| kuduae |
| (.400 member) |
| 26/06/19 11:27 PM |
Re: 1920s Mauser parts salvaged
|
Rothhammer, 2 subjects of your questions, so two posts.
Quote:
Apparently the U.S. catalog (Stoeger) rounded to the nearest convenient measurement in inches.
According to the 1939 Stoeger the MS carbines (stutzen) were offered with an 18" barrel for the 6.5, 20" for the .30-'06, 7x57, 9x56, 8X56, and 9.5X57.
The rifles were 24" (per Stoeger) in .30-'06, 7X64, 8X60, 9.3X62, and 10.75X68.
"Extra long barrels" were available, however. The 9.5 was listed up to 26 inches (or was it 66cm?).
Yes, those 18, 20, 24 and 26" imperial barrel lengths were rounded by the American importers. The Steyr factory made the barrels to metric lengths. So the pre-war 18" barrel of the M1903 Stutzen was indeed 45 cm = 17.7". This was a tad below the original US NFA 18" minimum, still valid in the 1950s. So when Steyr resumed production of M-S sporters with the M1950 on Stoeger's desire, they made the postwar 6.5x54 barrels slightly longer to comply with the then US minimum.
The other factory barrel lengths you mentioned were really 50 cm = 19.7", 60 cm = 23.6" and 65 cm = 25.6". But there were more options to Mannlicher – Schoenauers and Ammo than those listed by the pre-WW2 Stoeger catalogs. F.i., the 1914 Franz Sodia, Ferlach, catalog listed 75 cm = 29.5" barrels as an option for the 1903 to 1910 models. Stoeger listed some DWM loads only, not the more popular RWS offerings with H-jacket bullets.