Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles 7.92x57 AKA 8mm Mauser

I bought a 8mm Mauser that a good friend had. I was going to sell it but there was no interest. So I bought 100 brass and 200 ea. 170 grain SPEER Hot Core bullets and a set of dies.. I looked back in this forum to 12/20 and found nothing on the 8mm Mauser.

Surely there's favorite loads, anyone?

With 175 grain bullets, 53 grains of Varget with 3.000" COL gives me 2750 FPS at a measured 53.8 KPSI.

I don't have my books with me at the moment but the starting load with either 4064 or Varget is a pretty good load for whitetail deer. The 170 gr does not do well in my two loaner guns when pushed much past the halfway point in the charts. I think that is a peculiarity of these two guns from what I have heard from others.

With 150 gr Hornady spitzers the starting load of Varget is my "go to" for new shooters. At the bottom it is similar to the factory loaded 300 Savage in recoil which isn't bad. My main loaner shoots this bullet very well with Varget all the way up the data sheet. Sighted dead on at the bottom of the scale, it walks bullets upward a couple inches as powder charge increases. Little noticeable horizontal shift as powder charge changes. It is a cut down Gewehr 98 in a Butler Creek stock that had been drilled and tapped and the bolt handle turned Down. It looks terrible but I don't dare change anything as it shoots well. Even the scope is a cheap Bushnell 3-9x that was maybe $49 a dozen years ago. I think I have $120 into it.

I looked for Hornady bullets, couldn't find any but I found these at Grafs

PRVI PARTIZAN BULLET 8MM (.322) 175gr PSPBT 50/BAG

So, I'll be trying them too.

Thanks for the replies!

Woods isn't it just great when you put an outfit together for little or nothing but leftovers and it shoots to beat the band? Makes me laugh and drink a beer. Sometimes life is so good....mb

I LOVE the 8x57, and I love loading for it. Ive been loading and hunting with mine since about July of 2019. Ive taken several deer with it in that time and have experimented with several powder / bullet combinations. Typically speaking for me, Both 4895s, Win 748, Varget, Reloder 15, 4064, BigGame, CFE 223, Bl-C2, A2520, and IMR 4166 are going to be good powders with your 8x57 and they have all produced great accuracy with one bullet or another. Bullet wise, the 150gr Hornady, 170gr Speer, 180gr Nosler BT, and the 175gr Sierra PH have all been proven reliable killing bullets on whitetails. I have yet to test any bullet that failed to shoot accurately. You should have no trouble finding a load to work with either the Speer 170 or the PrivPart 175gr.

The Speer 170gr for me worked best using BigGame powder.


The Hornady 170gr SST was a good fit with Winchester 748.



Most recently I used the Sierra 175 Pro Hunter with CFE 223. You can see the load details inside the box lid. I used this load to kill the biggest buck of my life this past fall.

Here's a couple of loads from my Sako with 21.5 inch barrel.

50gn H4895 with the 170gn Speer SP for 2682fps.

49gn H4895 with the 180gn Ballistic Tip for 2640fps.

50gn Varget with the 150gn Ballistic Tip for 2565fps.

Accuracy with both powders was the same but H4895 gave higher velocities as you can see.

I took the barreled action out of the stock. It was professionally glass bedded. My friend was an excellent carpenter, I wonder if he did the glass bedding. It’s got a Buehler safety. If it shoots well, I’ll put a Timney trigger on it. It wears an old K4 El Paso scope. The rifle is heavy, - I think it might be one of those stock makers out of Missouri, Bishop perhaps.
I don’t mind heavy rifles. I like to have a light weight carbine around, but I’d like to take this rifle out this Fall.

My first center fire was a 98 8mm. I think dad paid a few dollars for that Mauser. Dad put a Sharon Barrel on it in 6mm. I put a Herters model perfect “C” grade stock on it. Friends blued it. I daily rubbed oil into the stock and was pushed to put another coat on it.
The other 98’s were either 7x57’s or bare actions that I worked with.

My dad, my younger brother and I shot at a running buck that had to have been eating out of fat cattle feed trough. It was heavier than dad after the head, neck and was cleaned. The three of us pulled it up on a pulley attached to a barn rafter. After my brother and I let go dad went up to near the pulley and the buck was on the barn floor. Dad weighed maybe 250 lb.

That buck’s head and neck is over one of my benches. (Though I’m pretty sure it was dad who shot it.). But he’s been gone almost 50 years now.