My .308/7.62mm fullauto conversion- Plug & Play Success!!

[TactAdv]

Finally got around to looking at doing a .308 conversion for my '42 Daimler Mk II fullauto gun.

I've been picking up the various bits over the last year, finally got interested enough to put it all together,,,,litterally as it turns out. ;-))

I've been reading with much interest the various posts of doing the .308 conversions.....with all the ups and downs, so I now feel kind of sheepish to report to you all that, for my original gun at least, this turned out to be a "plug & play" exercise........not sure what to feel about that bit of luck but I'll report on my affair here.....

My receiver/gun as I said, and have posted several pictures around other posts herein, is a factory original condition Daimler Mk II from 1942, so that may/may not have turned out to be an important data point in this....

I am using one of the long-ago imported "South African"/DENEL/Lyttleton Eng. 7.62mm barrels that were new made for the SADF conversions there. Many of you seemingly have the same barrels.

I had been holding off on this project because, stupid me, I never really looked at the damn barrel carefully when it came in except to note the R1/FAL flash hider they used, which I think is a nice visual change for the BREn. Then one of you pointed out here that these barrels are markedly differently constructed in the that the barrel shank end is cut back, and chambered accordingly, to permit use of the standard .303 bolt with horns. I had been thinking I'd need to machine the barrel base for the normal .303 bolt, machine in the ramp to accommodate the feed horns a la the .303 barrels. That was a major discovery.... ;-))

In this particular combination of receiver & S.A. 7.62mm barrel, I was very lucky I think in that the combination breached up tight on the first try, and the bolt locked perfectly, with both the currently installed barrel lock and bolt locking shoulder. With that bit of luck, I checked the head-spacing and was in luck again. I swapped in a S.A. 7.62mm extractor into the normal .303 bolt it had in there, and that was it.

I am using unmodified Bulgy ZB-39 mags. I have read a lot here about using them for various things but wanted to try them first as-is. They took the full 25rds no problems. I was also lucky in that they locked in perfectly with the Mk II mag catch I had installed......

I decided to try some Russian "Brown Bear" steel case .308 I have lots of. See pictures below. The whole thing went together Plug & Play style.......I fired 160rds in various semi-auto and fullauto shooting, with only a couple of things to note.

As JoeH here pointed out, occasionally, I had the last round fail to get picked up out of the magazine. It was an intermittent thing, maybe 20% of the time. Interestingly, when that happened, leaving that single round in there, the gun would fire it if cocked again.

No failure to chamber or fire at any time, other than as above for the last round. I tried both gas port position #1 & #2. Both ran it fine, though #2 seemed, with this .308, to run more smoothly and I am guessing at about 600RPM or so.......I'll think about as I shoot it further. So far, so good.

Here are some pictures; I'll get live fire video next time out.
-TomH

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