Has anyone considered rechambering the rifle to 8MM/06. The gunsmith can rent the reamers and nothing else on the gun needs to be changed. Use 06 brass and 8MM bullets. Seems to be a lot less work than messing with Brendan primers and the like. jim
That was a popular mod. The trouble is finding ammo...or brass $80 USD for a full length resize die set @ Brownells (https://www.brownells.com/reloading...es/8mm-06-full-length-die-set-prod111263.aspx)
I would have to check the OAL on what would fit down in the mag hole. To get 8mm-06 brass just smash a 30-06 brass through the 8mm-06 die, trim, done.
Just use 06 brass, expand and load to no longer than 3.175” as per the Hornady reloading book. One need not search for anything but 8MM bullets for reloading during normal times.
Looks like my boxer-berdan hybrid scheme will work. A spent boxer anvil sticks up just enough when dropoed into a berdan primer to compress the primer a little bit Between boxer-berdan hybrid and 30-06 to 8x57 I chose... Both. I got a small pile of 30-06 range pickup brass, to turn into 8s. I'm not paying gouge prices to buy new 30-06 or once fired range trash. Might as well reload the berdan brass too. I'll start drilling, pulling, primers and annealing, sizing, washing brass tomorrow.
It works. The berdan-boxer hybrid system primers sit a little low but when the trigger is pulled the primer goes bang and the sizer knocks out the spent primer. I'm going to try shimming them with paper or pingpong ball circles
You tried reaming out the pocket a bit and using a shotgun primer? Shotgun primers seem easier to obtain.
I got really good at drilling out berdan primers and anvils. I'm thinking reloading berdans is more efficient than making 30-06 into 8mm. To make a 30-06 into an 8mm I trim about 1/8 inch off the case, anneal it, lube it up ram it into the 8mm die, wash, trim, tumble with SS pins. Problem is shot gun primers aren't made to run at 60,000psi. In 2 or 3 years people will be paying me to take the berdan primers they paid gouge prices for and cant use.
Was reading about that lil conversion on castboolits in a hard to find primer topic,Seems shotgun primers are much easier to find and way less than 1/2 the price. Myself I'm good to go, OP4 seems to be a tinker?
Oh I have plenty of boxer large primers. So if I use all my berdan primers, I can wait to get more. They will probably come back in stock first as most berdan primers are made over seas and few people load berdan. Just need to get stoopid noob wanttobe reloaders to stop buying shit they can't use.
I perfected the setup. All as I said before. Only problem with using a berdan primer with boxer anvil is it sits low. So I used a 5/32 inch hole punch to punch out a ping-pong ball circle and put it in the bottom of the primer pocket.
Ammo drop. I'm going for quality over quantity. My reloads are coming back as nozler 180gr ballistic tips over IMR4350 or N555, maybe win760.
Long ago, when Wooly Mammoths roamed the Earth and K-98s in 8mm were cheap, I thought about buying one...sure am glad that I dodged that bullet (pun intended)! Great gun at a great price, but the expense and availability of ammo stopped me! I swore an oath that I would only own weapons that used commonly available military and civilian ammunition, and I'm gonna stick to it!
8mm Mauser ammo has been widely available and cheap for as long as I can remember. US commercial loads suck as they are only loaded to like 37,000psi. Euro loads are capped at 60,000psi. It's a hand loaders special. Ball ammo is cheap, hunting ammo is a bit expensive and sucks.
Never ever have I seen 8mm ammo for sale in my AO, but you can buy .30-30, .30-06 and .308 all day long, so I'm gonna stick with those. There are a lot of great rifle calibers out there that you will NEVER see except in a gun magazine. HELL! You could live a long and happy life and NEVER see a rifle in one of those calibers. The ammunition is hard to find and expensive. I could reload (and it is a skill that I need to acquire) but I don't want to have to head to the reloading bench every time I want/need ammo...I want to just grab a magazine or open a can. I swore long ago that if I couldn't keep a sufficient number of rounds for a gun, that I would get rid of that gun!
Used to be 8mm Mauser ammo was between the price of 9mm and 22lr. 8mm Mauser has been around since the late 1800s. 30-06 was a copy of Mauser ammo. All my ammo besides rimfire is reloads. I like 8mm because it's like big 308. The case is a quarter inch longer and it's loaded with 10,000psi more so it's power level is closer to 30-06 and exceeds 30-06 with lighter bullets like 170s. For me factory ammo is a down grade.
Just not popular in my neck of the woods, and therefore no retailer is going to stock it. I'll just stick with the .30-06 and .308.
