8mm surplus ammo - where have I been?

In a way though with the Surplus ammo gone, or dang near gone, and the factory ammo expensive, and underloaded this may put a few more nice Mausers on the market, for those of us who ''Roll our own''. :D
 
.318" vs .323"

I for one won't be messing with any more surplus 8 x 57. Last box I bought from LGS mic'd at .318...which I measured AFTER shooting 2ft groups at 100 yds. I haven't slugged either of my mauser barrels, I'm pretty certain both are closer to the .323 spec than .318!

This past weekend I was hitting 1/2 gallon milk jugs at 100 yards with factory Privi. Now I'm collecting once-fired factory brass and I'll get a set of dies when I have about 100 pcs. I don't intend to shoot more than a hundred or so of rounds per year through these rifles.
 
I got burned hard when surplus 8mm (not the over priced sniper stuff) disappeared over night. It was super strange because one weekend I spent hours scouring around finding plenty of sources searching for the best deal. The next weekend (after I got paid) I went to order and *poof* EVERYONE was out of stock. I loved that 50's Yugo stuff. Got mine from J&G. My k98 ate it right up. Never a cracked, let alone burst case. Maybe about 5-10 FTF's out of 900 rounds fired (I rechambered and restruck all of the FTF and they fired fine on the second hit)

I did buy 150 rds of 50's Yugo from a gun show once. Terrible stuff. Once I got home I "QC rejected" about 15% of the rounds as dangerous. I blamed it on mishandling.

Most of the links above, although appreciated, are for the much more expensive "sniper grade". I did see the one link for 50's Iranian. (link) I never heard any reports on it though. Anyone have any experience with it? I just want it for plinking, so a reasonable number of FTF's are OK for the price and I really don't care about accuracy, but I'm not willing to risk any serious damage to my k98.

Thanks in advance for any comments or opinions. Also, apologies for making this my first post here instead of doing a proper introduction.

Mike
 
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I am also seeing a lot of 54R, which is great, I've been slowly stockpiling it up. I am seeing factory ammo from the Russians, and it's great to know that the gun will run anything through it. My brother and I were discussing K98s the other day and I had to forewarn him that there is just absolutely no way he'll be able to feed it (living in Chicago, I can't get any ammo shipped here... ugh). I went with an Ishapore Enfield recently in 7.62 NATO expressly because I knew I'd never find .303 at any of my local shops.

That samco link that someone posted should help. I've dealt with them before on a rifle and they were solid. Just... hard to understand over the phone!
 
There is no shortage of old 8mm surplus online. Much harder to find at shows these days, however. Then again, I rarely go to shows these days, first because you rarely find a better deal than online and second because I'm more tempted to buy something I don't need when I can actually handle it in person. :o

The popularity of 8mm is such that there are several reputable small scale manus of very good new 8mm such as GA Arms that make corrosive surplus obselete for me (don't like messing with corrosive ammo, anyway). And S&B and Privi are great deals among major brands.

8mm has never been one of the rounds I shoot like there is no tomorrow anyway. I leave that to 7.62 x 39, 9mm and .22 LR. :D
 
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