Austrian Mosin Nagant Rifles Rechambered for 8x50mm in WWI

The Austro-Hungarian Empire captured a very large number of Mosin Nagant rifles from Russian forces during World War One. They decided as early as November 1914 to convert many of these rifles to the 8x50mm Mannlicher cartridge (as used in the M95 Mannlicher rifles of the Austrian and Hungarian forces) and put them back into service as second line weapons. When captured Russian ammunition was available many Mosins were also used as-is, but hundreds of thousands were put through the conversion process. It was originally intended to be a reboring to 8mm, but ended up being a simple rechambering for 8×50, leaving the barrels in 7.62mm and accepting the increased pressure from squeezing 8mm bullets down to that diameter.

Conversion works was done by OEWG (Steyr) and AZF (the main Austrian artillery workshop) as well as four smaller private enterprises. In addition to the rechambering, they were generally fitted with M95 style sling hardware and had their rear sights remarked to schritt increments. Apparently many more rifles were captured than bayonets, as copies of the standard Mosin bayonet were made for these rifles in Austrian service. Lastly, a large number of stripper clips were made which fitted 8x50mm ammunition in the Mosin clip guide – I have never seen one of these, but large production is documented.