I've often wondered why it fizzled out so quickly. It seems as if it would be a hit with the Large Game Hunter that loves to persue Elk, Moose, and Bear.

The bullet selection for reloaders seems to have grown a bit in rescent years with brass not being too terribly difficult to find from Remington.

The cartridge is ballistically superior to the famed .338 Win Mag yet it failed miserably and the .338WM soars on.

I personally feel it would be quite popular had Remington brought out the round a decade or two sooner.

Thoughts?

Reloader

Remington did the same with the 280 .Too close to the 270 and introduced after the 270 was well established ! The 8 mag was just too close to the already established 338 !

Poor bullet selection for reloaders, limited offerings in factory, and metric phobia. It is a fine cartidge, and I still kick myself for not buying one I found in a local pawn shop. It was a pristine 700 BDL and the price was reasonable to me even then, but I wasn't making much and it was jard to explain to the wife why we needed to eat rice and beans for the next month. Nate

At the time it came out the 338 and the 300 had the market pretty well sew up plus ammo was hard to come by, it did not stop me from getting one thoe, I still take it out from time to time.

I understand that Remington first presented it to a group of gun writers. Elmer Keith was among them, and he asked aloud the question that was on nearly everyone's mind, "What the hell's it good for?"

The .338 Win mag already existed at the time, and rifles, ammunition, loading information, bullets, etc were already widely available. The 8mm Rem. Mag offered little in the way of any improvement over the .338, but it required more powder, needed a longer action, produced more kick and blast, and had fewer bullet selections.

What's to like about that?

And long before a potent yankee Mag existed, there was a beltless real Magnum on the market: the 8x68S!! Not very popular in the USA but all great european factories built rifles with this cartridge.

Well it all came down to the bullets Remington loaded in it. They were ok for 8mm Mausers but were just piss poor in that big case. If there were 200 gr Nosler Partitions or Swift A Frames then it might have been a different story. As for the 338 Winchester, it took a long time for it to become popular as it is today. The other thing was 8mm was never a popular thing in the US. It never made any sense to me, it was not the first cartridge to flop nor will it be the last.

I would have liked to have seen the 8mm Remington Magnum do better as well. In fact, Remington only got 1 out of 3 to fly between the 6mm, 7mm, and 8mm. The 6mm is outstanding and so is the 8mm.

Mainly, I believe it to be action length for the 8mm. Remington M700's are .375 length so no big deal for the 8mm. Other manufactures did not have the action at that time without opening it up and those were going to the .375 H&H market.

In the case of the 6mm, I also believe actions were the issue in that all maufacturers were building .308 Winchesters so no change for .243 Winchester to be chambered.

The good news, easy to barrel a M700 to 8mm Rem. Mag.

The big 8s (8mm Rem, 8x68S, .325 WSM) are formidable calibers. These days with the advent of the 200 grs TSX and the 200 grs NAB, they have the potential of being better than they ever were.

This winter I have been shooting a (more modest) 8x64S, and I must say it has killed well for me. I'm impressed with what the little extra bullet diameter seems to bring - all in a package as versatile as my favourite .30-06.

- mike

I suspect that most non-hard core rifleman couldn't figure out what it was. What is a 8mm in comparison to a .300, .338 or .270. If Remington had pulled a Winchester and called it the .325 Mag, people would have understood better.

Aaron

Good bullets & the fact the round took a magnum action to run it. If they had of made up the 8mmRM based on the 338wm case, maybe it would still be w/ us. Now Win. is bringing it back as the 325WSM, go figure.

quote:

Originally posted by BigNate:
Poor bullet selection for reloaders, limited offerings in factory, and metric phobia. It is a fine cartidge. Nate

Absolutley correct! Phil Shoemaker said it more eloquently in Nosler #5, though.

quote:

Originally posted by .366torque:

quote:

Originally posted by BigNate:
Poor bullet selection for reloaders, limited offerings in factory, and metric phobia. It is a fine cartidge. Nate

Absolutley correct! Phil Shoemaker said it more eloquently in Nosler #5, though.

My hat's off to Phil. I've never claimed to be elequent nor politically correct.
Nate

But it spawned a successful 7mm Magnum -- the STW -- which was perhaps the most popular cartridge in that caliber for a decade or more.

No factory load with a premium 250 gr spitzer?

250 grs seems to be a tad long for a .323 cal bullet - at least if one is to judge by availability. A dear friend of mine shot 8mm Rem Mag for quite a few years - he had it housed in a big Sako TRG action. He always wanted 220 grs bullets - said the extra bullet weight distinguished the caliber from a .30 cal. I can see his point, but I have always found the 200 grs a very versatile bullet weight for the 8s.

