[kungfuhippie]

I just got some digital calipers for my newest hobby; reloading.
I have a ever growing collection of 8mm surplus ammo.
So I put 2 and 2 together to see what type of bullet dia. variations there were. I prefer Romanian steel cased 1970's surplus, here's why; I measures several rounds (60) from three different years and they all had a diameter of 0.323"

Here's a run down of what else I have so far, an average of 2-20 rounds for each;

1934 german 0.323"
1952 yugoslavian 0.322"
1951 yugoslavian 0.322"
1950 yugoslavian 0.321"
1957 yugoslavian 0.322"
1954 ecuadorian 0.317"
1938 greek 0.321"
1938 greek 0.322" (different manufacturer, only 1 in my collection)
1939 greek 0.321"
1922 turkish 0.319"
1926 turkish 0.320"
1939 turkish 0.319"
1950 turkish 0.318"
1938 greek 0.322"
1955 brass cased romanian 0.317"

I got bored and quit with the first box of the collection (just another 10-20 rounds left). As you can see there is huge variation in the different manufacturers. Next I'll be checking powder in the Romanian surplus. My goal is to match the load in my reloads.

[kungfuhippie]

WOW!

I thought it was interesting. Kind of explains why most surplus ammo isn't very accurate.

[Oohrah]

Party there is two different diameters for the 8mm. I believe it is
the early 8mm is .318. The WW2 stuff is .312:)

[cracked butt]

For extra credit- slug the bores andthroats of your 8mms, and see if any of them are close to .323" ;)

[Smokey Joe]

Kungfuhippie--The 8mm cartridge was invented in 1888 as a blackpowder cartridge. The bore diameter of the rifles for it at that time, and the bullet diameter, was 0.318". I believe a lead bullet was used. Shortly, in 1905, the Germans updated the round as a smokeless-powder round, and began loading it with a spitzer-type FMJ bullet. For good measure, they increased the bullet diameter to 0.323". The result was vastly improved ballistics, so much so that the US government, which had just designed a round-nose cartridge and a new rifle for it, in 1903, followed the Germans' lead and updated the US round similarly. (The result in the US was the famed .30-'06. Yes, the earlier cartridge was called the .30-'03.) No German military rifle made since 1905 uses the old size, but the 0.318" size was used up to about WWI by sporting rifle makers.

Anyhow, that's the origin of the 2 diameters for the 8x57 cartridge. Europeans don't have a problem with the difference; the call the 0.318" cartridge the 8x57J, and the 0.323" cartridge the 8x57JS. (There is also an 8x57 rimmed, for double rifles, the 8x57JSR, but this discussion is already complicated enough!)

Apparently your Ecuadorian, Turkish, and one of your Romanian boxes of ammo were made with the 8x57J in mind.

US ammo makers deal with it by loading 8x57 only with .323" bullets, but 'WAY underloading it, so you wouldn't KB an old .318" gun. I guess they think we're too stupid to understand the difference between "J" and "JS" on a box of ammo.

Cracked Butt has it right--If there is any doubt in yr mind as to which bullet you should use, slug the bore.

(Source: Nosler Reloading Guide, 5th ed.)

[Jim Watson]

Next I'll be checking powder in the Romanian surplus. My goal is to match the load in my reloads.

What will that tell you?


From what I have read, the 1888 7.9x57 (8mm J, German J = I for Infantrie.) was smokeless from the start; the Germans felt the need to keep up with the French who had gone with nitro powder and jacketed bullets in the 1886 8mm Lebel.
Germany later went with the better real Mauser 1898, still in 7.9x57 with .318" roundnose bullet. But about that same time, the French amazed everybody with the Balle D boattail spitzer bullet of very long range. Germany was still playing catch up with the French when they went with a flatbase spitzer for higher velocity in 1905 and increased the diameter to .323" in the 7.92x57 or 8mm JS for Infantrie Spitzgeschloss. (Some say the S is for Schwer = heavy for when Germany went to a heavier boattail bullet of their own.)

[Smokey Joe]

Jim Watson--Thx for filling in the details on the 8mm cartridge origins. So, the Germans were following France's lead, eh?? Fascinating!

