Type 53 Chinese Carbine in 308?

[SPCHardin]

So i picked up a chinese type 53 carbine today. A buddy of mine heard that when they were brought back from Vietnam they were sometimes converted to .308. Is there a way to tell this? I have loaded mine with 7.62x54R and it cycles fine. I have not fired it yet though. Any advice?

 

[DubiousDan]

If your rifle had been re-chambered for 308, 7.62x54R rounds are not likely to chamber. I hadn't heard of any of those rifles being converted to 308 but back in the day there were stories of North Vietnamese using captured 7.62x51 rounds in there rifles. I heard people claim that they had tried it in their rifles and that it had worked but accuracy was poor. Sounds like a pretty stupid thing to try.

 

[M. Sage]

7.62x54R is way bigger than .308. The poor accuracy in those "tests" is partially because the Soviet caliber isn't a .308 bore, it's .311-.312.

You'd have to modify the bolt face and extractor to get that rifle to work properly with .308. The rim on the other round is way bigger than the .308's base.

To re-chamber the rifle properly, you'd have to change the barrel. Odds are those that were "re-chambered" were running some kind of chamber insert...