New bulk 8mm overpressure

S

Stripes

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Just giving everyone a heads up, the new production 8mm mauser available from some vendors is pretty hot stuff. It comes in a white box and is Russian repacked captured ammo, new case and primer, old powder and projectile. No headstamp, brass cased. Shot 2 rounds from my K98 before stopping. Both rounds hard to extract, flattened primers and one split case.

Another guy shooting it a few lanes over from a K98 had similar experiences as well.
 
Been waiting on reports I was tempted a few times to pick up 1200rds. 8mm is a but hot anyway if not loaded in America, will have to try a small box first.
 
sounds like a bullet that could be taken apart and redone to take the power out of the shell. is the ammo boxer or berden ?
 
the mg34 tended to function better with the hotter ammo, my 1945 made 34 likes the hotter ammo as it takes a bit of power to function the bolt in these guns.
 
I'm kinda speculating that the Russians might not have been that accurate when transferring the powder over to the new case.

Rookie reloading question here, could I pull the projectile reduce the powder charge and just reinstall the projectile even if its berdan primed?
 
Brian46 said:
I wouldn't worry about ammo that is a little hotter on a MG, obviously within reason
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Ya I could always run it with a larger booster cone to offset the extra oomph of the hotter ammo. I run a lighter firing pin spring in mine so it functions fine with weaker ammo plus it doesn't beat up the gun as bad. TNW puts a 9.5mm booster cone in the guns and original spec is 11mm
 
Stripes said:
Rookie reloading question here, could I pull the projectile reduce the powder charge and just reinstall the projectile even if its berdan primed?
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Might be a bit of a chore for 1200rds but you could do exactly that. Weigh the original charge, dump all the powder in a bucket and work up a new load starting 10-15% lower. See if you can tune it in for your rifle.
 
I can be worth the time as I did that to 7.92x63 ammo some time back and worked up a nice load for the 8mm. I am still using some of the flake powder I got from one of the cases of ammo.
 
I'm thinking the pressures generated on this stuff are within European specs.

I have seen this before, when people used to shooting North American commercial loads, usually around 150 grain at 40,000 psi got ahold of a box of Norma Oryx or brown box loaded to European standards. Even some of the WWII surplus, which was loaded to 48,000 psi with all different weights came as a stout surprise.

198 grain bullets doing 2500 fps are right on up there with HOT 338-06 and 35 Whelan loads. Not magnum pressures but definitely not pleasant to shoot from the bench.

I picked up a box of 20 from Canada Ammo, if this is what you're talking about, and found the recoil to be unpleasant off the shoulder while standing and brutal off the bench bags.

I didn't have any issues with spit necks or stretching and if the brass weren't Berdan primed, I would have saved it to reload. I know it isn't that much more effort to reload once you learn how but I have a lot of 8x57 boxer primed brass on hand and it just isn't worth the extra effort. Also, the price of this surplus is much higher than I can reload for. It isn't worth the effort for me to break it down and reassemble it. It's going to kick like a mule, even with lower pressures. Launching 198 grain bullets out of an 8mm bore requires impressive thrust to make it usable at ranges beyond 100yds. Mind you it's plinking ammo, not hunting or match grade ammo, so lightening up the powder charge to get manageable recoil and hopefully good accuracy out to 200 yds may be a good option.
 
Blew thru 400 rounds of it thru the MG last weekend and didnt have issues with the ammo...Hope I could say the same thing for the gun...lol...
 
mg34 said:
I can be worth the time as I did that to 7.92x63 ammo some time back and worked up a nice load for the 8mm. I am still using some of the flake powder I got from one of the cases of ammo.
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You paid a lot less for that 7.92x63 than you did or will for this stuff. I picked up thousands of rounds of that Swedish machine gun ammo as well. Sold off the belts then had a reamer made up so I could open up the chamber on a bubbaed Norwegian K98. I was going to install a muzzle brake and make up a clone of one of the rifles they sold off to Israel, who bought most of the surplus 8mm 98s they had left. That ammo came with two different powders, depending on which date you got. I had three different dates. Two were loaded with an extruded powder very close to 4350 and the other with a very small extruded powder which looked like RL 19 and was about the same burn rate.

I finally gave up on that stuff because shooting those HOT loaded MG intended rounds was not pleasant by any means. Slightly heavier 220 grain bullets at 2500 fps hard on the shooter. Those bullets were excellent for accuracy though and stayed stable right out past 1000 yds.

I sold off the reamer and last couple of thousand rounds a few years back. Still have the barrel though.
 
like you I sold off the belts and the scrap brass and saved the rest for reloading and worked up a nice load for the range. at 100 yds the bullets were tough on steel plate but very accurate and I still have a few in inventory. I like taking apart old ammo that is bad for some reason and saving the components for reloading.
 
that 7.92x63 stuff was hot I ran several K through my 1919 I reamed out an 8mm barrel and opened up a booster it ran well I did 5k plus with 1 fail to fire it bounced the gun all over even on the tripod never broke anything

think I paid $100.00 per K on belts...... only got 10K should have bought more


who is selling the 8mm????
 
contact148 said:
that 7.92x63 stuff was hot I ran several K through my 1919 I reamed out an 8mm barrel and opened up a booster it ran well I did 5k plus with 1 fail to fire it bounced the gun all over even on the tripod never broke anything

think I paid $100.00 per K on belts...... only got 10K should have bought more


who is selling the 8mm????
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Seeing as it's a banner advertiser, Canada Ammo

mg34, pulling down old ammo for components is one thing if it unusable otherwise but pulling apart the stuff the OP is talking about would not be an option for me. It's hot. With that heavy bullet it was obviously intended for machineguns but likely still safe in rifles. It's accurate and non corrosive but it is Berdan primed. Canada Ammo has a bit of its history in their write up. With taxes in by the case of 1200 it costs $1.12/round shipped. I can purchase components for reloading for about half that at the LGS.
 
the ammo is a bit pricey for me, at the moment I do not need any 8mm as I have 4000 rds of boxer primed ammo in storage so this should last me a few years at the range. It all depends on how much time you have to play with such ammo and if you want to baby your prized k98.
 
I left a few detailed comment on the canada ammo forum subsection.

Basically this stuff is ww2 German ammo produced for the Romanians, captured by the Russians and recently rebuilt with non corrosive primers.
Cases, powder and projectile are original German. only primers are new. Chronographed it at just over 2500fps, Which is within spec, as is the powder charge.
Stuck cases, pierced primers, flattened primers, leaking primers......... just terrible. Does it shoot? Sure! But the rifles don't like it... and it's overpriced for what it is.
I guess the primers don't jive well with the whole assembly.

Also, no issues with the S&B 196 grain fmj..... which Chronographed the same, and has almost the same projectile weight.
 
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