8mm Mauser

[Wineman]

Not to mention the loss of accuracy due to flinching by firing the heavy bullet

Dave

[JohnnyDollar]

Horrible results Saturday... I made a great zeroing at home, shooting within 2" from the bullseye at 100 metres with my first shot, but I guess the mount was not fixed right, because after that I had very erratic results.
The loads were my usual few, so I'm sure they are ok.
I took everything off and returned the rifle to her original configuration, with the standard iron sights.

Sorry to hear this.
I had an initial problem with my setup, could not get a decent grouping, but iron sights worked fine.
I sent the scope to Vortex to have it checked out and they sent me a new one, apparently I had over-tightened the rings and damaged the scope .
Vortex sent me a replacement and everything was good.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

The heavy 196 / 197 sS bullet was originally developed for aerial machine guns, apparently.. This MAY have tied in with the development of MG synchronization gear in fighter types.

Anyone got anything on concurrent or otherwise development of 7.92 tracer and incendiary, again, initially for aerial use?

On the ground, some astute Germans may have perceived the Vickers guns and .303 Mk 7 ammo being able to "out-range" standard S Ball in their '08 Maxims. So, it probably made sense to start using the "aircraft" sS ammo in the ground-mounted MGs to "reach out" somewhat further than with the 153gn S Ball. Note also that the sS bullet is boat-tailed, interestingly, in a form clearly inspired by the Swiss 7.5mm GP-11 projectile. Then, a bit later, the Brits answered with the .303 Mk 8 "streamlined", boat-tailed bullet. Everybody seemed to be reading everybody else's mail.

And, while the Germans started shipping sS ball to the two-way firing range, they probably figured that "standardizing" on ONE rifle / MG round at the front made good logistic sense. Thus the steady demise of S Ball.

Apparently the 1903-vintage S Ball was finally dropped from production in 1933. Another interesting thing that happened in Germany that year.

[bob q]

If you read original German military ammo testing documents you will see they were testing the sS heavy ball long before there were any machine guns in airplane . Also the 1903 date is also wrong for the S ammo . There is also German documentation dating it well before 1903 and there are S cartridges in collections headstamp dated as far back as 1898 . I personally have a 1900 dated S round .

[Bruce_in_Oz]

@bobq:

Well, there ya go! My ancient schoolboy German is decidedly creaky these days, but, if the documents turn up, I'll try to wade through them, dictionary in hand.

This is why I come here: The sharing of knowledge and the finding of new sources of information.

Re: Early heavy Ball testing. I guess it shouldn't be a total surprise. The original jacketed torpedo for the 7,92 cartridge was about 124? grains, so weight and lenhth were known factors, The developing technolgy like Schlieren high-speed shock-wave photography probably helped. The French 8mm bullets certainly moved in that direction, despite the need for a blunted nose for use in the Lebel, but they eventually got past that.

It is also interesting to note that, on the way to the magnificent Mk7 .303, the Brits took a LONG look at the 154gn S ball, basically trialing a series of "clones". The trick was that it had to feed and fire from existing stocks of rifles AND machine-guns. The constant challenge was bullet length and overall cartridge length, both of which are key parameters in Maxim / Vickers type MGs. And, as anyone who has used 150gn Soft-points in a Lee Enfield, service rifle magazines may notice, Bullet length and shape are critical in reliable feeding from LE magazines. This is why when the Mk7 superseded the Mk 6, the rifle magazines HAD to change; fortunately, they were a detachable unit. I'll dig out the image of one of the drawings for a pre-WW1 Brit XP bullet

[Bruce_in_Oz]

Attachment 120027Here's that 1909 XP .303 "Spitzer" Ball drawing:

[bob q]

The French standardized their spitzer boat tail bullet in 1898 . The first German spitzer was a 154 flat base . It's purpose was to get as much velocity possible from their 8x57mm case , for a greater battlefield zero . Hence the sight change from 200 meters to 400 . They wanted the same as the 6.5x55mm , but with a 8mm bullet . The sS bullet was for greater range .