Mr Oni
Military history nut
My freind brought me some 7.5 french ammo at arcadia this weekend i have not seen it yet but he says it wont fit in my mas. This leads me to believe it goes to some other french rifle maybe a lebel?
My freind brought me some 7.5 french ammo at arcadia this weekend i have not seen it yet but he says it wont fit in my mas. This leads me to believe it goes to some other french rifle maybe a lebel?
My freind brought me some 7.5 french ammo at arcadia this weekend i have not seen it yet but he says it wont fit in my mas. This leads me to believe it goes to some other french rifle maybe a lebel?
How does he know it won't fit? Why did he buy it in the first place?
These two rounds are not interchangeable:
7.5x54mm French
8mm Lebel
Maybe like Gunner said, he might have bought some 7.5x55 Swiss ammo, which is for Swiss K31's and other Swiss rifles. I've never heard of MAS36's being chambered in other cartridges besides 7.5x54.
There were a few converted to 7.62X51 (.308).
Maybe it was surrendering and didn't want to be fired.
I stand corrected.
Maybe it was surrendering and didn't want to be fired.
The MAS 36, 36/51, 44, 49 & 49/56 were all originally chambered for 7.5 x 54. The Berthier M34 and Lebel M27, both extremely rare, were also chambered for this cartridge. All other Berthier and Lebel rifles and carbines were chambered for 8mm x 50R.
As Lou said, Century converted some MAS 49/56s to 7.62 x 51 but you will see this stamped on the left side of the receiver. Pretty prominent, hard to miss.
As an aside, there were some chamber inserts on the market at one time to allow the user to shoot .32 pistol rounds in the MAS 36. These would be fixed in the chamber using Loctite permanent thread locker.
Lou, wish I could remember exactly who it was that had the ads in SGN back in the day for the .32acp conversion. MCACE used to sell 7.5 to 7.63 x 39mm adapters but I don't see them listed on their site anymore. They still sell inserts for .32acp for .308 and 30-06 so perhaps they were the party I remembered. I'm surprised anyone still uses centerfire inserts as the heat and pressure usually weaken the Loctite to the point where the insert eventually gets extracted with a spent cartridge.
Also forgot that Century converted some MAS 36s to 7.62 x 51. These apparently worked much better than the MAS 49/56 conversions.
Maybe it was surrendering and didn't want to be fired.
OK Lou, maybe I can show you something new, maybe not! Between the wars the French took a lesson from the US Hoffer-Thompson trainer, which was basically a 1903 Springfield w. .22lr barrel installed. They went down the same route with the MAS Tir Reduit. This was a MAS 36 trainer that had a .22lr barrel and a special 25-200 meter rear sight installed. Otherwise it was identical to a std MAS 36. And like the Hoffer-Thompson it used a cartridge carrier to simulate 7.5 x 54mm cartridges. This allowed stripper clip loading and repeat firing but using an affordable and low recoiling .22lr cartridge.
The Hoffer-Thompson didn't work so well and, after building about 15,000 examples, they were replaced by the classic M1922 trainer. The French had exactly the same experience and replaced the Tir Reduit with the outstanding MAS 45 trainer.
Like the Hoffer -Thompson Tir Reduits are very rare, I've been scouring the market in vain since I last saw one at auction in 2007. Expect to pay at least $2500 for a Hoffer-Thompson. Tir Reduits were selling sub $1000 3-4 yrs ago but they come to market so rarely that fixing a 2011 market price for them is very difficult. And original cartridge carriers are even more rare. Most Tir Reduit owners who shoot them have had repops machined.
Photos 1 thru 3 - Tir Reduit cartridge adapter and receiver markings
Photo 4 - Hoffer-Thompson cartridge adapters mounted in stripper clip
Photo 5 - Tir Reduit 5.5l
Photo 6 - Springfield M1922 & MAS 45 .22lr trainers