Surplus 8mm Mauser ammo (M48 Yugo)

[PushPuller]

Good morning everyone! So Iv been looking into getting some surplus 8mm Mauser ammo for a Yugo I recent purchased. I know surplus ammo is all over the board, and online has mixed reputations.
I was curious what y’all’s personal favorites, and nightmare ammo has been in the past.

[44 AMP]

The "good years" of milsurp 8mm (and most other calibers) meaning decent quality, reliable, available, and cheap, ended a long time ago. Today, since no major military has used the 8mm Mauser round since the 50s about all that is left is the bottom of the barrel stuff mostly from 3rd world nations, and there's no telling HOW it has been stored in the years since it was made.

There are only two things you can count on with "surplus" 8mm Mauser ammo.
#1 It will be corrosive primed
#2 It will be Berdan primed and therefore essentially, non-reloadable.

If you aren't a reloader, consider it. Reloadable (Boxer primed) brass and ammo is still available, though not like it once was in these shortage plagued times.

And while the militaries considered stripper clips to be throw away items, if you take a little care with them Mauser type stripper clips can be reused for many years.

I have a Yugo 48, also a VZ-24 and a Mauser 98k currently, and have owned dozens of Mauser 98s over my lifetime.

You really have to work at it to break them, but you can ruin them easily with neglect. ASSUME any ammo not made in the US after the 1950s to be corrosive primed and clean the gun accordingly and it wiil be fine. Don't, and you may find it badly rusted before you realize it.

Hope you can find ammo at a price you can afford, but I have no idea where that is, these days.

[jrothWA]

If your a in a club, some one may have some odd rounds around.

Best to get new PPU 7.957 fresh brass, reloadable.

Any surplus ammo, best to clean with HOT soapy water. and rinse with hot water.

Also, get spare parts for FP, Spring, & extractor.

[kenny53]

I was shooting with my son the other and he brought out his 8mm. He had two different brands of ammo, Egyptian and some other country.
Maybe one out of 10 of the Egyptian fired. Inspected the primers and all had a solid, deep hit. Just junk ammo. The other stuff worked well. I sold my 8mm and all the ammo and bought a Savage in 308. A lot easier to find ammo. I do agree with the others about reloading. You can make some great hunting rounds.

[armoredman]

I reload 8m Mauser and converting 30-06 brass can be done. I don't know HOW, but a buddy of mine did it and gave me a bunch.I don't even own a single round of factory 8mm - this fine old rifle only gets shot with cast handloads and she purrs like a 100+ year old kitten. Spanish 1916, so that's not an exaggeration...

[44 AMP]

I reload 8m Mauser and converting 30-06 brass can be done. I don't know HOW, but a buddy of mine did it and gave me a bunch

This is one of the more simple conversions. You just trim 06 brass to approximate 8mm Mauser length, then run it through the 8mm FL sizer die.

then check again for length. Odds are they'll be just a touch short, which is no problem. Just make sure they aren't too long, and trim them if they are.

I converted a bunch of LC and TW 50s 06 brass to 8mm Mauser a couple decades ago. They worked fine. Work up your loads per normal practice, of course.

Gets a bit tedious using a hand cranked trimmer though. IF I had to do it again today, I'd start with a tubing cutter, and cut off 1/4" that way, then look at trimming, if needed.

Alternate method, if you're flush with cash, get a trim die for 8mm Mauser, then you can cut off the extra 06 length with a hacksaw and finish with a file.

Not a regular standard item, so expect a custom die price if you go that route. Cheaper to just buy boxer primed 8mm brass, or ammo. AFTER i had convered a couple hundred, I found a dozen boxes of RP 8mm ammo for a good price, so I picked that up too. Not as hot as the European stuff, but excellent brass back in the 90s..

[eastbank]

i have a sporterized 98 mauser bringback that was rechambered into a 8mm06, i have not fired it in several years(very accurett). it was a worth while conversion back in the day when 8mm was hard to get right after ww-2. it will not work with your short 48 action very well with the extra lenth of the 30-06 case.

[Road_Clam]

Originally Posted by armoredman

I reload 8m Mauser and converting 30-06 brass can be done. I don't know HOW, but a buddy of mine did it and gave me a bunch.I don't even own a single round of factory 8mm - this fine old rifle only gets shot with cast handloads and she purrs like a 100+ year old kitten. Spanish 1916, so that's not an exaggeration...

I did this years ago and let me be clear, yes it can be done, BUT it is a ROYAL PIA that takes many sizing, trimming, annealing and resizing , neck turning, resizing again to get them to properly chamber. 100% NOT worth the aggravation, just buy a bag of 8mm brass from Starline IMO..

