Re-Barreling an M1896 Mauser

[sheepherder]

Re-barreling an M1896 Mauser

(Part two)

Reaming the C96 barrel for a .256 bottleneck cartridge

(This part presupposes that you have already installed a .256 caliber barrel blank on your Broomhandle). I'll be forming a wildcat cartridge out of .223 Rem unprimed brass, using shortened RCBS .256 Win Mag dies to make a .256 caliber bottleneck cartridge with the same OAL as the 30 Mauser cartridge..

First, we have to make the cartridge. I used a set of .256 Win Mag dies, shortened .185". I used a carbide cutter, low speed, and low feed. Shown is a finished brass cartridge, the dies before shortening, and a loaded cartridge with 60 gr soft nose bullet.



Cutting down the die; removing three threads as OEM RCBS die set...





Chamfering the base of the die with a 'fine' grit pyramid stone...



The finished shortened dies, and the shortening steps in the .223 Rem cartridges we're forming with them...



Now that I have a cartridge, I can ream out the barrel. I'm going to do it a bit backwards from my usual practice, with the reamer/extension/floating reamer holder held in the chuck and the barrel extension clamped to an angle plate. Plate is squared and extension leveled and centered to the reamer/chuck center. Reamer shown in position. Solid pilot Clymer .256 Win Mag straight flute chamber finishing reamer.





Starting the cuts...1/32" at a time, using high-Sulphur content cutting oil; squirt oil in, back out, blow off chips, repeat...





Taking a rough measurement, using stripped bolt and finished/formed unprimed dud cartridge...



Cutting some more...



Now I'm down to .050" from zero headspace...Lots of oil and chips...



Down to zero headspace. Now I run the reamer in an additional .004"...



A box of headspace dots, punched out of plastic shim stock...



The .004" dot on the bolt face. It's a blue dot; the flash makes it look white. I don't have any white dots...



And with the .004" dot in place, I have no movement. Reaming is done. Barrel is headspaced.

Some pics of the finished chamber...







Overall view...



And a pic of the old/long .256 barrel stub, showing how much
supported tube is threaded into the extension...



The new chamber still needs to have the extractor notch cut, and the feedramp cut & smoothed.

I did a similar long-barrel/re-barrel in .256 caliber some years ago...I really liked it, but finding a shoulder stock the long-barreled Mauser will fit into has been unsuccessful...