet with the wrong chamber dimensions.

I don't care if Billy Bob did do it with his old worn out turn of the century hunting rifle, it's still stupid. I don't think that it's very smart experimenting with an IED 3 inches from my face.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

I just tried to load both a Winchester Super-X 170pp (8x57) and a Sellier and Bellot 196 grn SPCE 8x57js cartridge into one of my Colombian Model 98 Mausers chambered in 30.06 Springfield. NEITHER round would allow the bolt to close. Oh, and I DID remove the firing pin before trying this....just so you know.

The Billy Bob school of shooting says, if the bolt handle won't close on a cartridge, you have to beat it closed with a mallet. You just have too much common sense to try hard enough to make it close.

 

[Corn-Picker]

Would mischamberings be more of an issue with belted and rimmed cases? I don't know a lot about reloading and internal ballistics, but my understanding is that the belt stops the cartridge's forward movement? If that was true wouldn't most any shorter belted magnum (e.g. 264 through 338 win mag) chamber and fire in a longer belted magnum (Weatherbys, 300 H&H, 375 H&H, etc...)? As they are all based on a 375 H&H I'm assuming the belt end of them look similar, is that true?

What are the most common mischamberings? For example, if a 308 would cycle and fire in a 30-06 (no idea if it will) I'm guessing that would be fairly common considering how common both are.

I find all of this fascinating. It makes me feel good in my decision to be a caliber minimalist; if I ever accidentdly confuse 223 with 308 or 7.62x39 I may have to find a new hobby

 

[Jim Watson]

SAAMI has a list of incompatible cartridges and chambers.
Just for one example, you would probably be sorry if you fired a .350 Remington Magnum in a 7mm R.M rifle. That might exceed the swage down capability.
Or if you shot a 280 in a 7mm R.M. The bullet would fit but the case might burst rather than expand enough to seal the chamber.

See more at
http://www.saami.org/specifications...1-Unsafe_Arms_and_Ammunition_Combinations.pdf

 

[Onmilo]

I understand 7.92mm Mauser in 30-06 blow ups are VERY WELL DOCUMENTED.

Is it true?

Deaf

I LOVE it when somebody with like maybe four total posts asks a question such as this and a slew of folks respond to the inquiery yet the original poster never responds and is never head from again on this forum or any other,,,

 

[Deaf Smith]

I LOVE it when somebody with like maybe four total posts asks a question such as this and a slew of folks respond to the inquiery yet the original poster never responds and is never head from again on this forum or any other.

Uh I guess you didn't see post 7 or 33. And you sure don't go to any of the handgun forms here. Just use the 'Search' thing-a-ma-jig above and look for 'Deaf Smith' post. I only have 3,946 post here at THR.

Deaf

 

[Jim Watson]

Yup.
Or, "I have a problem with my gun, like so..."
(two pages of recommendations)
Then we never hear if any of them worked. We need a Stump the Chumps like Car Talk.

And while I am at it:
"I got this new gun, it is neat and kewl and beautiful. I haven't fired it yet."

 

[Onmilo]

Uh I guess you didn't see post 7 or 33. And you sure don't go to any of the handgun forms here. Just use the 'Search' thing-a-ma-jig above and look for 'Deaf Smith' post. I only have 3,946 post here at THR.

Deaf

I know how long you've been here.
I think you may have missed the point I was making...