Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Trouble reloading for 8mm Yugo Mauser

I have a pretty accurate (with factory FMJ) Yugo Mauser 48A that I put a scope on.
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<br>I broke it in with S&B factory FMJ and got a bunch of good groups with it. All of the S&B ammo loaded and extracted just fine.
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<br>Now I've been reloading that S&B brass and am having a heck of a time. Two main problems are cropping up:
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<br>A) Whenever I chamber one of my reloads, I have to practically bang down the bolt with a hammer to get the bolt all the way down. It seems that the brass just doesn't fit the chamber. I've been using a Lee full-length sizer die, and a Lee trimmer to trim the cases. I've even tried cranking the re-sizing die clear down way past where I should, hoping that it will size the case down small enough to chamber easily. Lee doesn't make a neck-sizer die for 8x57mm that I'm aware of.
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<br>B) I bought a Stony Point OAL gauge with a 8x57mm case to help get the bullet close to the lands. But this apparatus is yielding an OAL that is OBVIOUSLY way short of the lands when finally loaded.
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<br>I really like the rifle and want to hunt with it, but not if I have to have Herculean strength to chamber a round. Any ideas? Thanks,
<br>JustinH

Justin. Do the resized, empty cases chamber OK ? If so, perhaps your seating the bullets out too much. Without forcing the round into the chamber too much, are the ogives of the bullets marked up ? If they are, they are seated too far out.
<br> You should not force rounds into a rifle. E

That is a puzzler. Could be as E says that the bullets are out too far on your reloads. Could be too that you have a short lede and the more abrupt ogive on the hunting bullets are catching it before the more gentle angle of the fmj did.
<br>BCR

Take one of your resized cases and compare it, with a micrometer if you have one, with a new one. There are really only 2 possibilities that I can think of, the bullet shape and lengths mentioned above or that somehow you dies are not resizing the round properly, that is, your dies are not the correct dimensions. Rare, but not unheard of. Have you used them before? Does an empty round, that you have fired in that gun, rechamber without difficulty? If so, it has to be the dies or the bullet shape/seating level I would think. I would bet on the bullet problems, but have no experience with that caliber.

Hello, guys.
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<br>Believe it or not, I haven't tried to re-chamber a fired case, so I'll try that today. I also have a micrometer, and I'll try to compare a new case with the re-sized ones.
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<br>Boggy and E, it's definitely not that the bullets have been seated too far out...if you saw the reloads you'd know what I mean: little 125 grain Hornady's pushed way back in the case to jibe with the measurement given by the Stony Point OAL gauge.
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<br>I don't think it's the slope of the bullet, Boggy, because the bullets I'm loading have a similar enough bullet to the FMJ's that it couldn't be responsible alone for giving such a short OAL length. At least I'm pretty sure it couldn't.
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<br>From what you guys have said, I'm almost wondering if IIFID didn't hit it on the head with bad dies.
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<br>I'll check this stuff out today and let you know what I find out. Thanks for the ideas. JustinH

Justin,
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<br>I've read of dies where the shoulder dimension of a resizing die is larger than the shoulder dimension of the rifle chamber. So when you do a resize, you are actually forcing material outwards.
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<br>The micrometer will tell the tale. Do a comparison of a factory S&B cartridge, a fired cartridge, and one of your reloads. Somewhere, something is wrong. I'm betting it's a mismatch between your chamber and the resize die.
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<br>Scott

JustinH,
<br>I use the Stoney Point OAL guage on all my rifles and trust it. If the advise given so far doesn't help you might get a kit from Brownells and form a cast of the chamber. Something in there is not letting you seat the bullet out to normal lengths.
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<br>You could still have an over sized sizing die, so two things may be going on at once.
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<br>Let us know if you solve this trouble. We all learn together around here.

Pretty good advice has been given. 125gr Hornadys are stubby little devils. Mine measure .885 in length, as opposed to Sierra 150gr spitzers which measure slightly over an inch in length. 125's have been very accurate in one of my M98's, BTW.
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<br>Shouldn't be too hard to smoke the shoulder on a resized case, chamber it and see if it's been "puffed out" in that area by running the cases all the way (or possibly too far) into the sizing die.
<br>I seriously doubt, given the shortness of the 125gr bullet, that it is seated out too far to cause that much resistance in chambering a round. I compared a 125gr ball to some milsurp FMJ 8x57 ammo I have. Aligning the 125gr bullet, with the tips even, the base of the 125gr isn't even close to the case mouth.
<br>OAL on my 125gr loads is 2.875. OAL on the milsurps is 3.145", by comparison. The milsurps are Ecuadorian but forget what the bullet wt. is.

