I have a Siamese Mauser that I picked up almost one year ago. Fascinating rifle to take apart and examine its construction and on the whole a neat little rifle (or neat "long" rifle unless you can be fortunately to stumble on one of the super rare carbines.) It is indeed hard to feed and will require some resourcefulness. There is a gentleman selling ammo for these rifles (8x52R in most cases since it it appears that 99% of the ones encountered are converted from their original 8x50R) at around $50 for 20 rounds, reloadable of course and I believe RCBS is making dies for them. Myself a buddy of mine have been debating going half and half on the cost of the dies ($30ish I think) and powder/brass/bullets and reloading to shoot. The only thing is that of all my rifles, I seriously doubt my shooting experience will be such that I find it necessary to have more than 10 rounds at any given time for this beast, especially since I only have one at the moment. So, for those interested in feeding one, you might just bite the bullet (pun intended) and buy the $50 for 20 and shoot it like a Martini-Henry- rarely. I would like to be able to say I have shot mine more than anything else but I am in no real hurry so... In terms of original ammo... good luck. Original rounds usually sell high and are pretty uncommon to rare. If I remember correctly, a friend of mine who collects cartridges had last seen an original stripper clip of 8x52R at auction go for nearly $1000. That's $200 per round!! Now, I've seen individual rounds go for less than $100 but still, that's a lot of money. If I ever get around to shooting mine, I'll be sure to take pictures and post results here. Cheers!