Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska 8mm Rem Mag loads

I just got myself another 8mm Rem Mag, sold the one I had some yrs ago and regretted it. I have brass, bullets and cases for it, also some loaded custom 220 grain Swift A Frames and 250 grain Hawk as well as 180 grain Nosler Ballistic Tips.


I do have some custom 230 grain Blue Mountain Bullets and some 170 grain GS bullets id like to work up loads for but have to research a starting load for these and am considering some 250 grain Woodleigh Bullets, Does anyone have a good load for the Woodleighs, i am thinking that 2600 ft per second should be obtainable from them.

Thanks

I’ve got a few boxes of 8mm Mag Remington Factory Ammo in the cabinet.

The 8mm Magnum is a real nice cartridge, but not vey popular in Alaska. However, other than buying factory ammo, it would be better developing loads for it using reloading manuals or even online loading data such as the one below.
https://load-data.nosler.com/load-data/8mm-remington-magnum/

Do a Google search of, "8mm Remington Magnum loading data," and it will take you to a few websites like the one above. It's best not to just to develop loads from us in this and other forums, since very rifle one loads for has the potential of producing different pressures. Also, go to the Woodleigh website and see if they have loading data for the 8mm Remington Magum.

Not specifically what you ask for but, back in the day I had an 8mm Mag in a Remington BDL with really nice wood, for some reason a Bud wanted to use it on an upcoming elk hunt, we went with the load I had developed earlier for it which consisted of the 220 gr Hornady bullet at 3000 fps with a big charge of IMR-7828.

I saw him knock a bull elk down with one shot at 40 yards, the bull got up, ran a half circle and was down for good, we got back home and I had one less rifle to clean and put away. It was a really good shooter too, better bullets available today, but, if you find yourself in the company of some old 220 gr Hornadys, they'll sure get the job done too, I do remember the bullet expanded back to near only a third of the shank length left, it kept it's core and looked great.

Worked up some loads for my 8mm Rem Mag.
250gr Woodleigh
With RL25
Winter time-80gr-2658fps
83grs-2749fps
Summer time-79grs-2760
83grs-2890fps
Quit using RL25
With 7828sc
82grs-2785fps
83grs-2820fps
Never hunted with them,they had the worse accuracy of any bullet I tried.
220 A-Frames and 220 NF are the cats meow in my rifle.
Shot a 250 lb black bear with the A-Frame,was running away from me,
hit him in the rear and the bullet lodged under the skin in his face.
Shot a big Muley with the NF last year,215 yds,dead right there.

The first one I fired in 1978, belonged to my uncle. Bone jarring knock your damned teeth out experience. My uncle hated it too.

He took that God awful Monte Carlo stock and a draw knife. He took that down then finished it to classic configuration. He put on a different recoil pad. Made a world of difference. Still kicked like a mule but it didn't knock your teeth out.

I remember him using factory Remington ammo, no idea what grain. He killed several elk with that rifle.

The 200 gr Nosler Partition is a great bullet for it too. I get about 3050 fps with either IMR 4350 or IMR 4831. Could load a little hotter but didn't see the need. Recoil isn't bad at that level and performance has been great on 3 bears, a big bodied bull elk and some deer. The 250 gr Woodleigh ought to be the hammer of Thor!

Really weird, BIL of mine had a factory one with that stock. I shot a bunch of deer with it, and mostly head shots. It didn't kick any worse than any of the 300s and about the same as a buddies light 06 did.

But I used to see that often larger folks must absorb more recoil than smaller. I put muzzle devices on more than a few larger guns for large folks. Smaller ones just never complained for some reason.

OT, the stock design can make a lot of difference. But the only thing that scared my teeth was a 378 wtby. The 460s did not.

Hey 8mm,

Didn't you use the 8mm mag. to kill that beautiful Tok sheep on your wall at about 500 yards? What the heck, do ya think ya had enough gun? LOL

yes smart A__ i did and had i not had that gun i might not of gotten that sheep.