Acquiring 8mm Nazi surplus

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county51

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I'm looking at buying a RC K98 but I want to make sure getting ammo for it is not impossible before I buy the gun where would be some good places to find ammo. Do any company's still make 8mm.
 
You certainly won't find Nazi surplus, but there are small amounts of surplus and many commercial brands available. Best to get a Mauser while you still can
 
Might as well start reloading for it now :)
If you do buy new production ammo, keep the brass. At $32 or more per box it adds up real quick. Good luck on the surplus hunt, Canada Ammo may still have some, not sure if they sold out or not.

PPU is great for brass, could never get their loads to shoot worth a damn in my K98. Federal and Hornady make 8mm Mauser but it is quite underpowered...Seller & Bellot 196 gr is as close to original military loads as you will find in a box.

I have some "nazi" marked ammo, but it's 8x56R, need an M95 now...
 
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The Portuguese 8mm was really great. 1970 production too and nice and Bright. Several Million came available in the mid 1980's.
It seems every so often on of the Euro countries that briefly used the 98k's surplused from the war finds a stash of ammo and
brings it over to sell. Its been awhile since I have seen any...
 
The Prvi 198gr stuff is slow as balls. A 100m center mass hold on a full size ipssc target gets POI in the dirt 30’ short of the target. I ran a box over the chronograph last summer, 2050fps average - a full 500fps short of the German 1933 s.S Patrone military loads.

If you want to shoot a k98 (or any other original Mauser) you need to reload. There’s no longer any reason not to drop the $150 on a basic Lee kit that will let you roll your own for a fraction of the cost of factory ammunition.
 
Been looking myself.

Tradex linked above has Privi and S&B in FMJ and SP, and Hornady in SP, but I found it a pain to search out on their site. Wolverine has the same for a couple of bucks more per box but they listed the expected muzzle velocities, the Privi is about 800 fps slower than the others.
 
8mm is easy to reload.

Several sources of brass are available through buying boxes of commercial loads with good brass, or ordering brass new from suppliers. You can also make 8x57 brass from 30.06 cases as mentioned previously, there are a million to be had. Gun shows are also a good place to grab unknown inventories of brass or bullets.
 
It's still available commercially - Sellier & Bellot, Hornady, PPU are just some of the brands that still make it (all brass cases, non-corrosive, reloadable).
FMJs go for ~$30, SPs ~$32, so saving brass is a good idea, start reloading in the future.
 
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