Kungfuhippie--Your checking the powder in a given military case will tell you nothing useful--the powders available commercially to handloaders are NOT the same as the powders used by arsenals and ammo manufacturers. Also, you probably won't be able to duplicate the bullets used in the Romanian surplus loads, either. So copying the loading of that cartridge is not feasable.

Now, if you want to duplicate the PERFORMANCE of that cartridge, what you do is obtain bullets as much like the Romanians as you can find, commercially, obtain the use of a chronograph, chrono the Romanian load, then load your similar bullets to the same velocity, using one of the standard reloading powders like for example IMR 4350, which happens to work for me in my 8mm Mauser.

You still will have a little futzing with the load to do, to exactly duplicate the Romanian surplus, because the bullets won't be identical. But the chrono will get you "closies."

Oh, another problem, and that is you do not want to reload steel cases--hard on the dies, require more effort for the operator, just generally a PITA. But nice brass 8mm cases don't cost all that much, and you'll be able to reload them quite a number of times, which amortizes their cost nicely. Now, I don't know if the brass-instead-of-steel question will affect the ballistics of the round but it might. Midway carries 8mm brass cases if you can't find 'em locally. Me, I'd go for quality and get the Lapua cases.

What you may well discover with all this is that you can load far better ammo yrself than any milsurp ammo, no matter how good it is. Or you may discover a load that is a duplicate of no milsurp, but which your particular rifle happens to "like." In that case, why copy the Romanian milsurp?

Anyhow, good luck, welcome to The Magnificent Obsession--Reloading, and please keep us posted on yr progress! :)

[cracked butt]

Cracked Butt has it right--If there is any doubt in yr mind as to which bullet you should use, slug the bore.


What I really meant is that you might have a tough time finding a 8mm with a .323" groove diameter. Out of more than a dozen 8mms I've measured, only two of them come close to .323"- a turk M38 and a Yugo M48 at .323" and .3235" respectively. My best 3 shooters happen to be the M48, a 98/29 that measures .3255", and a 98/22 that measures .325", but not neccessarily in that order.

This isn't uncommon with military rifles, more likely the rule rather than the exception. You'll find that more springfields will measure closer to .310" than to .308", enfields and Mosins tend to be in the range of .312-314" (or even larger) and even the swedes are usually around .266" even though they fire a .264" bullet. The only surplus rifles rifles that I've measured and are consistantly at the diameter of the bullet they fire are the Swiss rifles- out of 7 K-31s that I've measured, they vary very little from .3075" with a .299" bore.

[kungfuhippie]

Thanks for all the info. I haven't been on here in a while, let me clarify some stuff. I was going to check the romanian powder for consistency, not to see what type it was. I didn't explain that very well.

I was going to pull apart 50 or so rounds measure the powder, find the average and then roload 50 rds using the powder and bullets, to not be wasteful. I'll also check the variation in bullet mass. I think the Romanians were turing out some above average surplus...at least more consistent than others, measuring the bullet and powder masses will shed some light on this.
I haven't slugged the bores yet. I posted this just before finals, so I have been neglecting my guns since late february (they are all lonely tucked up in the safe)

All the ammo I tested was supposedly built to the JS dimensions, but I've read a few explinations; one is that the military would rather have less accuracy than have a bunch of kabooms when the soldiers are issued .318 bores to fill in supply gaps. The other is that an undersized bullet in a machinegun wears the bore down at a much slower rate, or doesn't heat the barrel up as quickly under heavy firing. I think it may be partially these reasons but mostly that most wartime production and communist country production was never held to extremely high quality control. Just my $.02

I have gotten velocity numbers online for the 1970's romanian and am going to use loading books to come close to that velocity with sierra 150gr. sp (instead of 154 gr romanian). Basically I'm trying to match the 1970's romanian load because it's what my rifles like to shoot and are the most accurate with. 150 grains is more than enough for the deer around here.

Hope this helps clarify everything, so don't expect a post from me with an out of focus photo of a pile of Romanian powder asking what kind of powder it is:neener: