Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles 8x57 another pleasing day at the range.

Well I think most here on the fire are like me . When you have a good day at the range it just can make the rest of the things you are doing a lot easier to handle. I recently had my first 8x57 in the shop to get a new "to me" barrel put on. It is one of the husky large ring barrels. I would think made in the 50's or so. Not sure the exact date of manufacturing. The original barrel was pitted and not worth bothering with. So I loaded up 50 rounds for testing. using 175 sierra's, 175 prvi btsp's, 180 nbt's, and 196 grain prvi's. I used IMR4064. Being one of my favorite powder since I started reloading. The 175 prvi bullets didn't fair so well with this combo. About 2 inch groups through the whole range. The 175 sierras went into about an 1.5 inch group with the top load. Which is good but the stand out was the 180 grain nbt as well as the 196 grain prvi. The 180 was doing 2600 with a sd of 3 and went into .57 inch group!! the 196 did almost as good with a group in the .7 range. I am very pleased! here are the pics. I didnt expect this out of the barrel at all. So pleased!!

pic of the 180 grain nbt's


196 grain prvi..

Nice groups and a great rifle calibre. There are so many things that cartridges like that do well.