Thread: M1919 Ammo?
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Old June 20, 2013, 11:28 AM   #3
44 AMP
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Join Date: March 11, 2006
Location: Upper US
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According to one of my sources, while Winchester released the .308 Win as a sporting cartridge in Sep 52, the military didn's actually adopt the T-65 cartridge until 1954, and it was 1957 before M14 rifles became available for service.

Quote:
Sometime around the Korean war or shortly thereafter, most of those still in use in the military were converted to 7.62x51 (7.62 Nato).
So, any converted 1919s would have to have been done "shortly thereafter", with shortly thereafter being a half dozen years or so, maybe more.

After the adoption of the 7.62x51mm as the official NATO round, some nations using the 1919 converted them from .30-06 to the NATO round. The conversion was a relatively easy one, needing only a spacer in the feed system and a new barrel chambered for the new round. Other nations opted for getting a different gun, including the US.

I know for a fact that the Canandian army was still using converted Browning .30cals as late as 1978, as I did some work with a Canadian SP artillery company then, and they had them.

All the Browning .30s made for the US military were originally made in .30-06 (US cal .30). It is possible that some converted guns were used in US service, but if so, only in very small numbers for a short time.

It is possible to convert a Browning .30 to any round with the same head size and equal or shorter length than the 06 fairly easily, so you might someday even find one in 8mm Mauser, or some other round, but they would be extremely rare, oddballs or test guns. Conversion to .308 was the standard practice, and as far as I know, from conversations with troops who used them, they worked fine. I know that among the Canadians I worked with back then, the Browning was well loved and respected, while the M60 was not.
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