Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 8mm Mauser

This season I took a nice doe at 70 or so yards with a sporterized K-98. A gift from a fine older gentleman and family friend. It was a bring-back. Aside from a chopped stock, Buehler safety and homemade turned-down bolt handle, it was original.

I re-shaped and refinished the stock, took off the rear sight and refinished the metal with a baked epoxy finish, re-crowned the barrel, installed a Timney trigger, mounts and a Sightron 3 X 9, glass-bedded the action and floated the barrel. Worked up a nice, accurate handload - 49 grains of RE 15, NBT 180.

IMHO, it's a fine a game-getter and has more character than any new gun.

Bob; good African stuff with the 8x57! It brought back memories, I took an neat little German built sporter in 8x57 on my first safari in 1987,and amongst other things got my first Kudu with it(and iron sights no less! the eyes were lots better and younger then!)
Anyway thanks for the pics and thanks for the memories! The 8x57 is a fine round, and if still available, the 200 gr. Nosler Partition was a good bullet in it.

I've been carrying a custom 8x57 since the early 70's. Kills deer, as well now, as it did then. Even with those 195gr. Hornady's.

In my opinion the 8mm mauser is a close to perfect as you can get. I've never got the top speeds listed that some have achived. As far as a hunting round it is a classic overachiver.

The 8x57 is a favorite of mine also. If I ever go to Africa it will be going with.

Haven't find a bullet it don't shoot well but generally run 196gr Oryx or 180 TSX.

My 2 8x57s love anything I try in them. They especially like the heavy stuff. The 200 grain Accubond and Re 15 or IMR 4350 works really well. The Remington Classic will go on the next cow elk hunt here in CO or maybe NM in January.

Still of the belief that is is far easier to make bigger bore rifles shoot well.

Generally agree, although I think it's a matter of degrees. Usually nail a big bore with the first and every load. Some of the smaller bores may take a couple of loads, and others may never come around. The 7-08, 280, 270, and 308 are also easy.

a few years ago i bought my son a yugo 24/47 8x57 mauser for christmas. the rifle had been rearsonaled with a new barrel. paid a part time machinist/gunsmith to sporterize. cut the barrel, cut & reweld bolt,timmney trigger, low swing safety,drilled and tapped and I then bedded it in a laminate stock. scoped with a old 3x9 widefield redfield in leupold mounts. shoots this load consisting of 175 grain sierras with 47.5 grains of h380 into less than 1". His main deer rifle and old 700 mountain rifle in 270 was locked up in the safe so he used it to take this little spike this year. poleaxed him. we were going to rebarrel to a 257 roberts but may not now.
http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg254/colthbar/DSC00563.jpg

What you mentioned about it being easier to get the bigger bores to shoot well, come to think of it is so obvious that to me it was "hiding in plain sight" and I couldn't agree with you more...

There's one one the used rack at Cabelas/Hamburg, Pa.

It almost followed me home but..............

The 8x57 is a great caliber, the European version of the great 30-06, how could that be bad?

I have told this story before on this forum so I won't go into great detail again, but I shot 6 buffalo at one time on a cull hunt with a borrowed 8x57 and a paper sack full of green goopy milsurp metal penetrating ammo..every 3rd one of those green goopy bullets fired, every other one wouldn't go into the chamber unless I cleaned them, and the others misfired. It was that or stay at the lodge and play bridge with the ladies, I opted for suidcide and survived..I have a lot of respect for the old military hoss, it eventually killed them all and I lived to pen this thread. We all agreed that the good Lord takes care of drunks and fools, and I qualified on both issues..

I bloodied my 700 Classic 8x57 for the first time Saturday. Our season is winding down and seeing deer has been getting harder and harder. I was sitting on a power line when a big doe came running out of the cutover at 3:30 PM at about 120 yards like her ass was on fire. I got the rifle up and made a loud bleating sound just as she got ready to enter the thick stuff on the other side. She slammed on brakes and looked towards me. I got the crosshairs on her chest and just as I was in mid trigger squeeze I saw her lunge forward in the scope. In my mind I just knew she had avoided the bullet but at the report she hit the ground like a rock. I thanked the Lord, climbed down and went to where she lay. The 195 gr Hornady had smacked her right behind the guts/right in front of the hams and busted the spine. I was thankful it hit where it did because a little farther in either direction would have been very bad. It was a rather messy cleaning job but there was very little meat loss except for one of the inner tenderloins which was a loss. So far I have high praise for the 8x57!

SCGunNut, that was good example of how quickly bad things can happen when hunting. I'm not against using small caliber rifles for deer. I used a 223 to take a doe this year. but i've had a couple of similiar experiences before and the larger calibers give you a little extra margin for error in the field. will that stop me from using small calibers for deer? no. But when I am serious about shooting a deer, not casual sniping at a feeder or green field I use larger calibers.

The current Hornady manual claims that the 195 is good down to a muzzle velocity in the neighborhood of 2300fps. Did they change it? I don't know, but I used one this year in a 700 8x57 at 2520fps to take a nice buck. The bullet did well, and I plan on continuing to use it. I shoots more accurately in this rifle than the 150.

I like the 8mm mauser, but you either neeed to buy European ammo or reload for it. The one I have is an M-48 mauser converted to scout configuration. Its the easiest and cheapest way to convert a military rifle to a sporting configuration.

Although I don't really care for the scout concept. Mine has a Boyd's stock and a scout scope mount with a Burris scope on it. It works great. My son got his first boar with it.

Its easy to convert back to its original condition. The 8mm is more powerful and maybe a tiny bit heavier than Cooper specifified, but he was basically a paid hack for the gun magazines, so a little caliber change didn't bother me in the least.

However, given a choice, I'd take my 30-06 commercial FN mauser with its traditionally mounted 2-7 Burris scope hunting any day. The M-48 scout is a great back up or loaner gun though.

If I'm ever lucky enough to go hunting in Europe or africa the 8mm is comming with me. If for no other reason than the ammo there will be as easy to find as the 30-06 is in the US. Plus, if the airline monkeies steal, break or lose it, I won't be crying.

[quote=Youper
The current Hornady manual claims that the 195 is good down to a muzzle velocity in the neighborhood of 2300fps. It shoots more accurately in this rifle than the 150. [/quote]


My Classic loves them too. It shoots the 195 factory load into 3/4" or less. Eventually I'll get around to handloading the 8x57 and will experiment with various bullets but in the meantime those 195s shoot too well (and worked so well on that one deer) to look elsewhere.

One of the older Nosler reloading manuals lists the 200 gr. Partition bullet at an honest 2700 fps. That translates to 3255 ft-lbs of energy. Not shabby at all. Unfortunately, I do not have the manual at hand, so I do not know what load was used.

I scrounged together a 98 action, a gun show barrel, a sporterized military stock and some surplus sights and build an 8x57 for around $110.00. I've only shot surplus ammo out of it but it does seem to hit what I aim at. I built it with the intentions of doing some hog hunting some day. I intend to reload for it and was thinking some 150 grain stuff would be the trick for pigs. kwg

Nosler 5th shows 2698 for a max load (52.0 gr.) of IMR 4350 under a 200 gr. Partition.