Ladies, Gentlemen, all ships at sea and AR forum members: Greetings. N00b here. Not new to guns, forums, beer, scotch, seegars or starting flamewars.

I AM new to shooting cast bullets in my old Czech VZ 24 . I do not expect any significant accuracy, 3 MOA would be nice. I have a *shudder* Lee 2 cav GC that is dropping 170 gr with my alloy. I had 27 grs , 29 grs and 30 grs of IMR 3031 in some loads with mixed results. I noted a bit of blowback on some shots. (Pressure too low to seal the chamber ?) I searched on this forum for "8x57 Mauser" and got no hits.

Anyway, nice lookin board ya got here. One of my range buddies is on here. I dunno his username, never talked much about it. He and others rag me pretty good at the range for using cast bullets at all !

I'm not sure exactly what your question is. I'll offer a couple of suggestions.

That Lee 175 grain bullet is a good one. Lee's standard 8mm sizing die of .323" diameter is marginal, and it would likely be a good idea to put some fine sandpaper (320-400) in the slot of a big cotter pin, with a backing strip of paper, wind it around till it pretty well fills the bore of the die, and twirl it by hand for a while to hone it out, then try pushing a bullet through, and repeat until a sized bullet runs about .325", maybe .326". It'll probably also help if you check the overall length at which your bullet firmly contacts the rifling origin and seat to that length or slightly less. The easy way is to first close the bolt on an empty chamber. Run a rod down from the muzzle till it stops against the breech face. Put a piece of electrical tape around the rod right at the muzzle crown. Now push a bullet into the breech till it stops. Again run the rod very carefully down the bore till it touches the nose of the bullet. You'll have to be very gentle to not knock it out. Put tape on the rod against the muzzle crown again. The distance between the bottom edges of the two pieces of tape is the cartridge length at which the bullet is against the rifling.

Cleaning all traces of copper fouling out of the bore before shooting cast generally helps. These old battle rifles usually have layers of metal and carbon fouling built up like an onion.

Thanks for the reply, richochet.

My question is, in short, "What load in 8 x 57 under a cast bullet of about 170 grs ?"

I get wordy, sorry.

I have had the rifle a couple of years. Not tried to shoot it more than 40 rounds of my handloaded cast stuff. Still cleaning on the "onion layers". Good analogy.

I have a lathe and will work on the Lyman sizer die as things progress, if need be.

I am seating these .010" off the lands now.

Thanks for the tips ! Cheers.

quote:

Originally posted by Jerry H:
I get wordy, sorry.

Same here.

Recently picked up an 8x57 98 Husky, Swed Crest, Civ Mod. with a very decent bbl. Have only put 30 rds thru it. 20 cast, 10 Jacketed to date. Cast was with the 175 Lee (The only mold I had on hand), sized .3235, Lars Red Lube,over 20 gr of 2400, Rem brass, Win pr, no fill. No leading and mild on the receiving end. Open sights produced 5 shot groups of around 1 1/2" at 50 which for my old eyes taint bad. Just got 100 verg Rem Brass so will start getting some real testing with cast in next few weeks.
1Shirt!

My best loads so far with that projectile is 18.5, 19.5, 20.5, or 21.5 grains of Milsurp 4759.

22.5 grains opened up to shotgun pattern.
YMMV

As Ricochet mentions, size them at .325". Seat to slightly engrave the driving band if you can. Start with 28 gr of 4895 and work up in 1/2 gr increments to 32 gr. Use a 1/2 gr dacron filler over the powder. I use a similar GB Lee 6 cavity mould, Lyman's 323470 and 323471 with the above componants and all shoot 1.5 MOA 10 shot groups at 100 yards out of my M24/47 (same as the VZ24) and my two M48s. The Lyman moulds have given like wise accuracy in most every other M98 8x57 in good condition. Muzzle velocity will be 1750-1950 fps depending on exact load.

Larry Gibson

quote:

Not new to guns, forums, beer, scotch, seegars or starting flamewars.

You forgot funny little pipes!

Good to see ya here pard! AR and it's members are a huge resource. There are some great people here with a wealth of info. I have learned, and continue to learn LOT here.

check with www.castboolits.com
Cast is what they do, and they are willing to share their experiences. They are also working on a match-quality bullet (boolit) mould group buy. One that is based on matching the throat size for sub-moa accuracy.

Rich

Thanks for the replies.

Jtex, I am spending way too much time reading on here and luvvin evver minnit of it.

I have been known to lurk that cast bullet forum. IIRC it is still in the favorites list of the home PC.