Reader Forum

Siamese Mauser Conversion Has American Gunsmith ever done an article on converting a Siamese Mauser action to .45-70? The barrel conversion seems pretty standard being basically a Mauser 98 along with opening up the bolt face. The biggest problem seems to lie with altering the feed rails and altering the extractor. Any idea where I could get a suitable extractor for a Siamese Mauser? Numrich no longer has any in stock.

Stockton, NJ Siam (now Thailand) was among the few independent south Asian nations around the turn of the 20th Century. In an effort to upgrade its military armament with then-modern equipment in 1903, they adopted a version of the Mauser 98. Lacking the needed manufacturing base to accomplish this, the country contracted with Koishikawa, a Japanese arsenal in Tokyo.

From 1903 to 1908, roughly 400,000 of the contracted Type 46 rifles were produced, chambered in an old-style 8x50mm rimmed cartridge with around-nosed projectile. Upon improving its issued machine guns some twenty years later, the Siamese military revised their issue cartridge to a slightly longer 8x52mm rimmed case with a spitzer bullet. All existing Type 46 rifles were rechambered for the new cartridge, making it rare to find an unmodified Type 56 in the original 8x50mm cartridge today.

In addition to the rechambering, the conversion also included grinding down the rear sight ramp to match the new cartridge’s flatter trajectory. The rear sight originally had range markings stamped on the side and the converted rifles partially removed these markings. Henry Fischetti As with all pre-World War Two Japanese-made rifles, the Siam Mausers were excellent quality builds.

What condition a current specimen has is dependent on how it has been treated in the interim and many surviving rifles have been used and stored in rough conditions. While they make an interesting historical addition to a rifle collection, Siam Mausers are also popular for conversion to .45-70 as the bolt and magazine are already designed for large rimmed cases, making them unique among issue Mausers. If suppliers like Numrich don’t have parts, we suspect you’re going to have to alter an existing extractor.

It should be possible to grind one without destroying the heat treat. Or reheat-treat it if that’s easier. You will likely have feeding issues with the issue box magazine as the .45-70 has a quite different taper than the 8x52R Siamese, even after the action is altered. While we don’t have an article on this in our inventory, George Nonte wrote ".45-70 Bolt Gun Rivals The .458!" in the November-December 1970 issue of The Rifle Magazine.

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