This was the standard German bullet for the 8x57 during WW2. It had a BC of around 0.575 and weighed 198 grains.




There's not much demand for 8mm bullets compared to other bore sizes. But still, why do all major manufacturers choose such dumpy shapes?

I'm surprised no civil manufacturer has copied the bullet above. It holds up well even compared to the low-drag bullets of 2018.

I'm sure you could copy that shape and put a plastic tip on it.


Some of the better-shaped 8mm bullets and their advertised BCs:

Nosler 200 Accubond: 0.450
Hornady 170 SST: 0.445
Sierra 220 GameKing: 0.524
Sierra 200 Matchking: 0.505
Hornady 196 BTHP: 0.525


All a lot lower, and a couple of those are match bullets, too. Is it really so hard to make a longer, sleeker ogive?

It bothers me the Germans can come out with this bullet a century ago, and no mainstream manufacturers will make a bullet to match in 2018. Would make the 8x57 and 325 just a little more attractive.

.323 is just not much of a "going thing" hence the lack of innovation. I used to want to put together an 8mm-06. Probably because of reading too much Askins Jr. 'Stick will be along momentarily to tell us all how stupid we are and how superior .338 diameter is.

Bigen Schticken.....Heil!

Nosler Accubond and Sierra 220 both exceed G1s of 500 and there are some other around too.

https://www.longrangehunting.com/threads/new-8mm-323-cutting-edge-mth-bullets.152842/
I've been meaning to try these in my 8mm mag, but I'm broke plus I have a bunch of 200 gr partitions on hand that print half inch or better 100 yard groups. That dumpy bullet hammered a big Utah bull elk for me at 450 yards. I found it against the far shoulder blade looking just like a partition should.

Just wait until the 8mm Creedmoor comes out.

It's a conspiracy from the ammunition manufacturers designed to mask the overall superiority of the 8x57is in order to sell more of the latest "wonder" cartridge.

When’s the last time you heard of someone using an 8mm for long range? And what percentage of shooters do you think even own an 8mm. I’m guessing it’s less than 5% Bullet makers most likely don’t think the market is there to invest in new r&d and product lines.

PPU has a 250 grain BT FMJ with a good BC and Cutting edge was also working on a 256 grain version but not sure if that one is in production as the fast twist required makes it a small niche market. The 8mm is alive and well in Europe so there must be some more options out there.

The 8mm is like the 25 caliber and some others with a slower twist. Most 8mm's have either the 1-9.45 metric twist or 1-10 for most stateside 8mms. This limits the caliber to about a 250 grain VLD type bullet maximum. This and the limited sales/popularity don't help the bullet picture.

The 200 gr AccuBond, the only 8mm AccuBond, sits at 0.450.


Now if the Germans could make a 198 grain bullet with a 0.575 BC over a century ago, lead core, nothing special, I would have thought Nosler could make their 200 gr AccuBond with a 0.575 BC.


And what bothers me is that unlike most other old cartridges, there is no bullet I've seen with which one can make a load to match the WW2-era
ballistics. I don't care about sleek bullets too much if a cartridge has a dumpy-bullet history. But it seems a shame when a cartridge with a sleek-bullet history has only dumpy bullets available.







Lutz Möller makes some IIRC. Not sure how well they work in the real world. Availability and price is always a problem with niche manufacturers, though.

It's a crying shame those dumpy old 8mm bullets work so poorly.

Just maybe it's because the market share of all things 8mm is just slightly greater than that of 8-track tapes. The sickening thuds of failure from the last two commercial 8mm rounds are still echoing in the hallways at Remington and Winchester. 15 thousandths North and South of .323 lay two very popular and efficient bore sizes. Considering all that, just how much money do you think the bullet makers should flush down the crapper in pursuit of your notions?

The Germans love 'em so much they make two sizes. Maybe they can help you.

Problem is Germans seem to like driven hunts at close range, and often with weird bullets.

Apparently this is the peak of Teutonic hunting projectiles.

I'm not even sure which end goes frontwards.

Cool! Everyone should try a bullet with a Scharfrand at least once. Not sure how I feel about the Torpedoheck.

Actually, the .338" dia. bullet @ 200 gr. is "dumpier"






Don't do much elk, moose or big bear hunting, but those "dumpy" 8mm's flat work on hill country hoglets.







and the occasional Axis





Ya!

GWB

Here's another one with an estimated G7 BC of .339: https://hammerbullets.com/product/323-248g-hammer-hunter/

My GF came in the room last night wearing a kernhalterille and it was quite fun getting it off her.

Seriously, to the lack of ELD 8mm bullets I say, meh. For what I use an 8mm for (once in a blue moon in the eastern deer woods) the current bullet offerings are just peachy. I'm not likely to jump up and start a career as a long range shootist, and if I do it likely won't be with an 8x57 Mauser. Truth be told, the only 8mm bullets I bought over the last ten years were a couple boxes of Sierra 175 spitzers, which just happen to shoot keenly for me and I bet they'll kill a 120 pound whitetail at 50 yards just fine if I ask them to. I think a nice 8mm 190 grain round nose would be skookum.

Pretty high, but if you run the numbers, it's a form factor of only 1.00, so the main reason for the BC is simply weight, which at 248 grains, is I think a little much for 8x57.

The bullet at the top of the page has a form factor somewhere between 0.9 and 0.95.




Or you could use one of those cutting-edge ping-pong balls I posted above, with a literal cutting edge and a dozen other wunderfeatures.

