Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 8mm Rem Mag

I would agree on using a Win 70 or proper Mauser. I'm not a Remmy guy,but I do like the cartridge.
I think one could be built up in the 8 pound range with a nice 25" or 26" barrel and with todays better bullets a nice long range gun would surface.....rifle

My exposure to the cartridge is purely anectdotal as a friend from Amarillo has a pair he has hunted with since the 80's and I have seen him put it to use on deer and elk.He has also used it all over this continent and Africa.

One rifle is a stock Rem 700,and the other is an FN Supreme Mauser with 24" Krieger barrel and Brown Precision stock.Scott mostly used the 200 gr Partition on everything at vels a bit over 3000 fps.The cartridge seems to be a good one for about anything,and for those who believe there is an advantage in 8mm over 30 cal.To me it seems very much like a metric 300 Weatherby.

A Remington action will work well due to its magazine length;if you go CRF you need to use one that will accept 375H&H over all length.A M70 Classic will work if originally chambered for 300 Weatherby and similar cartridges,or maybe a standrad action if magazine, follower and ejector, etc are changed out to accept the 8 mag cartridge.

A Mauser may be trickier to find,but a Reminton 798(is that what they call them?) chambered for 375H&H could be used for a donor as well, I think.

For a stock I would look at McMillan, Brown or Bansner,etc.

Good for you in sticking with the 8 Mag.
9lbs would be fine, I would not got much lighter. Top loadings recoil!
Remington action..much easier to work with...many aftermarket parts..easy to bed..usually has a decent factory trigger. I would go with some doner..in my neck of the woods, LOTS of mag chamberings sitting on the used gun rack.
H-S Precision stock..solid and well designed.
Bullets, now days, many good choices.
Barrel length good, 1x10 tho, scope good.

IME, this cartridge packs a wallop, from both ends of the muzzel..
Build it!!

Aye. Who needs dozens of bullets to choose from, when 150s to something fairly expansion-prone up to 200grs, should make a dandy whitetail, muley or pronghorn thumper for long pokes?

As I noted above months ago, my bud's M700 w/150gr Sierras, became a boringly efficient deer killer out to 500 yards or thereabouts. So much so, that his 40XB in 7mm RM and a custom 7mmx300Wby. w/26" Hart, never again got much action in deer seasons.

And yet the same rifle stoked with heavier, tougher bullets for heavier game, is ready for that task, too.

bullets... 150s, 170s, 175s, 180s, 200s, 220s, 250s all available for the Big 8. those offerings could keep me handloading recipes for a long time...

The 8mm Rem Mag will kill just about any critter you want. You can have trajectory as flat as a 300 Weatherby or hit as hard as a 340 Weatherby depending on bullet weight. I have a stainless 26" finish length #4 blank waiting on an action to do up a LH 8mm mag. 3000 fps with the 220 gr Sierra spitzer boat tail shouldn't be a problem.
If a 700 action is to be used, a Wyatt's extended mag box might be in order. It would allow maximum use of powder capacity and enable bullets to be seated near the rifling. Some machining would need to be done to the receiver but easily tackled by a good smith.

Sounds appealing but in my experience the guides kinda roll their eyes and draw straws.......guides and outfitters in general seem distinctly unimpressed with cartridge fashion statements.

But it's great if you are in camp by yourself

Go for it!!!! I have a factory 700 BDL that I shoot in the 1-1.5 inch range with factory 185s. The rifle will shoot .5 to .7 inch groups as a friend and I found out back in 1990 when using a recoil absorbing device that removed the shooter from the equation. The rifles accuracy is only limited by my ability. The rifle is fun to shoot and is deadly on southern whitetails; never had s chance at anything bigger.

I am always mildly astonished on these threads, where somebody is looking to buy/build a rifle in some obscure cartridge just because they like obscure cartridges--and a bunch of posters jump in to try to persuade them to do the "practical" thing. Which in this case would be to buy a .300 or .338 Winchester Magnum instead.

But that is not what rifle loonyism is all about, and if somebody is determined to own a rifle in an obscure and redundant cartridge, the 8mm Remington Magnum would be among the top choices.

Astonished a few of my farmer neighbors at deer camp last season, when I killed a doe with my M92 in the obscure 38WCF. One who heard the shot, said he didn't think anything that made no more noise than that, could've even killed a deer.

Did point out that the doe ran into a tree after being hit, so perhaps that contributed to her demise? ;O)

Never had the urge to own an 8mm RM, but after having seen one at work over many years and many dead deer, I was fairly impressed with it.

So was my bud that owned it. So were the local farmers whom he once helped "harvest" deer with it, after they'd failed to drop even one passing doe out of four, flagged him down and asked him to "see if he could take one", after the deer had stopped for a breather, about 400 yards distant on the hillside.

He killed all four does, one by one, one shot apiece, finally the last one at over 500 yards. Last day of doe season that year. The old boys were happy for the venison.

I have a mod. 92 Win. 38-40 that my grandad carried in the Texas Rangers...Serial number 157...I shot some deer with it as a kid, it was about the worst killer I have ever used with behind the soulder heart and lung shots, worked well with brain and spine shots of course.. But I ended up using it for used it for Javalina and rabbits..I still shoot it for fun on ocassions, usually out the back door at a skunk or whatever.

I have a clear memory of the introduction of the 8mm, and that it sounded pretty interesting. Still think that about it.
The 8mm Rem and 416 Rem are not only interesting, but seriously effective in the field.
The only real problems that I can think of is that both are more gun than the average American hunter needs and intimidate many shooters who can't quite get away from the bench.
I hope they never disappear.

Mumble mumble .325 WSM mumble mumble

You will find that the bullets smaller than the 185 Core Lokt aren't going to hold together very well.
I like the 200 Nosler and the 220 Sierra Gameking. My gun will shoot the 200 at 3100 fps + the 220 is at 3006 fps. Using RL 22 on the 200 and RL25 on the 220. This is out of a 24" barrel.

If you are gonna build one, do what Remington should have done in the first place...358 STA! IMO of course.

BC on the STA (35 Caliber) is to low for good longrange work.

A point lost on many when rehashing this cartridge, is that it is capable of punching meaningful holes in big, nasty critters with the appropriate bullets, yet can double as a dandy long range thumper for deer-size critters, too, with suitable loads.

does a 370/9.3x66Sako qualify

dubePA, you hit my rationale for selecting the 8mm remmie right on the head! that and its scarcity make it the perfect rifle looney cartridge for me... the fact that it can beat the snot out of me is why i am planning for a rifle over 9 lb before i add the scope...

It also ain't a bad long range Elk gun.