8mm & .303 ammo new/surplus observations

[David1974]

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8x57:

RWS E37 Excellent excellent ammo. Seems to be loaded pretty hot. Crazy hard primers like really hard.

75' Romanian Surplus: Smelly...very smelly. BUT it is very accurate. If you see it buy it. Also, the steel cases and the red sealant gives it that 'cool' look.

1955 Yugo Surplus ( Heavy ball? ) : Hot, accurate, clean. No misfires. I really like this stuff. Had 2 split cases around the neck. Not bad out of 200ish I've fired, but still unnerving. Update: 460(half tinish) round fired. only the two split necks so far. I am done with the Yugo. It was really nice to shoot.

Igman 198gr SP: Loaded Hot, accurate but smells. Ommited 'clean'. It is 'sooty' I thought that it was the rifle. After firing it in a ce41 K98 I am fairly certian it is the ammunition. The ejected brass is sooty... only way to describe it.

Olympic 180gr FMJ : Not loaded as hot(but still excellent) as the 55, Igman or S&B.Accurate,clean, throws a huge muzzle flash.

Sellier & Bellot 196gr FMJ: Loaded Hot, accurate, clean.

Sellier & Bellot 196gr SPCE: same as the FMJ



.303 British

89' HXP L1A1 Ball: Very very very nice. At 50m my groupings touch. I've always heard this is the best .303 surplus. It does live up to it's name.

81' South African R1M3Z : seems to be just as good as the HXP only berdan primed. touching groups @50m. Still wow great great stuff.

1967 Mk7 Ball ( Pakistani Surplus ): ALL Hangfired. I think because it's cordite and not powder. I fired 64 rounds and every single one had about a .5second hangfire. Nice sharp report when firing, clean almost ZERO smoke, accurate if you compensated for the hangfire.

95' IVI Soft point: Very nice. Accurate. I zero'd one of my ph5c's with it.

Sellier & Bellot 180gr FMJ: Accurate and clean. no complaints.

Olympic FMJ: Same as the 8mm. good and throws a huge muzzle flash.


Accuracy update:

8mm: With the Ce41 K98 benched it will consistantly group 2" give or take alittle @ 100m on a good day with good ammo. The S&B and the Romanian tend to hover around that 2" mark. Sometimes less especially with the S&B but usually more. With the K98 benched I've never had a group exceed 4 inches for any of the ammo. The Igman tends to and 55 Yugo tended to hover on the higher side of that range ( usually 3ish") and I didn't have enough of the Olympic to get anything conclusive over time.

.303: Pretty much the same as the 8mm. With the rifle benched, the HXP and South African was grouping less than 1"( holes touching ) at 50m more often than not. I haven't fired it past 50m yet but I will, no worries there. The sub 1" grouping's at 100m with the S&B was a fluke. Even with the PH5C, I haven't been able to group like that since. So the HXP, South African, and IVI are by far the best .303 I've fired. The HXP also has the lightest recoil. The IVI is extremely loud and has heavy recoil when compared with the rest. The stuff surprised me when I first fired it. The S&B and Olympic are also very good. Which leaves me with that 67' POF. It simply cannot be compared to the rest. It goes bang but man, in comparison... It's crap.


A group observation is that I do get good groupings. However I am not hitting the bullseye when I do this testing. Each type of ammunition does hit the paper in different places. More specifically in the Y axis. For example: S&B 8x57JS FMJ shoots 6-7inches high @ 100m. Same goes for the .303 ( it's different now that the PH5C is installed and allows me to zero )


When testing new ammunition or comparing them now, I shoot through my CE41 K98 for 8mm, and my 1950 LB No4 mk1*/PH5Cfor the .303

So if anyone ever wondered...there you go. This has changed some since I first posted, so I hope I am making it better and not worse. Please churp in with your own observations and give me an excuse to get to the range more often

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