30 April 2009, 21:41
bartsche8mm Turk powder
Just a little heads up

Not many years ago I bought something like 4800 rounds of 8mm Turk surplus ammo. In all six of my 8mm rifles the ammo appeared to be a little on the hot side.
On pulling bullets I found they had 44 grains of flake powder similar in apearance to German loaded ammo.

The first thing was to reload the cartridges with 40 grains of the same powder.This seemed to take care of the hot ammo problem.
It looked like the burning rate of the flake powder was near that of 4198.

After pulling more bullets a lot more powder was aquired and I started experimenting with other cartridges. After about three years off and on of screwing around with this powder the results show that is a great fertilizer. the accuracy is inconsistant along with pressure indications. Velocity spreads are all over the place and with what you think are MILD loads every now and than a primer pops.
To a large extent German and South American surplus ammo powder yielded the same results.

Really not worth the trouble unless you have a nice rose garden.

roger
01 May 2009, 05:38
craigsterI've got about 1500rds of that stuff. I'm gonna burn it all up in a 24/47, screw the roses. Maybe I'll see if I can burn the barrel up while I'm at it and increase my carbon footprint at the same time.