- mike

Maybe the mysterious low BC of the amerikans bulletmakers 8mm bullets has something to do with it!

It is a super cartridge, and I can't see how a nation can love the 7mm and hate the 8mm.
Both are very close to the beloved .30.

It could be that the 8mm was to Nazi to America after WW2.

I agree with Bent Fossdal. The 8mm Magnum is indeed a super cartridge!

I have a Remington 700 that I converted from 7mm Magnum to 8mm Magnum. It sports a 26 inch Douglas medium weight barrel. With Reloder 25, it will easily push a 220 grain Swift A-Frame over 2900 fps. The 220 grain Swift has a sectional density of .301. Set 2.9 inches high at 100 yards, it zeros at 240 yards and has a maximum point blank range of 282 yards. It still carries 2000 foot pounds of energy out to 400 yards! Thus, it shoots like a 7 mag. and hits like a .338. Ballistic perfection! Fantastic elk and plains game cartridge. However, here in the USA, it went nowhere because most guys are in love with the 30 caliber and, aside from the 7 mag., hate anything metric.

Dave

I don't buy into the metric phobia, if that were the case, what made the 7mm Rem mag one of the most popular cartridges in U.S history? The answer to me is, the 8 offered little to American shooters that they could not do with the 30 cal, which was what most of the post war hunters were used to after service in two world wars. The 338 still does not sell all that well, because how many shooters really hunt anything that needs it here ? Why don't you ask why there are traditionally very few 30 cal sporting rifles/drillings/ doubles used by europeans prior to the end of WW2? Are they phobic about non-metric calibers? Some of it is undoubtably due to the taint of Nazism, not many of the old Vets I knew were crazy about using a surplus rifle/caliber that shortly before was being used to try to kill them. Couple that with the fact that surplus Mausers used to be sold out of wooden barrels at the five and dime store for ten bucks to be hacked up by anyone with the desire! Ammo was downloaded by the major makers to pathetic levels, the list goes on. The euros liked their 6.5, 7, 8, and 9.3's and we liked our 30, not too hard to understand for me! They prefer the 9mmP in handguns, and I like the 45 ACP, How come they are not buying 45's? It is a far more efficient defense round, are euro's prejudiced against it? I always find these topics interesting as people try to assume that Americans are too provincial to accept a better product, simply because it is foreign in origin, but everyone else in the world is so sophisticated and open minded. Different strokes for different folks!

i always wanted one, but I had heard "rumors" that the 8mm mag guns from Remington wouldn't shoot worth a damn. I think Kenny Jarrett bought up all of them he could find to rechamber. And bought them cheap!

In reality what does it do better than a 300 win mag, or 300 weatherby? Less bullet selection(then) longer action, no true heavy weight bullets, it was dead before it even left the factory. Does this mean its not good? Of course not, just not truly needed.

A... recoil???

I don't buy the metric,Remington breathed some life into the 244 by calling it 6mm.

Flat shooting like 300Win,hits like a 338.Roughly 2/3 of the way between the 300Wea and 340Wea.

Nasty to shoot,the too short BDL stock works better on a 270.I'm still trying to get over the flinch from a 30-06 BDL, 30 years later.

Poor bullet selection and it'd knock the snot out of you on the bench.

The truth is , the big 8 brought nothing to the table to better the pre-existing 30 caliber magnums , which will shoot a bit flatter , or the 338 , which will deliver the goods in better fashion if you want bullet weight and frontal area .

Ken Waters did an extensive piece in Handloader back in the day , and found it difficult to reach factory rated speeds with powders then on the shelves , and remarked on the fast , heavy recoil in the Remington BDL rifle. In addition , chronoed speeds on the factory ammo didn't quite live up to their billing , and the cartridge required a long magnum action , unlike the popular 300 Win .

Throw in the very limited bullet choices from American makers at the time , and you have a good recipe for a dog of a cartridge.........

It's not the fact that it's metric or that there is nothing really wrong with it. I just plain wasn't needed, calling it a .325 wouldn't have made it needed. Ask if it has helped the .325WSM. The 7Mags were a leader, a long range heavier bullet version of the very popular .270 Win., the .300 Mags a long range, heavy bulelt shooting .30-06 on steroids. The .338 Mag a hard hitting Alaskan cartridge for hunter to use on everything elk size and up. Where in this group does the 8Mag distinguish itself?

