Weird Military Brass for 8x57

[Fox]

I have a bunch of soft point 8x57, I know they are reloads for a number of reasons but the main one is that the headstamp is R A 43 with a circle crimp, which from my research is 3006 brass made for airforce use?

So they would have taken surplus 3006, dumped the powder and formed the case to 8x57 and then loaded it up.

Does that make sense?

I assume all this would have corrosive primers, can anyone verify if the Americans used corrosive primers in 43? I do not know American surplus ammo but I treat all the rest from this era as corrosive.

I figure I can do what I plan to do with most of the other surplus, break it down, toss the powder and load with known powder and loads. I cannot trust any of the reloads and I know that some of the 8x57 surplus had weird things happen over time to make them have higher pressure than they would have from the factory.

Thanks

 

[howard2]

I would agree that is probably 30/06 reformed into 8 mm. Its an pretty easy reform job. You are correct in concern about corrosive primers. From what I see RA Remington Arms Company – Bridgeport, Connecticut was corrosive until 1951. See here
ht tp://www.odcmp.org/1101/USGI.pdf

 

[37patt]

More likely Raufoss from Norway, and they used 7.9x57.
A picture may help.

 

[Potashminer]

I have a bunch of soft point 8x57, I know they are reloads for a number of reasons but the main one is that the headstamp is R A 43 with a circle crimp, which from my research is 3006 brass made for airforce use?

So they would have taken surplus 3006, dumped the powder and formed the case to 8x57 and then loaded it up.

Does that make sense?

I assume all this would have corrosive primers, can anyone verify if the Americans used corrosive primers in 43? I do not know American surplus ammo but I treat all the rest from this era as corrosive.

I figure I can do what I plan to do with most of the other surplus, break it down, toss the powder and load with known powder and loads. I cannot trust any of the reloads and I know that some of the 8x57 surplus had weird things happen over time to make them have higher pressure than they would have from the factory.

Thanks

You are presuming that whomever had a desire to salvage those primers - from back in the day - was more likely the rounds were fired in a 30-06 rifle - then someone else with hundreds or thousands of fired 30-06 brass decided to make some into 8x57 - simple enough and very cheap, back then, to ream out primer pocket and insert a fresh primer - picture would show if primer pocket has been reamed or swaged, or not. Else, could be another country's head stamp?

Was a thing at one time to make "Mexican Match" ammo - simply pull the FMJ military bullet and insert same weight of soft point bullet for hunting - some people did mess with the powder load - some people did not.

 

[Fox]

You are presuming that whomever had a desire to salvage those primers - from back in the day - was more likely the rounds were fired in a 30-06 rifle - then someone else with hundreds or thousands of fired 30-06 brass decided to make some into 8x57 - simple enough and very cheap, back then, to ream out primer pocket and insert a fresh primer - picture would show if primer pocket has been reamed or swaged, or not. Else, could be another country's head stamp?

Was a thing at one time to make "Mexican Match" ammo - simply pull the FMJ military bullet and insert same weight of soft point bullet for hunting - some people did mess with the powder load - some people did not.

Seems like they are not boxer primed but I did not take them apart yet.

Exactly what I was thinking, someone used readily available components to make ammo for a gun they had, nothing new there and we are still doing it today.

I will see about getting pictures and maybe pull one case down, but there is no way I can trust the load, potentially I can use the primed cases but I have to assume they are corrosive.