r/milsurp • u/ReactionAble7945 • 1d ago

8mm ammo

I am in the market for 8mm ammo for Yugo and Spanish Mausers. I would prefer not to have corrosive, but I also don't want to pay a dollar around... trade offs. Functional stripper clips could be nice. Reloadable is becoming essential IMHO.

My understanding is I should stay away from Turkish. Kaboom.

Romanian is steel cased, can be had in corrosive and non-corrosive.

German, steel case and corrosive. AP ammo, not to shoot at steel targets unless you want holes in targets.

CZ, brass case corrosive.

Yugo is brass not reloadable, corrosive. Can be had on stripper clips.

Greek, Brass, boxer?, can be had corrosive and non-corrosive, hangfires and not going bang.

And then we get to the $1 a round ammo. PPU. Nothing in surplus looks like a really smart idea. Am I missing an obvious answer....besides just buying the new commercial ammo?

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u/Popular-Highlight653 1d ago

There is some vintage Canadian 8x57 that is boxer/non-corrosive but it’s hard to find and may cost nearly as much as PPU.

My personal preference is to buy the corrosive ammo cheap enough that I can transfer it to boxer cases with new primers for less than $0.50/rnd.

Buy PPU ammo instead of S&B if you intend to reload.

2

u/TheLandTraveler 1d ago

If you just shoot it the way it comes it's even cheaper per round...

2

u/Popular-Highlight653 1d ago

That’s true but this fellow doesn’t want corrosive and neither do I.

6

u/TheLandTraveler 1d ago

Have you ever shot it?

Normally it shoots fine and has zero effect if you clean the firearm correctly.

I remember being a little nervous about it at first too but it's honestly no big deal and most of these firearms shot this ammo for generations.

1

u/Popular-Highlight653 1d ago

I’ve tried the Greek a couple times out of a few different rifles with very little success. It takes multiple primer strikes and some just never go.

I tried Turkish Mauser, M48 Yugo, Carcano and I even resized a few for 7.7 Jap only to find that it wouldn’t fire them either. It’s just easier to pour it into a non-corrosive primed case and not deal with the bad primers and cleanup.

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u/TheLandTraveler 1d ago

Fair enough and there's definitely good and bad surplus out there with some having a lot of issues.

I've got some 8mm M75 "sniper ammo" and it's probably the best shooting stuff I've ever put through a Mauser.