Igorrock
(.400 member)
13/10/25 05:20 AM
Re: A couple of single shot Projects.

Quote:

SAKO did it between the world wars to some tens of thousands of Mosins that they bought from Austria, where they'd been rechambered to 8x50r Mannlicher.


Actually not so many:

"Rifle barrel relining scandal:

As noted by year 1924 the total number of rifles with corroded rifle barrels in depots of Finnish Armed Forces and Suojeluskunta (Finnish Civil Guard) had reached 200,000 while Finnish Armed Forces had no equipment for repairing damaged rifle barrels or financing for replacing them. Only possible repair methods available for rifles with damaged barrels were either replacing the barrel or relining it with Salerno method (which Italy had used during World War 1 for relining of old 10.4 mm calibre Vetterli M1870/87 rifles for 6.5x52 Carcano ammunition). As the Finns had no experience of either, Finnish military decided to test both of these options. In 1925 - 1927 Weapons Depot 1 (in Helsinki) relined over 13,000 rifle barrels, while at the same time also new rifle barrels were bought and used to replace worn out barrels. The relining process with Salerno-method basically included boring the existing barrel and installing a new inner barrel inside it. In addition also cartridge chamber demanded some re-tooling when this method was used.

The relining program created a scandal, as experts that inspected the results considered rifle barrels fixed this way to be poor quality and even potentially dangerous. This lead first into stopping production of relined rifle barrels in year 1928 and in year 1930 assembling rifles with relined rifle barrels manufactured before that was halted as well. Trials followed and reimbursements were sentenced because of this scandal. Before the production of relined barrels was stopped it had relined some 13,450 rifle barrels for infantry rifle M/91, another 1,490 rifle barrels for cavalry rifle M/91 and 595 barrels for Maxim machineguns. The Committee created to investigate the matter in year 1927 came up with conclusion of only 15 % of the relined rifle barrels were good, 20 - 35 % totally unfit for use and the rest (estimated 50 - 75 %) in need of further repairs. In second more detailed inspection made in year 1930 the Committee came to conclusion that only 14 % of the relined barrels were suitable for use, 51 % were totally unfit for use and 27 % required further repairs. After that the matter was set to rest until suitability of the rifle barrels relined with Salerno-method was again re-evaluated in year 1938 - and this time they got rated as "adequate". During the desperate days of Winter War Finnish military was suffering shortages of all sorts of equipment - including rifles. With more rifles being desperately needed, rifle production was speeded up and ordered to cut corners to come up with more rifles. After that all sorts of already existing parts - including even the relined rifle barrels with worst quality rating got used for manufacturing and repairing rifles during that war. By May of 1940 remaining relined rifle barrels had been used to repair or manufacture about 8,000 infantry rifles m/91. This changed also the legal situation, since back in 1930's several persons had been sentenced to pay financial reimbursements for their part in "relining-scandal". But now that the once rejected relined rifle barrels that they had made reimbursements for had been used in wartime rifle production, there obviously was no longer ground for such financial demands. So in year 1940 they got the reimbursements compensated, but the otherwise the earlier court sentences were not overturned or reduced. Collectors are commonly referring rifles M/91 with relined barrels as P-series, due to relined barrels being normally marked on top of cartridge chamber with marking that is typically P-26 or P-27, with P being abbreviation of "putkitettu" (relined) and the two digits indicating year."



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