Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Back on the 8mm

I decided to haul out a Yugo 98 and do some shooting with it. Problem is ammo. 8x57 has got to be my all time favorite medium bore. 7x57 too though you would technically refer to that as a small bore. .

The ammo I have is 1950's vintage Yugo 196 grain. The problem with 1950's Yugo ammo is the primers are very hard to ignite. Hard cup and set too deep. So what do I do, pull the bullets and the powder charge and put them in a new case. I pulled 5-10 round groups and averaged the charges. Surprisingly they are pretty darn close. The average of the averages comes out to 40.5 grains. This is a heavy flake powder. The thing is that on every 10 I pull I check that average.

I have to make the cases which I do from 270 and 30-06 brass. I am able to directly expand them to .323 but that is pushing it. With 25-06 it's just too much and I will have to anneal, expand incrementally and re-anneal. I bump the neck up first then I trim it to 2.25. Then I anneal the neck/shoulder area and size it in the 8x57 die with the decapper removed. Then I bump up the neck and trim the case to length.

These loads will print into 1-3/8 to 1-1/2 inch 5 shots. That is with my old eyes and a blurry rear sight.

Bit of work but what the hell, it's winter.

Did you bother to check your pin protrusion?

Yeah, that's fine though a bit short on tolerance. Same thing happens in other 8mm's. It's an ammo issue well known to C+R guys.

I save myself a lot of case prep work by using my 8MM-06 chamber reamer.

Are the primers too short or the pockets too deep? Depending on the answer, consider pulling the bullets, decapping, and loading the original cases with different primers. Probably would not work, though, if the primers are crimped in or Berdan.

Way back in the dark ages, somebody was selling bulk milsurp 8X57 machine gun ammo that was WAY too hot for most C&R bolt action rifles. Turkish, maybe?

Stronger wolfe firing pin spring.
Easy fix for hard mil surp primers.
Check the shoulders on the firing pin for burrs or signs it is hitting inside the bolt recess where it rest when fired

Make note that the one thing I loose is corrosive priming.

8x57 is one I won't form from 30-06 due the possibility someone would chamber and fire in an 06

My son just bought a Yugo 98 and almost 400 rounds of… damn if I can remember now where it was manufactured. I think we figured it was made in 1942, the “where” escapes me at the moment. Shoots good enough but I want to cast some bullets for it so we can really play with it.

The brass is berdan primed. Anybody have any luck with the hydraulic method of depriming this vintage ammo? I’ve tried with Australian 308 military rounds with no luck. Case balloons just below the shoulder and the primer doesn’t move at all. Haven’t tried the 8mm’s yet.

Thanks for the post - not something I would do in order to shoot a 32 cal bullet, but good to read about your reasoning and outcomes. Reminds me of some older times on this forum.

I do like most of those Mauser Mil actions - have them with barrels/cartridges ranging from 22/250 all the way up to .375 in a 338 Win Mag case.

The 8x57mm Mauser uses .323" cal bullets ....

I used Yugo M24 Mauser with Yugo 1950's ammo and even hunted with and killed game with no problems. Lucky gunner has some Greek surplus 8mm available

Or .318"

Be fun to work up a load with these.

https://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/category/categoryId/563?

The OP sounds like the kind of fun we like to engage in, just because... I would be inclined to do it the way Rene suggests....probably get a Wolfe spring and take .010 or .015 off the firing pin shoulder when I had it out, just to make sure.

Graf and sons says they are in stock.

https://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/product/productId/72658

I did much the same thing back when I had a M48a, except back then commercial brass was easy to come by and my "load" was Turkish. Pulled the bullet, dumped the powder in a fresh case with a Federal primer, seated the bullet and BANG. Eventually, I got around to using fresh powder/commercial bullets and found the rifle, like yours, was a decent shooter. Around that time a clean Brno 22f came into my possession and the whole milsurp thing went down the road. Just gave away my last bandolier of Turk ammo to a young coworker for his "new" K98.....

Kaiser Norton

Fun thread. Thanks.

I have a Yugo 98. Got a bunch of Romanian steel case steel core ammo stashed with it. Contemplated building a custom out of it in some thumping caliber, but haven’t gotten around to it. Too much fun as a beater fun gun that shoots good and will punch a hole in almost anything.