Despite Franco’s militarism, he did keep Spain out of WWII, and like all good dictators, he quickly busied himself with securing his seat of power and rebuilding Spain’s military. Spain’s arsenals took to building newer Mauser type rifles, patterned after the German K98k, and chambered in the more powerful 8x57mm Mauser cartridge.
The M1916 was relegated to second line work, and issued to La Guardia Civil, the quasi-military national police force of Spain. The Guardia Civil was instrumental in bringing peace and stability to Spain, and indeed the time from 1939 to the early 1950s is known as Spain's "silent war". The M1916 served on, seeing judicious use against both common criminals and remnants of the Republican forces. The rifles were stamped with the Guard's crest: a crossed sword and fasces. So the M1916 found a second lease on life. As time went on, Spain began working on the CETME rifle and standardizing on the 7.62mm NATO cartridge (though the country wouldn't officially join NATO until 1982). A great many M1916 Mausers (some of which, you remember, were converted M1893s) were converted to fire the 7.62x51mm NATO round. So the M1916 now had a *third* lease on life. The conversion process of these rifles is interesting. Instead of fitting new barrels to the rifles, Spain did something a little different. The existing 7x57mm barrels were removed from the receivers. Approximately 6mm was cut off the back end of the chamber so it could accommodate the shorter NATO round vs.
Then, the entire barrel was bored out, rechambered, and recut with. These barrels were then reinstalled and headspaced.
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