Israel and Mausers

[pelago]

how many mausers do you suppose Israel got? who put the nato barrels in them? i picked up a 308 barrel and put it on a old semi sporter mod 98, probably a WWII bringback that someone 'sporterized' put the barrel on and wow what a surprise. shot it offhand at 200 yards on standard competition target and put them all inside the 9 ring
have absolutely no idea who made the barrel it has a serial number and no other markings, but sure got lucky with the new 308 barrel

[mike24d20]

Read in the gun mags a long time ago that Winchester made the bbls. Used to own one an it shot great. But a fire took its young life a while back.

[bruce]

Had a Israeli Mauser... marked bcd... in 7.62mm NATO. Very fine shooting rifle. With its favorite handload, it would keep 10 shot strings well under 2.0 inches at 100 yds. firing from a good solid sandbag rest. It also did extremely well with Austrailian and Radway Green ball. Stupidly let it get away from me. Oh well, live and learn. Sincerely. bruce.

[m1ashooter]

I watched a great Netflix video on the formation of the IAF and how Czechoslovakia was the only country that ignored the arms embargo against the new country of Israel. Seems the world wanted the State of Israel but didn't want her to have the means to defend the country. It just might be that the Czechs did the barreling.

[mike24d20]

nope, Israel used every cal. weapon they could get their hands on at the time. After awhile they standardized on one cal=nato 308. Since the U.S. at that time was starting to supply arms, this made sense. Most were re built an put into storage while the U.S. started supplying arms. Israel has also bought from any country that would sell her arms.

[Liam]

According to Robert Ball's "Mauser Military Rifles of the World," Israelis were buying 98k rifles from Czechoslovakia and Fabrique Nationale in Belgium. In 1949, the Israelis purchased from the Czechs the factory machinery line to build their own 98ks. By this time, semi-autos were becoming dominant and the Israelis wanted to stay current, so the factory line, from then on, was used to rebarrel the Czech and FN Mausers to 7.62x51.

[fguffey]

how many mausers do you suppose Israel got? who put the nato barrels in them? i picked up a 308 barrel and put it on a old semi sporter mod 98, probably a WWII bringback that someone 'sporterized' put the barrel on and wow what a surprise. shot it offhand at 200 yards on standard competition target and put them all inside the 9 ring
have absolutely no idea who made the barrel it has a serial number and no other markings, but sure got lucky with the new 308 barrel

I was set up at a local gun show when I was approached by an owner of an Israeli Mauser. He was not happy; he wanted the rifle returned to 308W/7.62NATO. Seems he heard the guys at the pool hall talking about converting the 7.62 NATO to 30/06 so he had someone I know ream the chamber to 30/06. He claimed he had taken the rifle to a number of smiths and no one could explain to him what went wrong. After reaming the chamber to 30/06 the cases were ejected with a ring around the case body behind the shoulder/case body juncture. I explained to him the 30/06 reamer would not clean up the 7.62 NATO chamber. The shoulder/case body juncture is larger in diameter than the 30/06 case body by .014”+. I suggested he use the 30 Gibbs reamer of the 30/06 Ackley Improved reamer when cleaning up the 7.62 NATO chamber.

And then there is the neck of the 7.62 NATO chamber. I got a call from a builder of bench rest type rifles. He said one of his customers was complaining about loose necks. The owner complained the neck of the chamber was too large in diameter. I ask about accuracy; the accuracy of the rifle could not be improved upon.

I boxed up a few tools and went for a visit. The builder has no shortage of cases so I started sorting thorough thousands of cases and then settled on LC MATCH. I formed the 30/06 cases to 7.62 NATO/308 W. The neck of the 308 W cases was formed from the case body/shoulder of the 30/06 case. When finished the neck of the formed case had .0025” to .0003” clearance.

The reloader can use the length of the 30/06 case to off set the length of the chamber. The shoulder on the 30/06 case is .388” ahead of the shoulder on the 308 W cases; and no, I did not move the shoulder back.

F. Guffey