Yesterday's Weapons Forums

Hello everyone. I've been a member for a while, but have never posted before, so I'm the new girl on the block. I'm pretty much a beginner to collecting older weapons, but they have grabbed me good.

Today I brought home another one, a MAS 49-56. I don't know a whole lot about the gun, but that's half the fun to me, doing the research on them.

But I stumbled on something that has me not wanting to shoot the gun now, so I wanted to see what your experience was.

I found a site that says these guns are prone to doing bursts if you don't use the French surplus ammo. How possible is it that this is going to happen? My odds of only finding French surplus are slim at best, and I don't have access to land, so I shoot at indoor ranges. I am terrified of this thing bursting on the firing range and me ending up in a prison cell with some nut job.

How's that for a first "noob" post?! LOL!

Hello Wolf308,
I don't know about the rifle doing this, but I think it has a free floating firing pin which might cause this with sensitive primers. CCI makes a No. 34 primer which is made for semi and automatics. It is harder and should not slam fire. Stay away from Winchester primers as these are sensitive and have been know to cause slam fires.
Grafs and Sons sells boxer primable cases for the 7.5 French. There may be others, but this is where I got my 8x56R cases. You can also find the CCI #34 primers at some gun shows. If you don't reload, I cannot tell you about the commercial offerings.
The best thing to do is clean the bolt and make sure there is no grease in the firing pin hole. only a trace of light oil on the firing pin.
Before trying new ammo try the following using French military ammo then run the same test with new ammo and compare the physical results:

To test French miltary ammo and new ammo point the gun down range, put the safety on and place only one round of ammo in the magazine and let the bolt release (allow to return to battery) and fly home. If the gun does not slam fire carefully extract the round and look at the primer for indentations. A very tiny one can be normal, but more than that can cause the round to go off. Other semis will do this including FN49s and SKS.
If you eventually load more than one round in the magazine and it goes auto say Hi "Bubba" . BTW I did have this happen with an 8mm FN49-w/Winchester primers and two rounds in the mag. Totally unnerving for a few minutes.

Hope this helps

contact this fellow, he is known for SKS modified firing pins (They have the same issue with commercial or soft primers) He has done 49/56 mods as well

http://www.murraysguns.com/sksown.htm


Oh & Welcome to the forum!

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It's 5 o'clock and it's watermelon time.....................
because you can't drink beer & load rockets - TXPete

Yes, !! Research can truly be frustrating. It seems like every answered question begets five more.

We have a resident French rifle guy, but he's under the weather right now. I'll ask him next time he writes. SW

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Slava Ukraini!!

And another yo you. I am not much of an auto person as I prefer bolt guns and Mausers in particular.

Rad

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NRA Benefactor Member
AMA Life Member
Tri-State Gun Collectors Life Member

Has anyone tried the titanium firing pin in the MAS yet?

I haven't. I sold mine. Had a 308 version & only fired surplus so it wasn't a problem.

_________________

It's 5 o'clock and it's watermelon time.....................
because you can't drink beer & load rockets - TXPete

Well, here's the update. After thinking about it and weighing the pros and cons, I've decided to bid the MAS good day. The owner of the shop told me he'd take it back if I couldn't figure out a fix, and truth be told, I'm never going to trust this rifle enough to shoot it. I don't want a gun around I'm not going to shoot. And since I can't reload for it and my only range option is the local police range, I'm not going to chance my cruddy luck with it. So there's an SMLE and possibly a Mosin with my name on it, and they'll come home with me Tuesday. Back to the wrack with the MAS. Thanks, guys.

Wolf,
I went on the net and used the search phrase MAS 49 slam fire and came up with several pages. The Wikepedia article is interesting. Look under "variants" section.

No slam fores with an SMLE that's for sure!

_________________

It's 5 o'clock and it's watermelon time.....................
because you can't drink beer & load rockets - TXPete

my take too ET , she will be happy with that one , i like mine

Welcome to the forum!

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What's up Gatsby? Glad to see you still checking in!

_________________

It's 5 o'clock and it's watermelon time.....................
because you can't drink beer & load rockets - TXPete

Update:

Gun's back in the wrack. I'll have photos later of the two I got in exchange for it. Thanks all!

a 2fer! cool.

_________________

It's 5 o'clock and it's watermelon time.....................
because you can't drink beer & load rockets - TXPete

great trade and you will love thew enfields - but then im prejudiced ....


hey gatsby - glad to see you here ,

A square 10: Oh yeah, I know. This is my second Enfield in less than two months. The Swiss rifles didn't even grab me this hard! LOL!

OK, so the MAS is back up on the wrack at the shop waiting for a new home, and here's the two I got in a trade:

Lee Enfield SMLE, dated 1926:



And a Soviet marked Mosin Nagant 91/30, dated 1943:

very nice , is it a mkIII or a mkIII* ? they reverted between the wars , it looks very nice indeed , now you need a nice P1907 bayonet , to keep the boys away