Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Is there any use for the 8x57...

in 2017 other than nostalgia, a cheap milsurp rifle or paper punching.

I am not trying to commit sacrilege just curious.

Nostalgia works for me! Of course, I always thought an 8x57 would be cool, fairly light recoiling little elk and bear gun.

There is an article in Fur Fish Game mag this month on the 8 x 57mm. He rated it above the 30/06 for bear if European loads were used.

The same question could be asked about a long list of cartridges.

Mike

8x57 is only light recoiling when it is the US made ammo which is loaded down to be safe in any rattletrap rifle Bubba shoots it in. The German 198 grain loads or some of the Turk stuff will cross your eyes.

I have a Rem700 classic in 8 Mauser. It kills just as well as anything else.

I've got an CZ Brno 22 in 8x57. It's like nice furniture that shoots. I'd have no issue if all I had were an classic old 8x57 Mauser to use.

It's been proven in war, it's proven against all manner of game world wide and today it's better than ever. I like my old CZ rifle and I also really like my old beater bubba'ized 98's.

Since the advent of the 8x57, 7x57, and 6.5x55 it really answered nearly all needs in sporting and bolt action battle rifles.

I swear by the old sumbitch , killed LOTS of game with several of them . Good reloads put it over the top . It' my absolute favorite round .

worked good on a bull moose!

200gr Partition at 2700fps looks fairly useful to me. I always wondered why the 8mm was not more popular in the US. Cheap military rifles where available for decades, Gathering dust in the back of closets today.

Guilt by association, I'd presume.

...was thinkin the same thing

I've hunted a few times in Europe, with several dozen hunters. Have run into exactly two who carried an 8x57. Rifles in .308 Winchester and .30-06 have been the most common, followed by other "American" rounds such as the .243 Winchester.

I have a nifty 8x57, a traditional German custom rifle on a 98 Mauser action made sometime before WWII. It's very accurate with the right loads, only weighs around 7-1/2 pounds with a typical 1" scope in detachable mounts, and has all the standard German touches: double-set triggers, Schnabel-tipped stock with side-panels alongside the action, light engraving on the action, grip cap, floorplate and steel buttplate, etc. I like it a lot but aside from the traditional touches it won't do anything a .308 or .30-06 won't.

As with almost anything these days, American culture is dominant, even in European rifles, because the U.S. is by far the largest market for rifles on earth.

Tag...what's not to like
I have several Mausers

The 8x57 has a lot to like. It's a powerful cartridge. I would not feel disadvantaged hunting with one.

But the 30-06 is just a bit better balanced for case size and bullet diameter, as is the 7x57. So, given the choice, I almost never picked up my 8x57 unless I needed to provide a loaner gun. So one day it went away, leaving behind a generous contribution toward a new handgun.

I did experiment a bit with "bear loads" in the 8x57, using a heavier bullet. Meh. It just didn't have the case capacity to do a great job.

Similar bullets of similar caliber fired at similar velocity are going to have, that's right, a similar effect on game. No good reason to not use a good 7.92 on game, or any particular reason to choose one over a .308 or '06 except when housed in a neat rifle.

About 1972 or so, there were two Mauser sporters for sale in my favorite gunshop. One was a nice conversion by Flaigs in 7mm with a Fajen or Bishop stock. The other was a somewhat careworn 8mm, likely a guild gun, with some light engraving on the floor-plate; don't recall the other details. I bought the 7mm because it looked nicer. These days, I'd probably pick the other one, assuming it had a good bore, because it's probably more interesting, not because of the chambering.

I bought a new 8x57 a few years ago. I was looking for a 6.5x55 on the Sako webpage and ended up ordering a Sako Grizzly in 8x57 instead. It shoots well and I've taken a few pigs with it. The 180gn Ballistic Tip is a great bullet as it has a thick rear jacket. I think it is a great round if you also like classics like 7x57, 7x64, 6.5x55, 9.3x62 etc. If you like .243, .308, .270s etc. then you probably won't give a hoot.

8 x 57 just suffers, in the US particularly, and in the world generally since 1945, because it isn't the 30-06. And like the 30-06, it suffers from lack of pizzaz and cool.
My first 20 years of hunting deer was with a Mauser 98k in 8 x 57.
My second big game rifle was VZ24 sporterized in 30-06. Poor barrel soured me a little and it was put away until it became a 270 a couple of years ago.
A few others came in, 9.3, 308, 6.5 x 55, 257 Roberts. Most just overlap as far as deer and pigs go.
Perhaps nostalgia brought me back full circle to a Husqvarna in 8 x 57. On a bench it'll do 1" @ 100 yards with Sierra 150 grain and Nosler 180 grain bullets. It will handle 200s and 220s fine if I so desired. No need for anything else in NA. Recoil is not worse than 30-06 in a similar stock --
that's just physics folks.
Is it better than a 30-06? No. It can be argued the bullet selection is better in many other calibers. It is however in the same class as the 30-06, and will do anything the ought-six will do with an equal bullet. And, it is what the 30-06 raced to copy. That's history.

If loaded to its potential in a strong action, the 8x57 is comparable to the 308 or 30-06, so what's not to like?

Like all of the European military cartridges, the 8x57 has traditionally been loaded at lower pressure levels that would be safe in the weakest common action by FED/REM/WIN. The current standard 8x57 U.S. factory load is a 170 grain bullet at 2,350+/- fps, just a little faster than the 170 grain 30-30 loads.

EDIT: The 8x57 that I shoot the most, which isn't much, is a Husqvarna 640 built on an FN LR 98 action. Since Husqvarna's were built in Sweden, you'd think that commercial Husqvarnas in 6.5x55 would be pretty common, but the most common used commercial Husqvarnas being imported into the U.S. these days seem to be chambered in 30-06, 8x57, and 9.3x57.

The 8MM Magnum didnt make a big splash either.