Rhineland arms .45acp

[Chazp89]

Figured I’ll do a write up on the .45 acp Rhineland arms conversion for Mauser actions. I opted for the large ring kit with a military contour barrel. The chosen victim was a Czech vz24 Brazilian contract Mauser 98 in pretty rough shape, the original 7mm barrel looked like a sewer pipe even after cleaning, stock was heavily oil soaked and it was missing the handguard, barrel band and some other hardware.

Onto the conversion itself... the kit includes a threaded barrel, barrel lock nut(set up similar to a savage), magazine conversion block and an extended ejector. The hardest part in all honesty was removing the old barrel. Once the old barrel was gone I threaded the new barrel in(not forgetting the lock nut), put the bolt in, set headspace by threading the barrel in and out then locked the barrel in tight with the nut once headspace was achieved. Some minor modifications were needed on the bolt face to accept the rim of the .45 case, mainly opening it up a bit.

After that came the installation of the magazine block. First I installed an extended 1911 mag catch in the block (one of the extra parts you will need) then I clamped the block into the original mag well/trigger guard. You have to install a mag and play around with placement until the bolt picks up rounds reliably, on my rifle I had to open up and taper the bottom of the bolt face where the rim slides in to allow it to pick rounds reliably. Once placement was determined, 3 1/8” holes were drilled to secure the block with roll pins. The most time consuming and frustrating part of the conversion was to make it feed half way decent, between playing with the bolt face and feed ramp it was a very slow irritating process. I eventually extended the feed ramp, found a good angle for it and polished it all up.

The next step was to install the extended ejector. With it being so long, it has some play up and down, to help prevent it catching on the bolt, I rounded and polished the rear surfaces of any lugs it passes through. It still eventually caught and broke after some use. I’m currently running the original ejector but planning on putting another extended ejector in. To help keep it from happening again, I’m going to try notching the ejector box/bolt release to further prevent movement.

After all that it was time to shorten the stock, find some k98 sights to fit the barrel since the original ones didn’t fit and go shoot it!

As someone else put it, this kit makes a “fun little headache”. It’s a fun little blaster and will make an excellent host for a suppressor. It’s not too hard, just a bunch of tinkering to get reliable but the results are well worth the effort! It gets more range time than any other rifle I have and is surprisingly accurate.

 

[K-43]

Looks like a fun project and sort of "rescue" of a wallhanger with no collector value.
I appreciate your real evaluation of the product and actual work involved. You've answered some things I wondered about.
I've been to their site a number of times and considered doing a small ring in 45 acp or 7.62 x 39. Numrich has some regular barrel 7.62 kits. I've got an old Oviedo receiver sold for parts, Bubba'd Swede "Sporter" stock and such to work with. The lock nut barrel saves getting a reamer.

 

[StantonCree]

I need to live in that room

 

[Chazp89]

The 7.62x39 kit is on my want list, but first I need another rifle needing a new lease on life. My guess would be the x39 kit would be less fussy trying to feed, but I have read that the case rim difference may be a source for other headaches.

 

[BossmanPJ]

You do some very cool projects Sir. And that room is kick ass. Looking forward to more of your project posts. Or dare I say an entire gun room pictorial?

 

[Chazp89]

Thank you! I have a couple more projects I can do a write up on but these were two of the more interesting ones, the rest are more “main stream” so to speak. We will see about a virtual tour of the room.

 

[Chazp89]

Here are the modifications to the bolt. I forgot to mention that the extractor needed to be rounded on the bottom edge of the claw as well to help feeding.

 

[teratos]

Hmmmm. I see myself borrowing heavily from the De Lisle Carbine in the near future......

 

[Chazp89]

They used to have a .45 kit for the enfield but Rhineland dropped production for some reason