Good morning gents,
I've been lurking on this site for a while now, so this is my first post.
I'm a big fan of antique military firearms, and I enjoy reading your comments. Thanks.
I recently added a 7mm Vene FN 49 to my collection and was searching for ammo. The only place I've been able to find that still has milsurp 7mm is SAMCO, out of Florida.
My question to you gentlemen is; have any of you had any experience with this company?
I ask because they seem to be less than interested in taking my money and making a sale. This, at least, is the case with the woman I've been speaking with at their ordering desk.
I'm beginning day two of my quest to order some ammo from these folks, and to be honest, if they were not the only game in town that still had 7mm at that price, I probably would have purchased it from someone else by now. Extremely frustrating, and really bad custumer service. From their service desk employees, they honestly dont seem to really care if they sell any ammo or not. I just dont get it; seems like a really bad business model.
On another note, have any of you ever rebarreled an FN 49? When I purchased my 7mm Vene, the seller threw in a second, partially sporterized 7mm Vene FN 49 that was missing some parts. I got both rifles for $500 bucks. I ordered everything I needed to complete the weapon from Gun Parts and Sarco, but ended up buying an 8mm barrel instead with the thought of having two of them in different calibers.
Over the weekend, I heated the receiver ring enough to turn the old barrel off and put the brand new 8mm barrel back on. A little work on the feed ramp and feed lips finished my project up so that the weapon would reliably feed 8mm. The rear locking shoulder locked up perfectly with both a dummy round and later with a live round, from which I had pulled the bullet on and removed the primer before reassembling the round. I do not have any 8mm guages. Got to go buy some go/no-go guages!
Everything SEEMS so perfect with this rebarrel. Yesterday evening I loaded ten dummy rounds into the mag in my garage and tested the feeding, extracting, and ejecting, and everything was flawless.
Which brings up some questions:
I understand that there can be some issues due to the rear locking shoulder on the bolt, and that this weapon head spaces off of the back of the bolt in this way. Have any of you ever rebarreled one of these rifles? What were the issues you faced?
I'm not a knucklehead, and I wont be attempting to fire this weapon until I throw some guages in it. After that, the first rounds through the gun will be with it sand-bagged and utilizing a long cord to fire it, until I can look at some of the ejected cases.
First post and all. Thanks up front for listening/commenting. I'm at work, but I'll try to send some pictures of the two rifles tonight after I get home.
Semper Fi.
