Shooting My Steyr M95 Carbine today

y2k

y2k

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Took My Steyr 8x56mm Cavalry Carbine out today to try out a few rounds (very few 10rds) and I was quite impressed with its accuracy. At 100 yds and sight set for 300 meters (lowest) it was about dead on elevation but a few went 3-4in low (weird) and when sight set for 500 meters (the battle sight) it was 13 inches high. The ammo was 1938 Austrian with the little swastika. Grouping was 4-5 inches but this was across a improvised rest not my regular bench.

Anyone else shoot one of these? I would love to reload or find someone who does reload this round.
 
Dies and bullet mould, .329" sizer kit are available from Lee Factory Sales for about $60 for the whole works. Hornady 8mm gas-checks work fine: $32 a thousand. Trade-Ex usually has brass in stock and they have SP and FMJ bullets in stock right now.

It is a very straightforward cartridge to handload: no secret tricks, no muttered incantations, no sacrificial virgins at midnight. For a Carbine, I would stick to fast powders (4198, 3031) and use data for 7.62x54R: that will be safe. BARNES (COTW-6) gives MV as 2034 for milspec and 2233 ft/lbs ME, but that could have been with the Rifle barrel: 30 inches, although he doesn't say. Barnes also runs this one 300 ft/sec faster with 46 grains of 3031, but this was with a .323" 196-grain slug: proper slug for this Carbine is .329" - .330".

Extra sacrificial virgins may be sent directly to me and I'll look after them for you. Don't bother sending goats: CGN already owes me a cute one and I'm still waiting for it to arrive!

If you REALLY wanna see one of these shoot high, try it with 150s!

Most important point: be sure to have fun! These little rifles are just SO darned handy.... and a single round will stop anything short of a medium-size dinosaur.
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Ever wonder why the Austro-Hungarians didn't suffer from an epidemic of jamming rifles? After all, the Steyr's are straight pulls just like the Ross, with the same lack of mechanical advantage in extraction...They used them in all sorts of conditions, muddy trenches in the Carpathians, you name it.

Have a think on that folks...;)

Does it maybe tell us something about where the problems attributed to the Ross should really be attributed?

I wonder.

Well, actually I don't! :D
 
You are quite right; there was NO epidemic of jamming Mannlicher straight-pulls, despite the Ross being designed with that as the starting point.

Only Service-related problem I have been able to find out about regarding the straight-pull Steyr was escalating inaccuracy caused by barrel expansion and resulting extra whip. This occurred only on LONG strings of rapid-fire. Rest of the time, they were a FINE rifle, despite being built with a very light barrel for the period. Every effort was made to reduce the soldier's load, as anyone who has handled one of these rifles will confirm.

I think most folks know by now that the Ross's fabled problems were caused by bad ammunition, allied with the facts that Borden desperately wanted rid of Hughes and that Britain wanted Canada to bl**dy well do as it was TOLD.

I really think there was a whole big PILE of manure in some of the reports, too. I still can't figure out how the First Div got its hands on 5,000 SMLEs...... when the closest rifles littering the landscape were Berthiers.

Thanks.
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Imho M95 was/is one of the the best examples of creative thinking of Victorian era engineering.Too bad it's often overlooked as it was created for the army of country that no longer exists.

I hope that one day I can find one with minimal wear and in original 8x50R.They must have been terrific rifles.

One has to remember that all those M95's still in existence went thru a lot of very had use and some participated in both World Wars and various regional Bolshevik revolutions/conflicts in 1918-1920.
Now look at K11/K31,Ross and imagine how it would work after the same kind of treatment.
 
i think they are fantastic rifles. i've chrono'ed the 1938 ammo at 2380fps from the carbine. i later chrono'ed my load of IMR 4064 that shot to the sights, and that i used for hunting and it was doing 1900 and some fps. did the job though
muley.jpg


the data that lee supplies with their dies is actually their already weak 8mm mauser data.

i'd like to try some 250 grain bullets.
 
How much are these rifle worth (ball park)? I had a friend offer me one for sale but I'm not a surplus rifle guy.

It appeared to be the short rifle with the bayonet lug. Steyr M95 wn19 S.

Fair condition-good condition.
 
Sam Fisher said:
How much are these rifle worth (ball park)? I had a friend offer me one for sale but I'm not a surplus rifle guy.

It appeared to be the short rifle with the bayonet lug. Steyr M95 wn19 S.

Fair condition-good condition.
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About $150, but I'd hold out for one in better condition, at the least with an excellent bore.
 
I was out shooting my M95 yesterday, Loaded up 7.62x54r cases resized to accept the .330 FMJ bullet. 42 gr IMR 3031. The rifle is in VG shape, bore was dark with well defined rifling. I focused on fire forming the brass and seeing how the rifle was performing (loading, firing extraction ejecting etc)..

Well I'm not too impressed with the forming of brass using 7.62x54r to make 8X56r. Now it would be fine for 8x50R, but in my opinion and experience there's just not enough brass to make a good re loadable 8x56r cartridge case. I fired 15rds fired, three were fire formed to the chamber dimensions, three formed but split, the rest never formed correctly. I was surprised with the powder load, they remained almost in the shape of the 7.62x54r cartridge case. Perhaps I need a faster powder??

Lots of blow back BTW as you can see the carbon on the 9 cases.

8x56r_1.JPG


8x56r_2.JPG
 
Andy said:
About $150, but I'd hold out for one in better condition, at the least with an excellent bore.
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Bore was far from excellent, dark with some rust. I think it could be cleaned up and would be a good shooter grade rifle.

Thanks regarding the price range, I'll pass that info on.
 
Sam Fisher said:
Bore was far from excellent, dark with some rust. I think it could be cleaned up and would be a good shooter grade rifle.

Thanks regarding the price range, I'll pass that info on.
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BTW most of these rifles have dark bores, two WW's and corrosive ammo to boot.
 
Easy to do, as I said previously.

I did up a batch a while back, have a big tub of them sitting here.

NO problems.

Got the brass from Trade-Ex, also the slugs.

HARD part is the CLIPS. They are unobtainium, pure: hoard yours, as there will be no more.
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