Yesterday's Weapons Forums

It was a fine day in my neighborhood for a trip to the range today. Mild fall weather, mostly sunny with intermittent clouds in the afternoon, temperature low 60's. Just the weather for getting out the chronograph. We have a covered range, but not out where the chrono sits.

In the past couple of years, I have slowly trimmed down the number of calibers that I load for. This gives me a bit more time to concentrate on a few instead of trying to spread out over many. I fired a few 8x56R Austrian loads today that I had put together over the past few weeks.

I had in stock a quantity of .330 Hornady round nose jacketed "bowling balls" left over from when I was loading 8x50R Austrian. These were made by resizing .338 bullets. The 250 grain weight is certainly overweight for replication of a service load, but if you've got them, why not use them? I have noted before that .338's are sometimes found in the bargain bins and if you find them, you can't be picky about weights.

I also had some Hodgdon H-1000 powder left over from .270 Winchester days, so this very slow propellant seemed like a good choice for such a heavy bullet. The nice thing about the very slow stick powders is that you can measure off a charge of 45 to 50 grains for just about any largish military cartridge case with a heavy bullet without any concerns about over-pressure.

Data:

Hornady 250 grain round nose jacketed bullet (resized .338)
45.0 grains Hodgdon H-1000
Graf 8x56R case
WW magnum primer
Average muzzle velocity: 1513 fps
Standard deviation: 33.49 fps
POI @ 50 yards 4 inches low from center; good accuracy

Same load as above, only using WW non-magnum primer:
Average muzzle velocity: 1477 fps
Standard deviation: 12.85 fps
POI @ 50 yards 1 inch high from center; excellent accuracy.

It's interesting to note the differences between results given from the two different primers.

Some years ago, I was attending a gun show and ran into a geezer who was selling off his store of 8x56R components. I bought the lot, and included were some very expensive Barnes XBT solid bullets. These were the blue teflon-coated bullets, originally made in .338. He had taken each one and chucked it in a lathe and carefully turned them all down to .329. The original weight was 185 grains; by having .009 removed, they now weigh 179 grains. It might be noted the price sticker on the box of 50 says $35.05, and that's bound to be an old price.

Since I was already loading the 250 grain loads, above, I decided to load one of the Barnes solids just for kicks and do a one-shot test. I loaded the Barnes load with the same charge of H-1000 of 45.0 grains, using the WW mag primer. The load clocked 1453 fps, a slower load than the heavier bullet. My guess is that this is because of two reasons. One, the Barnes solid doesn't swage down into the rifling as easily as a lead core bullet; and two, the turning-down process of these bullets leaves them with a rather long shank to come in contact with the bore, both increasing friction.

For some time, I have liked IMR 4895 powder for loading the 8x56R. The following is data for one such load:

225 grain Hornady .330 spitzer resized from .338
38.0 grains of IMR 4895
Graf 8x56R case
Federal 210 LR primer
Average muzzle velocity: 1760 fps.
Standard deviation: 24.33 fps.
POI 2 ½ inches high of center @ 50 yards; very accurate

Cast bullet 8x56R Austrian loads.

205 grain RN lead cast bullet (Lee mold) gas checked
35.0 grains IMR 4895
Graf 8x56R case
CCI 200 LR primer
Average muzzle velocity: 1553
Standard deviation: 46.46
The accuracy of this load proved to be pretty erratic but about 4 inches high of the center of the target @ 50 yards. On approximately 25 percent of the shots fired, sealing of the case did not occur and there was gas leakage and smoking of the cases. The standard deviation isn’t great, but I have seen worse. I have seen velocity reductions as much as 150 fps or more due to gas leaking at the case neck, so these weren’t near that. The widest spread was less than 765 fps.

Here’s an excellent load:

205 grain RN lead cast bullet (Lee mold) gas checked
7.0 grains Trail Boss
Graf 8x56R case
WW LR primer (non-magnum)
Average muzzle velocity: 831
Standard deviation: 16.21
This very accurate load printed one inch high from center of target @ 50 yards. Sub-sonic load, very quiet, no recoil, very clean, no smoking of case, must seal well in spite of small load. Far superior to sub-sonic loads with Unique or Red Dot.