Most of the wonder bullets we enjoy now had already been invented by them by 1930 or thereabouts. Too bad they can't stick to killing pigs very long at a stretch.

They'll probably need their asses kicked again soon. At least this time the fugging French will be on the right side, theirs!

North Fork 220's have a BC of .473.They are long,1.486 inches.The 220 Swift A-Frames are 1.330 inches with a BC of .393.Both shoot great in my 8mm RM.

When I was researching a rifle bigger than a 270 back in the late 90's. The 8mm-06, 338-06 and 35 Whelen were all in the running. I eventually chose the 338-06 and have been very happy with it. Although when all are used in normal hunting scenarios, not much difference.

I have had both a 8mm Remington mag and an 8x57.

I have zero desire to ever own another 8mm caliber rifle.

Where are you going to find an 8mm rifle intended for long range use?

The only reason the Krauts made such a bullet is for volley fire & machinegun use.

I had a Mauser 98 re-barreled with a 1:10 twist #2 Contour 24" Douglas barrel. It was a hard hitter and tack driver with 180 grain Nosler Ballistic Tips. Our range had a 200 yard gong and the old 8mm rocked the gong much harder than my trusted 30-06; loads were nearly identical if not identical charges of IMR 4064 with 180 grain bullets, .323" vs .308". I will take a pre 64 Winchester 70 over a custom mauser any day though. I gave that gun to a friend's son.

The Krauts were so far ahead of America in rifle, cartridge, projectiles and optics for so many decades it's almost embarrassing. We did finally catch up but have come up with nothing any better. The great 30-06 is based on the 8 X 57 and it wasn't Mauser who paid royalties to Springfield.

If you shoot cast bullets in the 8 X 57I or IS there's a lot of great bullets out there.

I can't see your linked image. Where does that BC number come from?

Image link: https://i.imgur.com/RBtGMMR.png


Wikipedia says "The s.S. ball projectile with a 5.9 millimetres long 6° 25′ 51″ boat tail was designed for long range use and offered the best aerodynamic efficiency and external ballistic performance of any standard rifle bullet used during World War II, with a G1 ballistic coefficient between 0.593 and 0.557".

I don't trust Wikipedia. But if you look at the firing tables and work it out, you get about the same, probably where those numbers come from. And if you plug the official dimensions into the program described here (pdf warning), you also get about the same. There are a couple other sources out there with similar results. Those give a pretty good ballpark. If we want a more exact number I guess Brian Litz needs to test some.

There were a number of very nicely shaped projectiles way back when, including .30-06 M1 ball and especially the monolithic boat-tailed projectile for the 8mm Lebel (below) which was about as nicely shaped as any of the ELDs Hornady puts out today.



https://i.imgur.com/BFPlB17.png

Bullets were designed that way because they needed good ballistics for machine guns. It was envisioned that massed machine guns would actually arc their bullets in indirect fire mode to create beaten zones behind enemy lines and create havoc. Thus, good long range performance was needed.

WW I showed that mostly this was impractical and unneeded as that artillery could do that job better, so most countries developed lighter bullets that had lighter recoil and better performance in that first five or six hundred yards where most engagements would occur. However, the Germans saw the role of individual soldiers more as guys to protect and deliver ammo to the machine guns and thus, continued to optimize their bullets for machine gun use instead of rifle use. As such, they actually increased the weight of the standard bullet from 153 grains to 196 grains and from a flat base to a boat tail between the wars.

The simple truth of the matter is that the old 8x57is with the right "dumpy" bullet will still put the meat in the freezer at most any REASONABLE range.

So will a 30-06 with far superior logistics.

Maybe you should form a start-up and put said bullet into production. I'd buy a box. And then probably go back to using the Federal blue box load that can I buy in my hometown hardware store for $20.

Back when cheap surplus mausers were the rage, Hornady and Sierra threw together a couple of bullets to "capitalize" on that market. Nobody picked up the torch to R&D anything beyond that simply because there's no MONEY in it. The guy with a cheap surplus mauser doesn't give two sh*ts about long range hunting accuracy - he just wants the rifle to bang as cheaply as he can make it go bang. Had the 325 WSM really taken off, then they'd have taken a second look. But the bullets they ARE offering will do anything most anybody, with an 8mm anything, will want - at the ranges they want to shoot anything. It's business, man, just business....


My apologies, for my smart-arse remarks.

Kaiser Norton

Hammer bullets will do a custom design or did. A 196 with a deep hollow point might work. They could even copy the dimensions of the WWII design and it might have a higher BC due to the hollow point if they made the nose pointy enough. Not sure what their minimum is but when they were just starting it was like 500 to a 1,000 as they liked to experiment. A Campfire group buy could generate more than that.

But I am in the 220 Sierra is good enough camp.

M76.

That's an 800 yard gun on the best of it's days. On the plus side, when you miss, you can try again quickly.

Good guess though, Tim. I can't think of a better attempt at a rifleman's long range 8mm.

For the Yugos it served it's purpose. But if it was an attempt to make a long range rifle, it was a swing & a miss. As far as I'm concerned, bullet BC was the least of it's problems. I'd much rather have an M40 or even an AR10.

I've never thought much of those Dragunov types. (I know the gas is different.)

You never asked for a great design...LOL. I would wager that a WWII K98 sniper variant would stretch farther than the M76, but that wasn't a purpose built long range rifle, just a scope slapped on the finest bolt action ever conceived.

I believe you would win that argument too.