Conversion to 9.3x62

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

You will get various answers to this but yes you are BEST SERVED to open the magazine box and subsequently the rails to accommodate the 9.3. Many, many people have simply rebarelled and been satisfied, but not me. I learned a great deal about how unalike an 06 and. 9.3 are when I had a 9.3 made out of a Husky 640 06.

Do it right from the start and you will save yourself a lot of potential headaches and money.

That’s my .02c.

@baxterb
I had an M17 rebarreled to 35 Whelen AI very similar to the 9.3x62 and it fed perfectly with zero mods to the rails or feed ramp. Feeds accubonds to 225gn and 310gn round nose without a problem.
Bob

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

I believe there is some info on opening the feed rails in Jerry Kuhnhausen's book on Mausers. I don't have the book handy right now to be sure of that statement, but I've seen info on performing that operation somewhere -- perhaps it was in some article I have on converting a 1917 or Pattern14 Enfield to .416 Rigby. I'll check what I've got saved. Either way, if you fiddle with Mauser bolt actions, the Kuhnhausen book is quite informative.

Cheers!
Tony

PS -- I see John Wasmuth has beaten me to it on the Kuhnhausen advice. Good on you, John!

@Maximumsmoke
The M17 is a bigger stronger action than the Mauser 98. The only thing I can see needing to be done is the bolt face may have to be opened up a millipoofteenth to allow for the slightly larger rim.
If you wanted to go the guppy belly stock from Boyd's and the original bottom metal that will increase your mag capacity. The original M17 actually held 6 30-06 rounds and people don't realise this because it only had a 5 round charger clip.
This is because the P14 mag had to accept the 303 and wasn't changed when reconfigured to the ought six.
Bob

 

[AZDAVE]

I have done 6ea 06-x62 mauser builds. 5 of them basically installed the barrel, set the correct head space and went out to shoot. Fed well and no magazine mods were required. On a FN commerical action had to open the rails a very small amount. Ran a fine file down the left rail about 10 times and 7 times on the left rail. Then polished both rails. The mag box also required a small amount of opening up in the sides. Used Paul Mauser's calculation for how much to open it. It is a fairly straight forward build. The easiest X62 build was on a savage long action 110 savage.

 

[Maximumsmoke]

@Maximumsmoke
The M17 is a bigger stronger action than the Mauser 98. The only thing I can see needing to be done is the bolt face may have to be opened up a millipoofteenth to allow for the slightly larger rim.
If you wanted to go the guppy belly stock from Boyd's and the original bottom metal that will increase your mag capacity. The original M17 actually held 6 30-06 rounds and people don't realise this because it only had a 5 round charger clip.
This is because the P14 mag had to accept the 303 and wasn't changed when reconfigured to the ought six.
Bob

Bob, the nominal diameter of the rim on the 9.3x62 is actually a tad smaller than the '06 -- by .003". So nothing need be done to the bolt face of a 1918 or a Rem Model 30 in .30-06. The nominal base and shoulder diameters of the 9.3x62, however, are larger than the '06 -- by .005" and .010" respectively. i.e. The base diameter of the 9.3x62 is larger than its rim diameter. I listed the nominal applicable dimensions in one of my earlier posts. A conversion of a bolt action in .30-06 to the slightly fatter 9.3x62 might warrant some attention, however minimal, to magazine width and feed rails. The only change to the bolt might be some fiddling around with the extractor for clearance in the rim groove of the 9.3x62 case, but it sounds from what you and others have said earlier, even that might be unnecessary.