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Post by mj on May 5, 2021 21:41:30 GMT -5
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Interesting back ground. 1943 and 1944 8mm Spanish La Caruna Mausers.
Converted to 7.62 and served in N. Africa with the Spanish Army and Marines in Tripoli in the 1950's and 1960's
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Post by jonnyc on May 6, 2021 7:08:43 GMT -5
I could be wrong, but I thought FR7s were conversions and FR8s were new-made in 7.62.
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Post by willfngp35 on May 6, 2021 17:17:41 GMT -5
And with the relatively short barrels, they 'bark' a bit!
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Post by CXM on May 7, 2021 8:04:34 GMT -5
The definitely have a bark to them...
The Spanish were still too poor from their civil war to afford to buy new rifles in the then new 7.62x51 when it was adopted by NATO, so to conform to NATO specifications they modified existing 7mm rifles to the new NATO round.
The first of the converted 7.62 NATO rifles I saw was at Century Army in St. Albans VT around 1971. The first imports were simply 7mm Mausers that were bored out to 7.62mm. I was always a bit nervous about the ability of those early Mausers to handle the larger round, but apparently it worked fine. They were nice guns and shot well... The best grade examples sold for $20 each... that sounds way cheap, but today it would probably be $1,500... It was a sizeable chunk out of a working man's weekly wages...
The rebuilds came later...
FWIW
Chuck
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Post by jonnyc on May 7, 2021 10:10:21 GMT -5
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Post by mj on Jul 22, 2021 15:10:31 GMT -5
My understanding is that the FR8 was derived from the 7.92X57 Spanish LaCruna rifles fitted with the CETME barrel. Then I am not an expert on anything. They are handy carbines and will handle the 7.62X51. I recall giving $110 ea for them new on the back page of SGN in the very early 1980's  Pura Vida  |
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