Hey All-
I've got a bit of a dilemma on my hands. I own a MAS 36 that has been lovingly converted to 308 by the marvelous gunsmiths at Century Arms. After much reading and studying the overall condition, I am faced with a couple of options. The rifle is in excellent shape, so whoever the Frenchman was that dropped it while in hasty retreat must not have been tall, or fast!
1. Yesterday took it out and shot some cast out of it- the old Ranch Dog 165 with all of the ballistic might of a......... deflated football at 100 yards. Due to the bullet design, this is a single-load proposition only. On the positive, it really doesn't kick. I am not going to go beyond cast bullet pressure because it appears the machinist decided to cut the ramps into the chamber. And the chamber looks "wallowed" out on the sides from a poor job done. It will feed jacketed rounds on test, but pushing my luck wouldn't be advisable. I can't get any better looking, but I could get a lot uglier if it goes "boom".
2. Pull the barrel, cut it back a bit more (if possible) and re-chamber the 308, knowing that it won't regulate to the sights. Since Bob Vila the Century clown decided that since cutting a couple of threads off of the barrel must mean that the stock deserves the same treatment.... but I digress. This would require cutting new ramps, which I am capable of doing.
3. Try to find a gunsmith foolish enough to re-barrel the thing into a caliber I already have. Swede, 7mauser, 257 bob. The like. But then it's off to the races- trying to turn this into something it was never intended to be.
4. Call it quits and find someone with an affinity for rarely fired and typically dropped French firearms.
Hope you all enjoyed the read- what would you do in this situation?
Thanks for any/all feedback!
Zingger
I've got a bit of a dilemma on my hands. I own a MAS 36 that has been lovingly converted to 308 by the marvelous gunsmiths at Century Arms. After much reading and studying the overall condition, I am faced with a couple of options. The rifle is in excellent shape, so whoever the Frenchman was that dropped it while in hasty retreat must not have been tall, or fast!
1. Yesterday took it out and shot some cast out of it- the old Ranch Dog 165 with all of the ballistic might of a......... deflated football at 100 yards. Due to the bullet design, this is a single-load proposition only. On the positive, it really doesn't kick. I am not going to go beyond cast bullet pressure because it appears the machinist decided to cut the ramps into the chamber. And the chamber looks "wallowed" out on the sides from a poor job done. It will feed jacketed rounds on test, but pushing my luck wouldn't be advisable. I can't get any better looking, but I could get a lot uglier if it goes "boom".
2. Pull the barrel, cut it back a bit more (if possible) and re-chamber the 308, knowing that it won't regulate to the sights. Since Bob Vila the Century clown decided that since cutting a couple of threads off of the barrel must mean that the stock deserves the same treatment.... but I digress. This would require cutting new ramps, which I am capable of doing.
3. Try to find a gunsmith foolish enough to re-barrel the thing into a caliber I already have. Swede, 7mauser, 257 bob. The like. But then it's off to the races- trying to turn this into something it was never intended to be.
4. Call it quits and find someone with an affinity for rarely fired and typically dropped French firearms.
Hope you all enjoyed the read- what would you do in this situation?
Thanks for any/all feedback!
Zingger
