8mm mauser loads

flyingtorpedo

What's a good load for 185 gr bullet? Just getting in on reloading so thought I'd ask what everyone else likes. Thanks. [:)]

charliemeyer007

Would help to know what you are shooting it in. In general I like a load that fills the case full. I like the ball powders for their lower flame temps. I have shot lots of the surplus stuff like 4831, 4895.

jonk

For 88 actions with a .323 bore or if you swage the bullets down, 38 gr of 4064 has served me well. For 98 actions, 46 grains does pretty good. 48-50 would be about the max.

For THIS CARTRIDGE ONLY I would ignore a lot of the published load data. It is simply wrong and a concession to worries that someone will squeeze a .323 bullet down a .318 bore in an 88 action.

flyingtorpedo

I'll be shooting a WWII 98 action. Thanks.

Wulfmann

I have been shooting very light recoil loads but have reworked some of my K98ks to shoot a little hotter but still very light.

I find between 38 and 39 gr of 4895 with the Remington PSP gives me a fairly flat trajectory in my SSR sniper.
The drop is almost none at 200 yards from 100 yards.
I ran .25 differences from 38-41gr and found little elevation change between 38 and 39.5gr but at 40 gr it jumped 4 inches at 100 yards.
I settled on 38.75 so if I am off a little in the drop or there is a pressure change from weather etc I will be in a wide zone of similar elevation loads.

This also worked well in K98ks with iron sites and allows me to set the rear sites at 100 for 100 and about 250 for 200 (Because I use a bigger target and put the point of the site at 6 O'clock I am actually pointing the rifle slightly more downward so the extra 50 makes up for that in where the bullets hit).
I even switched form Federal to Winchester and there was no difference (Expect a difference with CCI or Remington primers)

I have shot maybe 5-10K rounds of 8MM Mauser in the last 18 months but while I am comfortable with light loads one should start from starting loads in the book and work down in tenths of a gr checking the primers for over pressure for each fired load and use powders that are known to be safer with super light loads such as 4895 which can be loaded at 60% case capacity safely as I have read.

Why have your rounds hit high over the target when you can make them land where you want, reduce recoil so you can shoot 100 rounds with no effect and save money on powder to boot, or maybe to shoot!!!

Wulfmann

sandwarrior

Start with 47{edited} gr. of 4064. Then you can work up.

EDIT:

Something I need to add here if possible. What rifle are you shooting this from? As you may know the strength of the '98 action is well known. It is also known that there are some '98 actions that are weaker. And there is a lot of interchange in conversation about '92, '93, '94, '95, and '96 actions. None of the actions last mentioned are as inherently strong as the '98. There is also as noted by Wulfman a bore difference between early and later actions. Even though the military rifles were mostly converted it didn't mean that the civilian actions quit being built to the smaller bore. You have to know that to make good use of your rifle.

Mobuck

Keep in mind that brand of case makes quite a difference. I used some foreign made cases and starting loads were pretty hot. When I went to Winchester cases, all was good.