Long Term Costs: 7.62x54R vs. 8mm Mauser?

[matsaleh]

The recent threads on Mausers and Mosin-Nagants has made me want to get one. Question: which caliber, 7.62x54R or 8mm Mauser, is most consistently less expensive and more readily available than the other? I'm thinking the 7.62, but it does seem to vary depending on where I look. I would want non-corrosive, commercial or milsurp, ammo that I don't have to buy huge lots of to get reasonable prices (I normally build up my ammo supply by picking up a box or two whenever I go to Wal-Mart, although I'm sure neither of these can be bought there).

For me, a good price range is between $3-$4 per box of 20 if possible.

Thanks!

 

[Beetle Bailey]

In my neck of the woods, the cheapest commercial 7.62x54r is Wolf and it goes for anywhere between $4-6 and it's decent stuff. For 8mm, I've seen Olympic for $7-9 but I'm not too big on the quality control of Olympic ammo. I'm not an ammo expert, but I don't know of any surplus ammo in either 7.62x54r or 8mm that isn't corrosive. All the best bargains in ammo are surplus so you have to either use windex or pay for commercial. I always try to buy my ammo in bulk, so HTH.

 

[telewinz]

Surplus 8mm Mauser, about $60 per 900 rounds. The dirty Turk ammo is even cheaper, I have the 7.62C54 and Romanian 8mm surplus. They both perform the same.

 

[railroader]

Shooting corrosive ammo in a bolt action is no big deal. You just need to clean it after you go shooting. I use some windex in the barrel. If you want to shoot for a reasonable amout of money surplus is the way to go. Surplus is cheap. I have 2 nagants and I just bought 700 rounds for about $70 shipped. Unless you buy wolf you will probably get maybe get 140 rounds of comercial for that. Check out aim they have 8mm too. http://www.aimsurplus.com/acatalog/7_62x54R.html

Mark

 

[Snowdog]

I'll have to agree with the above comment concerning corrosive ammunition. Many of these surplus rifles we're buying were manufactured with the full intention of corrosive ammunition being used and likely that's all they ever saw.
The Nagant or M48 you end up choosing may have already seen plenty of corrosive ammunition put through it, but you'll never know it as they were cleaned afterwards*.
I've been using decent-yet-corrosive Belgium FN 7.92x57 ammunition in my M48A for months now. 600 or so rounds later, the bore is still mirror bright. I believe the $70/1000 I paid for it easily compensates the five or so extra minutes of cleaning involved.


*Occasionally you'll find the pitted barrel/bolt face from some grunt who didn't clean properly.

 

[natedog]

An 80rd. bandolier of 8mm on stripper clips is about $7. Thats all I can handle in one sitting!

 

[matsaleh]

Thanks for the replies.

I may have been unnecessarily concerned about the corrosive ammo point. I clean my guns after every shoot, so if that's all it takes, I'm already there. I learned how to buy and use Windex when I was a wee laddie and my Mom used me to clean windows around the house .

I was hesitant about ammo corrosiveness because I had read elsewhere about soaking a gun in hot water to get all the corrosive salts out of it during cleaning. I didn't want to have to deal with anything like that, but maybe that's for semiautos.

So it looks like the answer to my question is that the 7.62x54R is marginally cheaper, but maybe not enough to quibble about. That's great - then I can agonize over which rifle to get instead (I know, buy both!)

 

[BowStreetRunner]

i think that 8mm is consitently a little less expensive
BSR

 

[DrDremel]

Long term - the 7.62x54 will be cheaper as the stuff you buy now is new. Once the 8mm is gone it is gone. Unless you buy enough now to shoot for a long time.

 

[matsaleh]

Once the 8mm is gone it is gone.

8mm is no longer in production? This would be a good reason to avoid it, at least for my purposes.

 

[Crownvicman]

8mm is stil being made, but as commercial production. It is not going to disappaer any time soon. But, 7.62x54r is used as a machine gun and sniper round in many former commbloc countries. It is still a standard military issue cartridge. The only country I know of that still uses 8mm is the former Yugoslavia. Once all that cheap surplus is gone, there won't be any more.

 

[telewinz]

There are millions upon millions of rounds of 8mm mauser, every month another batch is declared obsolete somewhere in the World. The American consumer is about the only way to sell it, other than that its buried or dumped in the ocean. The 3rd World countries will continue to store it until some buyer from AIM offers them a few cents per pound and sells it to me 5 years from now. I think the supply will be good for a great many more years.

 

[Destructo6]

Inexpensive 7.62x54 is going to be in production for the foreseable future. Russians still use it in frontline weapons and any country that purchased Russian weapons needs it.

An 80rd. bandolier of 8mm on stripper clips is about $7. Thats all I can handle in one sitting!

You can say that again.