Advice needed making 8mm french ordnance

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Moe

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About to start putting 8mm French Ordnance revolver ammo together. I have noticed in a youtube vid a guy making the bullets by running 9mm (380 acp) 100gr lead projectiles of .355 through a Lee resizer die to 8mm .329 . My first thought was yikes! It works for him and think I will try it as it would be easier to come across 9mm lead projectiles.

Now the real question is a buddy found a guy on a forum stateside who says he pushes copper washed (plated) bullets though the same die. I am thinking that is a bad Idea but what do you folks think. I know lead is the preferred way to go for barrel life but my range does not like lead. This would be the better option if it would work. I can get thick coated Campro and thin coated Berry's locally. Would definitely use some case lube to help them through.

Yes I can buy Campro 8mm projectiles for it but they are running out in Canada and Campro discontinued them, plus they are quite expensive.

Thanks for your feedback
Cheers
Moe
 
Buy lead from jetbullets. Or get yourself a mold.

That kind of sizing down will just be a mess. Would probably be better off finding a way to bump up 32 cal bullets if you really want to modify existing ones.
 
If you haven’t slugged your barrel, I suggest you do that before finding a mold/sizer. I assumed mine would take the campro bullets so bought 2 bags. Naturally my bore and cylinders are actually .323 so a custom mold from Accurate was in order. If you need a .323 mold, pm me as I have a spare. I’ll add that it was impossible for me to size my campros to .323 with a lee hand press and push through sizer.
 
vagrantviking said:
Buy lead from jetbullets. Or get yourself a mold.

That kind of sizing down will just be a mess. Would probably be better off finding a way to bump up 32 cal bullets if you really want to modify existing ones.
Click to expand...

BlackPowderBurner said:
If you haven’t slugged your barrel, I suggest you do that before finding a mold/sizer. I assumed mine would take the campro bullets so bought 2 bags. Naturally my bore and cylinders are actually .323 so a custom mold from Accurate was in order. If you need a .323 mold, pm me as I have a spare. I’ll add that it was impossible for me to size my campros to .323 with a lee hand press and push through sizer.
Click to expand...

Yea I that's what I was thinking too about such a drastic resizing. I will seek out a soft lead slug and try slugging the barrel. It does successfully and accurately shoot factory Fiocchi and the previous owner shot half a box of lead 32 S&W in it. It cam with a box and a half of 32 and believe it or not it actually shot them accurately, which leads me to think the bore might be on the small side. I will not be buying any 32 for it as I would rather be shooting the correct rounds. I will go measure what the Fiocchi is.

Thanks Guys
Moe
 
Someone posted a box of 00 buckshot (.330") yesterday that would work for slugging and probably even for shooting.
Or pull one of the 32 cartridges if it's lead bullets and bump it up in a vice.
 
Old post but I used to size 9mm down to I think it was .329” for the 1892 French Ordnance I used to have. Lube them first or the lube grooves will disappear. They get quite a bit longer, it’s a long way to size down. I also powder coated some before sizing down and they were slightly easier to size down. The powder coat is pretty slippery. I believe I found a Lee .329” push through sizing die. Used to do it in one step. Would probably be easier in a couple of steps. Sometimes it left a fun on the base of the bullet. They offer a .339” die now that would be a good intermediate step. While it might have wound up with offset, unbalanced bullets, it’s not exactly a precision pistol anyway. Always hit milk jugs and tin cans at 15 yards.
 
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