My first M95 Short Rifle.... Sight and ammo questions..

[fernleaf]

A few months ago I put some rounds through a mates Straight Pull M95 Short Rifle, and was pretty taken by them. As luck would have it I was offered one at the right price, which I duly bought, and present for members today.

Budapest 1918 with rechamber (rebored??) date of 1932, and rear sight graduated in metres. It wears a taller front sight than my mates example - I've read two differing reasons for the taller front sights - The Bulgarians put them on for post-WWII Police use, or the Austrians did it in the 1930s when they changed the rear sight to metres - which is it - or is it something else?

What would be the most correct Bulgarian sling to put on this rifle?

Also, the rifle came with a quantity of ammo. Some was the commonly encountered 1937-39 Austrian and Nazi marked stuff, but there were 15 rounds of Hungarian 1944 dated steel case ammo which I hadn't seen in the flesh before - should I shoot it, or hang on to it? Is it worth more than the 1930s Austrian?? I'm not an ammunition collector, so if it is a little bit 'more rare', then I'd rather sell it to someone who would appreciate it rather than shoot it.....

I do have a decent quantity of ammunition to feed it, but it won't be one of my regular shooters.

 

[cyclone]

Gorgeous-looking rifle !...

I'd keep the "clips" (chargers, whatever ) for use , and keep the ammo as collector-stuff....

 

[smellie]

CYCLONE is bang-on on all counts.

Hang onto that ammo; they ain't makin' no more and is has gottn more than just a bit scarce in the last few years.

Dies are available from Lee Precision, as are Moulds. Trade-Ex (link at 10 o'clock from the CGN Beaver) has new brass and the correct .329-208 bullets in FMJ and BTSP both.

There are no roblems.

These are just too nice NOT to shoot. Besides, it gets you into trim for shooting a Ross.

Nice rifle.

Hope this helps.
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[fernleaf]

I intend to shoot the brass cased Austrian ammo, but I'll probably buy a couple of boxes of Hornady ammo, and some Lee dies. The Hornady .329 projectiles are are hard to find here in New Zealand - are there any export restrictions on brass/projectiles from Canada? There are from the US and Germany...

 

[smellie]

The LEE Mould for this calibre is about C$25 and the sizer/gas-check seater is about C$19 with a bottle of lube. The Mould makes a .329" bullet of 205 grains weight, with a gas-check base; an 8mm/.32-cal gas-check brings it to the requisite 208 grains perfectly. Old wheelweights from lorries make great bullets and are cheap. Velocity on this number is low enough that it should be hard enough for almost-full loadings. If not, you can harden the slugs by dumping into ice-water when they are just-cast and still hot.

There are no export restrictions on brass tubes or on slugs from this country, but you would do well to check at your end. I do know that Australia (next-door to you) requires a Defence Ministry Permit for a single bullet to be imported.

I believe that you guys can get HIGHLAND ammunition. From what I read, it is manufactured in Serbia by Prvi Partizan in Uzice. Those are the same guys who make the bullets and the brass that we get here. HIGHLAND comprises MOST of the Prvi Partizan line of loaded ammunition and components, but I don't see the stuff listed for the 8x56R. You might ask your local dealer to inquire.

But there are no problems at THIS end.

Good luck, friend!
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[fernleaf]

I'm not set up to make cast bullets, and probably won't be for the foreseeable future.

I'll see what Prvi bullets my local gunshop can get, but I bet it'll be cheaper importing from Canada. I'm pretty certain we have no import restrictions on components.

Quite the opposite to our Australian cousins, NZ gun laws are (for the most part....) fair and sensible. A few Sth American and European nations have used our gun laws as a model for their own.

 

[smellie]

Good-oh!

As to casting bullets, I made my very first ones on my mother's kitchen stove, melting down battery lead with a bit of Linotype metal from the print-shop, doing it all in a cat-food tin. These days I'm using wheelweight metal in a little LEE furnace which sells for about C$60 from Lee Factory Sales. It has a built-in thermostat and pours from the bottom and is available also in 220VAC for the rest of the world; we use 110VAC here, as in the States. Easy to use and takes very little space to store. Lubrication is easy with Lee's Liquid Alox and an empty plastic bullet box, then you size the critters and install the gas-checks on your loading press, one quick motion. Takes only a few minutes to do up 100.

It's like a lot of things: you can do it quick and easy OR you can make it into a science or even an art. All I ever shoot is a tin can, so I don't need perfect 1000-yard performance: I can do it quick and easy. Besides, I am also as lazy as a cut coon, or so I have been told, so it fits!

BTW, you can shoot this rifle for about 10 rounds for a NZ$. Load with a cast bullet with gas-check and 13 grains of Red Dot shotgun power, more or less. You get about 1800 ft/sec and about 2 MOA at the target at ranges 200 and under. Easy on the shoulder (and the 8x56R is a beast with full loads) and cheap like borschdt.

Do have fun!
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[buffdog]

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There are two other options that could be available to you, both of which I have done.

The first is to make up a die for your reloading press to "bump" up the diameter of a regular .323 diameter 8mm bullet to .329. This is only 6 thousands of an inch, and does work well. I also bump up 35 calibre, (.357 diameter) rifle bullets to 9.3 mm (.366 diameter), an increase of 9 thousands of an inch. I use them in a 9.3x57 Husqvarna Sporter because it costs me less than half the price of 9.3 mm bullets and is readily available.

I have a pretty good sized shop to play around in, so I have the tools and equipment to make my own dies, etc. You might have to go to a Machine Shop and have them make up a swaging die to bump up your bullets. My for bullet bumping are three piece; a base, a body with the correct diameter (slightly oversize because the bullet springs back a bit,) and a top plunger with the shape of the nose. I drop in a bullet from the top, insert the plunger and then smack it with a 2 pound hammer. I can also change the nose shape by making different plungers, but I find the round nosed bullets seem to work better than Spitzers.

The second option, is paper patched, (actually paper jacketed) bullets. The original loading of the 7.5 Swiss cartridge was a paper patched bullet so they considered it durable enough for combat use. Many of the American target and Buffalo rifles used paper patched bullets. A standard 8mm Mauser bullet could be used. The best book on these is by Paul Matthews and is available from Wolfe Publishing in the United States.

BTW, I have fired thousands of paper patched bullets using no lubrication at all in the .303, with better accuracy than Mark VII Ball out to 600 yards, at standard velocities, with no leading of the barrel at all. I use longer, round nosed, heavier cast lead bullets with a good bearing surface, that were designed for the standard .308 diameters such as the 30-06 or 30-40 Krag, as cast, with two wraps of paper patch using dress making pattern paper.

If you were to use a good bond paper that is a bit thicker, you should be able to increase the diameter of the 8mm bullets enough to get a good "bite" on the rifling.

When using cast or paper patched bullets, you should have an expander die for the case mouth to "bell" it out slightly, and also inside chamber your case mouths.
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