8mm reloading components for sale @ marstar

[JHC II]

I wonder if anyone here has picked up the 8mm ammo from marstar for reloading components. I believe the bullets are 218 grain. The price is right but 218 grain might be a bit much for my mausers that and the fact you have to pull a 1000 bullets any opinons out there.

[Claven2]

I use the projectiles for reloading 8mm Lebel. The brass is a writeoff and the powder is a total mystery to me, though Andy may know.

[Stevo]

Have you tried re-using the powder?

[stencollector]

I had wolverine bring me in 20,000 rounds of the stuff to shoot in my M1919. By the time it arrived, the number had rounded off to about 21000 because of the case sizes. Then we discovered that each crate came with another 70 rounds of tracer for a total of 21,840 rounds.
For the price of the ammo, the belts alone will pay for the cost. It's like shooting for free.
I went to Wolverines with my Honda accord, not fully realising just how heavy all this was going to be. At about 175 pounds per crate X 12 crates, it totalled to over 2000 pounds. Oh well, no different than filling the car up with some of the chicks I recall from high school. My first stop on the way home was to the gas station to air up (wayyyy-up) the back tires. Then, after a hour and a half drive along the trans canada highway at a comfortable 65 kmh, I ended up damaging the muffler crossing the tracks in Douglas.
Upon unoading the crates from the car, I discovered quite a bit of termite infestation in some of the crates. I am hoping it is 1942 Swedish termites instead of 2006 Ontario termites. As a result, the ammo got stored in the garage, and is now subject to -30 temoeratures, which can't be good for the ammo, and certainly not for the termites.
Now I just have to find a M1919 barrel in 8mm so I can rechamber it for this ammo. A couple others have done it around here, and it works great. Not just because it is cheap, but because the belts were proffesionally filled and the bullet depth in the belts is consitant. And at the end of the day, the guys get their money back selling the belts for $25 or $30 each.

If Marstar really wants to sell this stuff, they should get some 8mm barrels in stock for the 1919s. There are lots of the barrels in the US, but with the export restrictions these days, no dealer down there will ship up here.

[Stevo]

That's hilarious stencollector. That poor Honda.:lol:

Have you inquired with Questar about importing a barrel?

[Claven2]

Have you tried re-using the powder?

No, as I bought my projectiles from someone else who bought it for the powder ;) No idea how it is or how it shoots though...?

[JHC II]

Well the price is right, it is just a shame about the powder though. My poor old bullet puller is going to get a work out though and as far as the powder I am sure I can do something worth of the Darwin of the north award.

Now anybody know a recipe for these bad boys in a 98

218grain projectiles

[stencollector]

That's hilarious stencollector. That poor Honda.:lol:

Have you inquired with Questar about importing a barrel?

Good suggestion....I will look in to that. Hopefully they don't charge $200 to import a part.
I was also considering buying a Montana barrel blank in 1-1/4" diameter. The 1919 barrel is just thousandths of an inch below that diameter, so it could be made in to a 1919 barrel pretty easily. The threads on the one end should be no problem, just the notches for the barrel locking spring will have to be hand ground.
It's too cold these days to consider anything to do with shooting. I just got back from the Dominican last week (+28C day after day) and am now maintaining my tan with windburn at -30C. It went to -21 today, and it actually felt warm.

[Andy]

I could talk all day, but go here:

www.8x63swedish.pridham.ca

Powder is just fine - military flake with burn rate near IMR 4320

Bullets are great for the 8x57 - use data for 220gr, twist rate on military mausers handles them with no problems

Brass - deactivate the primers by soaking in water for a day or so and then drying. Sell for scrap brass

Belts - they go for about $25/each

As for pulling bullets when you don't care about re-using the brass, nothing beats this:

- drill a 5/16" hole through a thick (1/4"+) steel bar
- clamp it on a bench with the drilled part overhanging
- insert the cartridge bullet first into the hole from below, up to the neck-bullet juncture
- bend the cartridge back and forth to distort the neck and loosen its hold on the bullet
- remove the bullet
- dump the powder in a container, the bullet into another, and the the brass into another
- REPEAT (takes 5-10 seconds/bullet)

[bearhunter]

I use a kinetic puller, and use both the powder and bullets in my 8mm Gibbs, made up on an old but functional and very accurate Brno 98. I picked up a reamer for it last fall, but haven't moved the lathe into the new shop yet and no power in the old shop to cut a new chamber in a take off bbl from years back, still has cosmoline in it so it should be a good shooter. IMR4320 specs are almost perfect for that flake powder. I tried fireing just the primer onto a piece of mild steel that I had polished up and stored in a dry place for a week then checked it out for corrosion, nothing. A month later, there was a little rust from my fingerprints, but nothing else. Andy, how did your rust test pan out? Hopefully as well as mine. It would be nice if this stuff proves to be non corrosive. I declined the belts and tracer ammo when my ammo was shipped to defer freight costs. Marstar didn't charge extra to open the crates and strip out the bullets. Noticed a little water damage on the crates and on some of the boxes but all of the brass is pristine and shiney. I'm looking forward to wearing out a bbl with this stuff. By the way, even though the kinetic puller is very efficient and so is Andys' method as well, I tried both by the way, I find it very difficult to justify breaking up very good quality cartridges for components, when it is so easy and cheap to put together a rifle. I'm going to try to build up a Swedish 98 lookalike, with a muzzle brake etc. Should be fun if nothing else. Around eleven cents a round shipped to my doorstep, I haven't seen prices like that since the very early seventies, you can't lose, unless you procrastinate and don't use them. Andy, do you still use the rifle you chambered for this cartridge? bearhunter

[Andy]

I tried the "rust test" way back when I bought my first batch and couldn't get a speck of rust. I still treat it as corrosive though, as I can't imagine its not.

I do still shoot the Turk Mauser I rechambered, although last weekend was the first time in over a year - too many other toys to take up my time. At some point I want to rechamber another gun and set it up for hunting, but that could be a while.

BTW - I do save my pulled brass. I find it tough to sell it for scrap, but as the pile grows, my space shrinks, so once I get 100 lbs or so (and the price is higher), off it will go.

[stencollector]

How about a M1 Garand? Could a new 8mm barrel be made up (with a smaller gas port perhaps, if the cartridge is that much more powerful than a 30-06?).
Would the action be able to accept the additional stress?
With the price and lack of availablility of 30-06 these days, this could be a neat alternative. Seems like the cartridge is so close to the 30 that it could work with the stripper clips.

Andy: great link to the 8mm site BTW. I am not a reloader, but it's nice to know a little about these cartridges.

[Andy]

You could almost open up a shot out 30/06 barrel, but it would be too close IMO. I have a friend who looked into the same conversion but of a FN-49, but never pulled it off.

The 8x63mm Swedish is potentially quite a bit more powerful than the 30/06, but the "Marstar loading" is only marginally so (218gr at 2500 fps whereas the 30/06 can easily launch a 220gr at 2450 fps), and both operate at about the same pressure. The problem would be its OAL which is 3.35". That's too long for military mausers, and would likely be an issue with a Garand.

[stencollector]

I just thought it would work, since it fits fine into a M1919 without any more modification than the barrel change, and a bit of lapping compound on the bolt face. Seems like the 8mm has a bit thicker of a cartridge base. Not all of them, some of them fit down the T slot fine, but some are too tight.