First time in this forum for me.

I've got a question nobody on the milsurp rifle boards has been able to answer. The Persian M98/29 Mauser rifle made by the Czechoslovakians in Brno in the 1930s has been sold here in fair numbers by Samco in recent years. It's a slightly modified long Gewehr 98, in the same 7.9x57mm chambering. As most everyone here knows, the Germans developed their S type cartridge with a 154 grain spitzer bullet around 1903 and the Ss cartridge with a 198 grain boat tail spitzer a few years later. Most of the other countries that adopted the 7.9mm cartridge settled on one or the other of these as their main load. For instance, the Turks used the S type 154 grain, and the Yugoslavians eventually settled on the Ss type 198 grain.

The unanswered question is: Which load were the Persians/Iranians primarily using during the 1930s when these rifles were adopted?

And as a secondary question, what was their principal source of ammunition? (Since CZ was supplying the rifles, I'd speculate the ammo probably came from them initially as well.)

Did they use any ammo types besides ball?

I'm sure someone with lots of time, ammo, good shooting skills and a long rifle range could "reverse engineer" what load the sights are calibrated for, though I doubt they'll exactly match the range settings with point of impact for any load. But I'm interested in it historically as well.

Anybody got any old Iranian 7.9x57 cartridges?

Wow!! Really good & interesting question . . . but one to which I have no answer. The IAA (International Ammunition Association) site is down at the moment, but I will post this inquiry there when it is back up (usually inside of a few hours).

i think they used the 154 grain bullet or 198 grain was also used in millitary loads. Partizan the Serbian ammo maker makes loads in 198 grain FMJ millitary style, and also Sellier &BEllot makes some too,try them and see how POI is with them.

Ricochet,

In regard to your inquiry, I received this reply from the dean of the 7.92x57:

--------------------
I have 17 Iranian ball rounds in my collection. I did not weigh one with a
nickeled case nor any of several dummies I have. The 17 all weigh from
approximately 408 grains to 414 grains +- tenths of grains, total cartridge
weight, which would indicate Tye s.S. bullets of approximately 196 grains.
They are quite consistentin weight with brass-cased German rounds of type
s.S. The odd thing is that only one has a green primer seal, the others
being black. Further, four of the rounds have the more straight-sided
bullet ogive of Type S ball, and yet two of them are at the top end of the
cartridge weights shown (414+ gr) while the other two are about middle
(410+ grains). I will not pull any of them, despite my curiosity, as
pulling bullets alters a major feature of the cartridge, the crimp, and it
cannot be put back to its completely original form. In old rounds there is
also a possibility of splitting the neck, which happened to me once with a
very good specimen that I pulled - thank goodness it was a duplicate.
Since all rounds weighed in the type s.S. range, I did not determine dates
for any of them - hard to do as some Iranian rounds are not clearly dated,
and others are in the Persian form of the Muslim calender, which differs
from the Arabic Muslim calender by some years.

------------
HTH,
Iconoclast

hi
198 grain(12,8 gram) loaded to 780 M/S in long brno ,750 M/S in medium 60 cm barrel and 730 M/S in short barrel,
regards
yazid

My Persiam 98/29 loves 200 grain bullets made by anyone and loaded to 2300f/s. I am still using original Barnes because for deer and hogs it is just perfect for me at my less than 100 yard range. One shot/one kill and no running anywhere.

Thanks, guys, that's very helpful information!

I had previously written Ali Parsa, an Iranian professor who posted an interesting piece on the history of the Persian/Iranian "Brnos" at http://www.aliparsa.com/brno/brno.html to ask him if he knew. He didn't. I've passed the above information along to him (he might want to include some information on the ammo in his writeup), and gave him the link to this thread as well.


As for nondestructive examination of bullets in loaded cartridges, I wonder if any medical or dental X-ray equipment is capable of imaging the bullet inside the cartridge case?

re your x-ray query - dental x-ray may not be powerfull enough . It wasnt when I tried a 50-70 multiball cartridge - but the local Veterinary Clinic managed to get an ok shot , I think they saw it as a challenge .

All you can do is take your cartridge along and ask . Good luck .

Yeah, if someone sees it as a "challenge" you're a lot more likely to get somewhere.