Finally sighted in my M48

What load are you shooting?

Sounds like Romanian 154 grain.

Use plenty of hot water when cleaning up, it's corrosive.

Swampman said:

Sounds like Romanian 154 grain.

Use plenty of hot water when cleaning up, it's corrosive.

Click to expand...

Back when I was fooling with a Mauser and surplus ammo, I kept a bottle of water and ammonia mixed 50/50. Later, with a muzzleloader, I went to Windex.

I got ahold of some Romanian once... lighter bullet and not as fast, IIRC... didn't kick near as hard as that Turkish magnum crap.

an M48 with surplus Romanian ammo shooting 1.4 moa.... Nice!

If your rifle shoots high there is absolutely nothing you can do other than find a tall front sight, and file it down till your point of aim equals the point of impact. I used to buy a number of front sights from surplus dealers and find the tallest to zero my rifles. Now there are out fits making tall front sights:

Check out the dovetail dimensions for the Brownell's front sight

https://www.brownells.com/rifle-par...er-91-dovetail-front-sight-blank-prod341.aspx

don't know if any of these will file to fit a M48, but at least he has tall front sights.

http://www.skinnersights.com/front_sights_5.html

I will recommend, bed the action in the stock. Bed the action before installing a tall front sight. I have found, time after time, that the bedding in these old military rifles is either shot, or in the case of the Yugo rebuilds, not a consideration. The Communist Yugoslavia just slapped on refinished stocks, sometimes new stocks, without any consideration for action to stock fit. Pretty much if the action screws tightened up, that was good to go. In every M48 I had in my hands, the action was bowed and bent and once glass bedded, shot to an entirely different point of impact. The groups became round afterwards, whereas before, they were strung in weird directions.

mustanger98 said:

...Turkish magnum crap.

Click to expand...

SACRILEGE!

I loved the Turk stuff, especially when Wideners was selling it for $3.50 per 50 round bandolier.

Not a huge fan of the solid brass Turkish stripper clips or the button up bandoliers, but the ammo itself was great. Powerful, fairly accurate and 100% sure fire.

Slamfire said:

If your rifle shoots high there is absolutely nothing you can do other than find a tall front sight, and file it down till your point of aim equals the point of impact...

Click to expand...

My M-48 shoots much closer to POA at 100 meters when I use the 198 grain ammo the sights were designed for rather than the lighter 154 grain stuff.

I'd recommend trying heavier bullets before doing a lot of work on the sights to move the POI lower.

I broke out the M48A just a few days ago. Been years since I last shot it. It was a pleasure to shoot using a starting load out of the Lee manual.

Swampman said:

SACRILEGE!

I loved the Turk stuff, especially when Wideners was selling it for $3.50 per 50 round bandolier.

Not a huge fan of the solid brass Turkish stripper clips or the button up bandoliers, but the ammo itself was great. Powerful, fairly accurate and 100% sure fire.

Click to expand...

From what I could tell, the clips work fine as long as they're not warped, but everybody has an opinion. I didn't care for the bandoleers either, but then, they were dryrotted... probably packed and stored back in the 1930's.

Remember what your ammo's headstamps were? Mine was 1935, and I had a few fail-to-fire. POI was +3'@100yds on the lowest elevation.

Power... one end you get shot and the other end'll beat you to death. I heard later that shooter fatigue is not an advantage. The German service load only ran about 2500fps... milder than Turkish at ~3200 with the same weight bullet.

I handloaded a 170grRN at 2500 by the Hornady manual... shot into a clay bird at 100 and didn't kick the dental work loose... probably a good load for deer in my part of the country. Non-corrosive too.

Swampman said:

SACRILEGE!

I loved the Turk stuff, especially when Wideners was selling it for $3.50 per 50 round bandolier.

Not a huge fan of the solid brass Turkish stripper clips or the button up bandoliers, but the ammo itself was great. Powerful, fairly accurate and 100% sure fire.

Click to expand...

The prewar (37-38) Turk 7.92 Mauser on nickel or chrome stripper clips for $0.06/round was great stuff. The wartime manufacture not so much.

sharkman said:

Just for grins I pulled one cartridge. 155 gr projectile with 45.4 gr powder

View attachment 911699 View attachment 911700 View attachment 911701

Click to expand...

That looks like that Romanian stuff I got ahold of. From here, not knowing which powder it is, it seems it should be running between 2500 and 2700 fps. Looks like a good load to me. Got a headstamp?

mustanger98 said:

From what I could tell, the clips work fine as long as they're not warped, but everybody has an opinion. I didn't care for the bandoleers either, but then, they were dryrotted... probably packed and stored back in the 1930's.

Remember what your ammo's headstamps were? Mine was 1935, and I had a few fail-to-fire. POI was +3'@100yds on the lowest elevation.

Power... one end you get shot and the other end'll beat you to death. I heard later that shooter fatigue is not an advantage. The German service load only ran about 2500fps... milder than Turkish at ~3200 with the same weight bullet.

I handloaded a 170grRN at 2500 by the Hornady manual... shot into a clay bird at 100 and didn't kick the dental work loose... probably a good load for deer in my part of the country. Non-corrosive too.

Click to expand...

My Turkish 8mm was 1943/44 production, that's when they were using the Turkish made one piece brass chargers. Prior to WWII they purchased two piece nickel plated steel clips from Brno in Czechoslovakia.

Quality of the ammunition itself didn't decline in WWII since Turkey wasn't a belligerent until 1945 and continued to trade with both the axis and the Allies (ie: made lots of money and didn't suffer much from shortages).

The 154 grain Turk averaged about 2940 fps out of my M-48 versus @ 2600 for German or Yugoslavian 198 grain. The 154 grain Romanian was @ 2670 fps.