[BCR1]

The only sure fire surplus 8mm I know of are the Romanian spam cans.

Bill

[tangolima]

On converting 30-06 into 8mm Mauser. I do that quite often, because I have a lot of 06 brass. Always have to turn / ream the neck after conversion to remove extra brass from the new neck.

-TL

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[hammie]

If you need to shorten a case significantly, Harbor Freight offers a mini chop saw with a 2 inch blade. It's fast, easy, and accurate. I use mine to make 300 blackout from 5.56x45mm brass. About 40$ from harbor freight.

[doofus47]

The Yugo 1950s was the best in my opinion.

I took an old contact lens solution bottle with half/half ammonia/water and would run a few wet patches down the hot barrel after shooting my last round of the day.

I also shot S&B commercial 8mm. It worked ok.

[Willie Lowman]

Back when I had a Mauser I shot LOTS of this ammo

https://www.sgammo.com/product/surpl...mo-brass-case-

Of course I paid hundreds less a case than current prices but I found it to be good ammo.

[FrankenMauser]

There is no good surplus left. Not at affordable prices, anyway. The "good" stuff has been depleted to the point that it now falls into cartridge collectors' territory.

--

PPU and S&B 8x57mm brass cases are frequently available for reasonable prices.
A shipment of PPU components was delivered to the port in South Carolina, just before Thanksgiving. Should start propagating across the country now.

I don't like S&B brass. And I know a lot of people don't like PPU handgun brass. But PPU rifle brass is generally very good. For many applications, I consider it nearly as good as Lapua.

Of course, if you don't intended to reload, both of those companies offer loaded ammo at good prices.

[44 AMP]

I've converted a lot of 06 brass into 8mm Mauser and 7.7mm Jap. Never needed to ream, neck turn, or anneal. Never any problems. You're only changing things about 1/4".

You can do those things if you want, but if you don't need to, why bother??

[tangolima]

Originally Posted by 44 AMP

I've converted a lot of 06 brass into 8mm Mauser and 7.7mm Jap. Never needed to ream, neck turn, or anneal. Never any problems. You're only changing things about 1/4".



You can do those things if you want, but if you don't need to, why bother??

When the shoulder is moved back by 1/4" (is guffy still here?), brass flows from the old shoulder into the new neck, making the wall much thicker. It sometimes shows up as a step in the neck. You have never seen that? I do.

-TL

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[Road_Clam]

Originally Posted by 44 AMP

I've converted a lot of 06 brass into 8mm Mauser and 7.7mm Jap. Never needed to ream, neck turn, or anneal. Never any problems. You're only changing things about 1/4".

You can do those things if you want, but if you don't need to, why bother??

Then you need to post a detailed how-to because like I commented It took me multiple OAL cut backs, resizes, neck turns , resizes to get my casings to fully chamber into my Yugo MOD98. If memory serves me correctly I was getting some neck dia. bulge right at the neck to shoulder transition. Maybe I have a very tight chamber but I doubt it.

[44 AMP]

.30-06 into case trimmer, remove appropriate length for 8mm or 7.7 Jap, chamfer, run full length into fl sizer die, check for final length afterwards, then either trim if needed, or just load. Worked for me, in 98ks and jap type 99s.

[ernie8]

A sizing die does not have the pressure or the heat to make brass " flow " . All that is happening is that the new 8mm or 7.7 mm about 1/2 of the neck is now make from the larger dia case shoulder so when compressed it is a little thicker than the old neck area . That is visible , but like 44 amp I have never had cambering problems with it . After the first firing the neck will even out fairly well .
.

[tangolima]

The old shoulder becomes the new neck. The resizing die makes it happen. Calling it "flow" or not doesn't matter.

Depending on the parent brass, the metal in the shoulder could be significantly thicker than normal neck thickness (around 0.012"). The step (hopefully it is acceptable term) is clearly visible, so it could be as much as 0.005" thicker if not more. That increases the neck diameter by 0.01". I wouldn't be surprised if it causes chambering problem. Worst case could be a dangerous donut, if the bullet is seated low and you force the round to chamber.

I don't get how firing can make that additional brass disappear.

-TL



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[Mk VII]

I reformed some from US military brass - without annealing, the necks cracked after a few firings.

[FrankenMauser]

I really don't understand why you guys are still arguing about using .30-06 brass.
There is no point in the modern world.
Nosler, Hornady, Winchester, Remington, Lapua, PPU, S&B, and Norma make brass. It is not difficult to obtain.

Graf's, for example, nearly always has PPU in stock.
They currently only have Nosler, but PPU is very easy to obtain most of the time.

Sometimes. Sometimes, it is easier to get loaded ammo.
But you still get usable brass.