Where can I find caliber conversion sleeves/chamber inserts?

[zhyla]

I inherited an interesting rifle. It's an Arisaka Type 99 (old WWII Japan bolt-action rifle). It's not in great shape and I wouldn't say really much of a collector's item. But it's pretty cool to me at least.

But what is interesting is that someone decided to rechamber it in .30-06. This is great because the original cartridge (7.7x58mm) is hard to come by and expensive. .30-06 bullets are a little smaller (.308") than the original caliber (.311) so accuracy probably suffers a little. Also .30-06 is not the cheapest cartridge out there.

So what I want is to rechamber it in 7.62x39. Cheap ammo, correct bullet diameter, and my other rifles already shoot this round. I've also kind of wanted a 7.62x39 bolt gun "just because".

There's a couple problems with this plan but my main issue right now is I can't find a place that sells .30-06 to 7.62x39 chamber inserts. I know a company called MCA used to make some but I think they're no longer in business.

I've found .30-06 to .32 ACP converters (no thanks). I've seen references to .30-06 to .308 inserts (not a bad alternative) but can't find these anywhere either. I've been googling for days. Anyone have any ideas?

Is this something a gunsmith can just make?

Thanks.

 

[JonF]

McAce still makes them. At least, the website is still in existance. I emailed him twice last year to get $100 worth of stuff but he never replied so i presume they don't really care.

http://www.mcace.com/adapters.htm

 

[zhyla]

I've emailed McAce, got no response as well. I guess I should have mentioned that in my post.

 

[Maverick223]

No luck finding it, but there used to be another place that sold them...I'll update if I find it.

Is this something a gunsmith can just make?

I don't see why not...just make sure it is a good smith.

 

[mp510]

I have seen an Arisaka that was rechambered to .30-06 shoot amazingly well. It may be worthwhile to see how it performs before getting too down on yourself.

Also, if you handload, it shouldn't be too difficult to work up some .30-06 loads using either communist bloc projectiles pulled from 7.62x54mmR ammunition (there is a number of places that sell them online), .303/7.7mm/.311 loading projectiles, or projectiles intended for 7.62x39 use.

 

[SharpsDressedMan]

You have two choices, depending on what was doen to the rifle. If it still has the original barrel, and is indeed rechambered to .30-06, you could load .311 bullets in the .30-06 cases for better accuracy, or if was rebarreled to .30-06, just use .30-06 ammo. You probably need to slug the barrel to determine bore size, and start reloadingfor the rifle specifically. The Arisaka is a very strong and well made gun.

 

[Winter Borne]

Thanks Jon, I have been looking to shoot .308 from my Garand!

mk

 

[zhyla]

I have seen an Arisaka that was rechambered to .30-06 shoot amazingly well. It may be worthwhile to see how it performs before getting too down on yourself.

Well that's encouraging and a good point. Cost of ammo was my main concern. I don't really have any opportunity to shoot really long range targets and I don't hunt. Thought it would be fun to have a 7.62x39 bolt gun. But I certainly will try it out with some .30-06 before doing any work to it.

I don't believe this gun was rebarreled. I'm not entirely sure how I would tell, but I don't think anyone has ever made after-market Arisaka barrels. The U.S. military converted about 100,000 of these guns (by simply boring out the chamber and milling part of the receiver) to .30-06 and gave them to the Koreans at some point. This isn't one of those, but I'm guessing it was done similarly.

I'm a little surprised that caliber conversion devices aren't more common. There's some issues with converting a normal .30-06 gun to 7.62x39 (barrel too small for the bullet, but it will work in a pinch) but there ought to be .30-06 to .308 conversions all over the place.