Guys, I feel bad for not posting back before this to let you know what I'm doing with this thing.
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<br>I've been back in Chicago to finish up some business before I go in the Army, and my rifle and all my stuff is back at my folks' place in Colorado. I should be back this weekend and barring bad weather will test the stuff then and then get back on here.
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<br>It's a puzzling situation, as it's the first time that something fundamental in reloading has "gone wrong," if in fact that's what's happened. I've reloaded now for .270, 7mm Mag, .243, 30-06, .45 ACP and 9mm, and this is the first time that something just absolutely hasn't fit fairly right.
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<br>Come to think of it now, the same situation happened this fall on a peep-sighted M48A 8x57mm that I was using in ID to hunt muleys with. In that rifle, too, the S&B fmj's chambered just fine, but my reloads all went in the chamber so tight I practically had to bang down the bolt to close it.
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<br>Now that I consider that, I almost have to believe that the problem is in the dies. I guess the only thing that's going to tell me that is a caliper? Is that right?
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<br>But would that explain why the Stony Point OAL gauge is giving such a short cartride OAL?
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<br>Dube, your 125's finish out at 2.875 right? I'm going to measure one of my 125 reloads when I get back and see if that's about where it's at. I'm sure you're right that it's definitely not the bullet that's causing the resistance...these loads are just too short for that. It must be the case.
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<br>Thanks, all. I'll get back here with what I find out. JustinH

Justin,
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<br>One fooPaw I did early in my reloading life that caused the same type of result you describe.
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<br>It was in the seating of the bullet. Most seating dies are over sized in the shoulder area (Lee included). When I was seating the bullet I had the seating die misajusted such that I started to put a crimp on the bullet while I was still trying to seat the bullet deeper with the seating stem. This caused the case to expand radually outward at the shoulder / case wall junction.
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<br>The easy way to test if this is the case is see if a FL sized case chambers prior to priming or loading. If the FL sized case chambers then check your seating setup.

Problems solved.
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<br>Sorry for not getting back on this sooner...had to go to Chicago and have been doing other odds & ends since getting back.
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<br>The problem with the hard-chambering brass is in the Lee 8x57mm dies. My calipers are packed far, far away because of this Army move, so I just went out and bought a set of RCBS dies to see what happened. What happened is that the RCBS-full-length re-sized brass chambers just as slick as a whistle. What tipped me off on this was Eremicus' suggestion to chamber a case right after it had been re-sized with the old Lee die. Well, I did that, and had the same problem as when it was a fully loaded round: the bolt would hardly go down.
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<br>With the RCBS die, both a newly-resized case, and a fully loaded round chamber just fine.
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<br>As for problem B, with the Stony Point OAL Gauge giving me a mis-read on the overall cartridge length, it was part my fault and part the gauge's fault. The directions say to push the ramrod up through the empty case until "light resistance is felt" by the bullet touching the lands. Well, in this rifle's case, "light resistance" yielded an OAL so short you could barely see the lead tip of the bullet picking over the lip of the case mouth (an exaggeration, but not by much). So, I applied much more pressure to the guide rod this time, and ended up pushing the bullet so much farther forward into the chamber that the base of the bullet was almost falling out of the case. For practicality's sake, therefore, I just took DubePA's OAL of 2.875" for these Hornady 125 grain bullets, and will see how that works. I'll let you all know tomorrow after I shoot the rounds.
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<br>One other interesting note: yesterday, when I shot up what reloads I could of the bad, short, aforementioned 125 grain reloads, I found that there was A LOT of unburned powder in the fired case. My rifle action was full of little unburned powder bits. They kind of looked like they were visibly hollowed out in the middle (IMR 4320, a powder that's NOT visibly hollow), but they were definitely still cylinders. The load was a very lightkicking charge of 36 grains of 4320 pushing the 125 grain bullet. Admittedly the rifle is heavy, but it still only felt like I was shooting a .22. What could the unburned powder mean?
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<br>Thanks for all of you guys' previous help and replies. JustinH

One thing I forgot to add:
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<br>The Lee 8x57mm case-length gauge for case trimming is also seemingly off-spec. The gauge is too thick to fit down an 8x57mm re-sized mouth (by Lee or RCBS dies).
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<br>Also, last fall I had to send them an 8x57mm shell holder to be milled out to fit the cases of the Sellier & Bellot brass I was reloading for my peep-sighted Mauser.
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<br>Do you think the company's entire specifications for 8x57mm could be off somehow?
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<br>I've always liked Lee products and I'd be very surprised by that...but it does make a guy wonder about that caliber.

I suggest you send the offending dies to Lee and ask them to make it right. I use a lot of their dies, and am very happy with them.
<br> Glad you got it straightend out. E

E. I'll probably do just that. Don't expect them to do much, but would be nice if they did. I've always used a lot of Lee products and liked them very much, too. I like the company a lot. JustinH

Justin I'd send the dies back to Lee too along with a letter stating what is happening. All they can say is sorry about that. Mistakes do happen. I bought a set of Lee dies once a long time ago for 30-06 that the die body was actually for 44 special. Figure that.
<br>As to your Lee case trimmer none of them will fit in a resized case. They aren't supposed to. Trim before you resize. All that I have, and I have a bunch, are a slip fit in an unsized case only.
<br>BCR

Boggy, are you sure about the trimming BEFORE you re-size?
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<br>The Lee Manual says to do it after the case is re-sized, and then to chamfer the inside and outside of the case mouth.
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<br>That's what I've always done--re-size, trim, then chamfer. It works with all their other trimmers (.270, .243, 7 Mag, 30-06).
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<br>All my other reloading manuals are packed in/under boxes, so I'm unable to check them as to procedure. JustinH

Justin, I did say that didn't I. I was thinking of new unprimed brass that I always run under the trimmer. Of course you have to resize once fired because the primer has to be out to use the lee trimmer. Looks to me as if either your pilot or your expander in the die is off spec. Got to be one or the other.
<br>BCR