I see a couple reasons for it failing. First, American hunters/shooters seem to see 30 caliber as some sort of threshold for hunting. Let's face it, if you're looking at your generic deer rifle, a good 30 will handle them way out there. Especially when we are looking at a full length belted case.

So, if you have a rifle that takes a full length belted case, and you want to jump up in power, are going to take a baby step to 8mm, or jump right up to the 375 H&H? Seems pretty clear to me when the 30 cal isn't enough, the next choice is the 375.

It might have made it as a 358 version, the 358STA seems to have a solid following. Their focus group was still mostly WWII and Korea age, and 8mm didn't mean much to them. The 35 caliber is American, and would have sold, IMHO. The 9,3mm cartridges are generating a lot of interest today, because the shooting populace reads more, and looks strictly at what a cartridge can do...not it's caliber. The 8mag's niche today is as an easy to form into 300 H&H parent case.

Rich
DRSS

My guess is that it is too close to the .338 Win. Mag. and the .340 Weatherby. This in addition to the fact that the 8mm bore size has never been a particular favorite of American hunters.

As Elmer Keith said when it was introduced, "What is it good for?", implying it would not do anything better than the .338 Win., which we had already had for 30 years.....

quote:

Originally posted by Monastery-Forester:
And long before a potent yankee Mag existed, there was a beltless real Magnum on the market: the 8x68S!! Not very popular in the USA but all great european factories built rifles with this cartridge.

IF I were to purchase an 8mm, this is the one I'd choose-the 8X68S! It'll do anything the 8mm Rem. Mag. will do, and it doesn't have that damnfool belt......

I would choose the 9.3x62 over the.338, .358 or the 8mm. More knock down power and easy to find brass, dies and great bullets.

I think the bread and butter of Remington-type sales are the "good-ole-boys" and for them "mill-e-meter" is generally a bad word. Someone above used the term metricphobia - I like that. As an example two bubbas I know well sing the praises of their 325WSM's but you'd think I was blaspheming when I told them they were actually 8mm's!

You know guys if it really was an issue of just "there was already a good cartridge that did the same thing" half the cartridges around today WOULDN'T EXIST!

As to the "too long" theory, the Rem.700 only comes in two lengths short (.308 win length) and long - long enough to handle the .375 H&H - everthing from .270 through the .416 are built on the same action.

There really is something of a bias in the US for the .300s because they are 30 caliber (even though they are lesser to the 8mag) and a tendnecy to jump up to the .338 although most people shooting it in the lower 48 don't shoot the 250 gr. bullet (the only real advantage of the .338 over the 8 mag).

I've had .338 (when I lived in Canada) and still have a .300 Win., but the 8s don't have any flies on them. If I lived in a state where I could elk hunt every year w/ a rifle, I believe I'd own one of these super 8s.

say beartrack i'm new to the club and i don't have an 8mm rem mag but i do have an 8mm/300 win mag that i built . it ain't fancy but it sure gets the job done. Dave

Poor bullet selection??? When was the last time you checked? And how many bullets do you need?

If Elmer really asked, "What is it good for?", I am not very impressed.

It gives more punch than the .300 Weatherby, with less recoil than the .340 Weatherby. Add cheap brass and rifles and it has obviously an edge and a place in the sun.

quote:

Originally posted by gymrat:
I would choose the 9.3x62 over the.338, .358 or the 8mm. More knock down power and easy to find brass, dies and great bullets.

The 9.3's are an abomination! Totally obsolete, and should die off!

I think the reasons it never really caught on have already been listed. There isn't really anything it does better than a 30 or 338 caliber magnum that had existed for a long time. I personally like the cartridge; it's a solid effort that just never really found a niche. The offshoots (7 stw, 358 STA) have been slam dunks, IMO. Enough bullets certainly exist to prove it as a versatile hunting cartridge, and brass is still pretty cheap and available.

http://www.doubletapammo.com/php/catalog/index.php?cPath=51
These two loads revitalized my 8mm Mag! The 250gr. Woodleigh @ 2850fps is a hoot to shoot and chrono'ed at 2858fps from my gun. The 200gr. loads went 3218fps and are my goto for elk hunting, I shot a .68" group with them and they are laser flat shooting.

I hunting buddy of mine has a 8mm Mag. It shoots fine, but like many have said it all comes down to the bullets. A 338 had factory offerings from 200 to 300 grains, while the 8mm was stick with 185 and 220 grain offerings.

The 8mm Rem Mag IMO offered nothing over existing offerings in 300 Magnum and 338 Magnum.

In other words there was no reason for the public to buy it......no gains!