what is: 8x57 norm

11 August 2023, 00:24

john waugh

what is: 8x57 norm

looking for information regarding caliber marking on oberndorf mauser sporting rifles....what does: 8x57 Norm,indicate??... i'm aware that 8x57 j indicates a .318 bore and 8x57s indicates a .323 borw...i've also seen 8x57 norm on mannlicher rifles after austria was annexed bt germany....ant help/info would be appreciated...thanks, John

11 August 2023, 03:38

KurtC

"Norm" on a German or Austrian rifle simply means normal or standard. In this case, it is the standard 8x57IS.

There is no 8x57J. It is 8x57I, Infanterie (Infantry). However, with Blackletter/Fraktur/Gothic style letters, the I looks like a J and Americans that didn't know better started labeling the cartridge 8x57J.

11 August 2023, 07:27

OSA

Unless I am mistaken, normal means it has a .321 groove diameter. This is so either.318 or .323 ammo can safely be shot in the rifle and still expect good accuracy.

11 August 2023, 16:28

KurtC

.323 bullets go down a .318 bore just fine. The S modification was simply to the chamber. The neck is opened up in the 8x57I chambers to allow the 8x57IS .323 bullet to release from the case. That is where the overpressure occurs.

11 August 2023, 23:07

bpesteve

We live in an era where standardization is taken for granted. Ask a gun-savvy person something like "What are the dimensions of the .308 Winchester cartridge?" for instance, and it's possible to look up the specs and quote them for certainty whether the cartridges or rifles were made in the US, Europe or basically anywhere on the planet.

This has not always been the case (literally). In Germany, since the original post was about the 8x57 cartridge, there were no commonly used standards for commercial cartridges or chambers. Each town, or even each gunmaker, could cobble up what were supposed to be 'typical calibers', like the 9,3x72R or the 8,15x46R for instance, that would have variations in body shape, shoulder angle and even bore dimensions so that ammunition was more or less peculiar to each specific rifle. Obviously not a good situation.

"Normalisation" was a movement that started in Germany in the late 1800s to address this non-interchangeability of ammunition.

Note that this has nothing specifically to do with the I (or J) -vs- S bore 8mm separation! Each version was treated as a separate cartridge. There were other oddities in German proof laws through the years which supposedly mandated one or the other of the two diameters for Sporting rifles.

The best explanation for 'Normalisation' that I have seen is in Brad Dixon's book "European Sporting Cartridges", volume 1 page 126, which I have included below.

12 August 2023, 21:39

Atkinson

I have several and found it best to slug the bore, a simple procedure that leaves no questions. 8x57 JS is .323 on many European rifles..

28 August 2023, 09:30

eagle27

Here's a good example of an RWS case head marking of a 'normalised' calibre.
Until a fellow forum member put me right, I was trying to figure out why Norma would be using a Berdan primer in the cartridge shown in the image below.

N is the code for RWS and the NORM is for Normalised.

29 August 2023, 02:59

Michael Robinson

quote:
Originally posted by bpesteve:
We live in an era where standardization is taken for granted. Ask a gun-savvy person something like "What are the dimensions of the .308 Winchester cartridge?" for instance, and it's possible to look up the specs and quote them for certainty whether the cartridges or rifles were made in the US, Europe or basically anywhere on the planet.

This has not always been the case (literally). In Germany, since the original post was about the 8x57 cartridge, there were no commonly used standards for commercial cartridges or chambers. Each town, or even each gunmaker, could cobble up what were supposed to be 'typical calibers', like the 9,3x72R or the 8,15x46R for instance, that would have variations in body shape, shoulder angle and even bore dimensions so that ammunition was more or less peculiar to each specific rifle. Obviously not a good situation.

"Normalisation" was a movement that started in Germany in the late 1800s to address this non-interchangeability of ammunition.

Note that this has nothing specifically to do with the I (or J) -vs- S bore 8mm separation! Each version was treated as a separate cartridge. There were other oddities in German proof laws through the years which supposedly mandated one or the other of the two diameters for Sporting rifles.

The best explanation for 'Normalisation' that I have seen is in Brad Dixon's book "European Sporting Cartridges", volume 1 page 126, which I have included below.

Bam! Out of the park!

Thanks for taking the time to post this great explanation.

I have a 1903 M-S made during WWII that is marked "Made in Germany" and on which the caliber marking on the receiver ring reads - "KAL: 6'5 NORM"

I never knew exactly what that meant until now.

Thanks, again.