Heya Ruckin69...
I came in too late on your Mauser ammo querys- threads are locked.
Anywho, all your right questions were given the right answers, so you're on your way.
Um, except this little tidbit I can't resist to keep your "head spinning", as you say!... beware as surplus 7.9x57 also comes in hot machine gun loadings that does not treat the rifle shooter very kindly.
The good news info is to stay away from questionable loose surplus rounds, buying packaged in rifle stripper clips even better if going the surplus route.
The bad news is, I at least, have not yet found info on head stamping, bullet I.D.'ing like color, or other ways to tell the difference between M/G and rifle loads? But you will know from kick-like-bababooey recoil, louder, and off-target high impact, coupled with possibly hard extraction and more misfires from the harder M/G primer?
And to tell the truth, though searched a bit, haven't looked that hard to find the tell-tale ways to distinguish M/G or rifle ammo as rarely shoot my 8mm's much anymore. Mostly though, did not want to give myself a dang headache, hah. Example why... in one reference alone, noted ammo expert Fred Datig in one of his books lists ten different 7.9x57 military rifle loadings, not counting his listed practice, dummy, incendiarys, etc, what have you.
Welcome to the head-scratching wide world of cartridges. (Opinion: unless getting verified known rifle ammo, I'd stick with the commercial stuff myself, cost or no).
45er
Anywho, all your right questions were given the right answers, so you're on your way.
Um, except this little tidbit I can't resist to keep your "head spinning", as you say!... beware as surplus 7.9x57 also comes in hot machine gun loadings that does not treat the rifle shooter very kindly.
The good news info is to stay away from questionable loose surplus rounds, buying packaged in rifle stripper clips even better if going the surplus route.
The bad news is, I at least, have not yet found info on head stamping, bullet I.D.'ing like color, or other ways to tell the difference between M/G and rifle loads? But you will know from kick-like-bababooey recoil, louder, and off-target high impact, coupled with possibly hard extraction and more misfires from the harder M/G primer?
And to tell the truth, though searched a bit, haven't looked that hard to find the tell-tale ways to distinguish M/G or rifle ammo as rarely shoot my 8mm's much anymore. Mostly though, did not want to give myself a dang headache, hah. Example why... in one reference alone, noted ammo expert Fred Datig in one of his books lists ten different 7.9x57 military rifle loadings, not counting his listed practice, dummy, incendiarys, etc, what have you.
Welcome to the head-scratching wide world of cartridges. (Opinion: unless getting verified known rifle ammo, I'd stick with the commercial stuff myself, cost or no).
45er
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I haven't come across any 'machine gun rounds' personally. But, I have shot the Turk 8mm and that is HOT! Most Rumanian and Czech, Yugo, Greek and German surplus is not that hot.
For ease of shooting, the simplest thing is to get Federal 'blue box' They only load that stuff to 2300 fps. Most of it that I've chronoed never came up to that either. It's much easier on the shoulder in a light 8mm rifle.0 -
Buy ammo in spam cans. In boxes. MG ammo would have left the factory in links. If de-linked, then when at a [gunshop/gunshow] you can see evidence of being de-linked.
Eyeball and avoid.
Above does not apply to US ball M2. There's no difference between the loadings for linked, and rifle ammo.
Best, Joe0 -
Great advice guys. Thanks for everything. I have found some 1970's Romanian spam cans 8mm. Any experience with it? Otherwise I'm gonna just go some trusted commercial loads. I just want to shoot some through a K98 and a Persian. Thanks again. 0 -
When it shot from my rifle (very hard primers I suspect) it shot very uniformly and accurately. 0 -
Romanian is the best of the milsurp ammo (makes it cost more, and harder to find), lowest chamber pressure too.
Turk is hot, Yugo is good, but extra thick and hard primers sometimes require a heavier firing pin spring to make em all go bang the first time.0
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