Yesterday's Weapons Forums

I have done a bit of experimentation with reloading for the 8x56R Austrian. Just a while ago, I was checking the data Lee supplies with their 8x56R dies against the data that I have developed using the same powders that Lee lists.

It seems like I have read somewhere in a Lee publications (but I cannot put my hands on at the moment) that they say they have taken the data for 8x56R from another, similar size & shape cartridge. I suppose this might mean that they haven't fired all the recommended loads in their literature. On another message board, I have read posts where the poster states that Lee doesn't develop any of their own data; they just provide recommended load data that they have compiled from elsewhere. I don't know if this is true.

What I do know from my own work is that many of their velocities published appear to be quite optimistic for the load recommended. I have fired my test loads in several different test rifles, so I don't think that weapon variation is an issue.

My work has concentrated on heavier bullets, 200 grains and up. My idea in concentrating on the heavy bullets is that in staying with bullets that are closer to service weight, I should have less problems with sight regulation as an issue. Who knows; if I start working with their lighter bullet recommendations, I might find they are closer to the mark. I have to wonder, though, when they state that they get 2848 fps. out of 41.0 grains of H4198 pushing a 150 grain bullet.

Let's look at Lee's 41.0 grain load of H4198. To begin with both IMR 4198 and H4198 have the same burning rates. They are sometimes recommended for reduced loads in the larger cartridges. They are recommended for reduced loads because the burning characteristics of these propellants provide for maximum efficiency in the ranges recommended for a given bullet rate. They are not intended as hot-rod load propellents in the larger milsurp cartridges. I can't find my more recent Hodgdon data right now, but a little older Hodgdon manual doesn't even recommend a load for .30-06 using a 150 grain bullet with H-4198 (but it can be done as a reduced load). My listing for IMR 4198 gives a maximum load recommendation of 38 grains, yielding 2600 fps. Now I know .30-06 isn't 8x56R, but recognize that 8x56R isn't represented in any of the major books that I have noticed. I picked .30-06 because I had to have some basis for comparison, and if anything, it is a more powerful milsurp cartridge than 8x56R and the factory powder load recommendations for it are lower than the data offered by Lee for H4198 in 8x56R. To summarize, I would say in this one instance, I might use Lee's recommendation for minimum load (or less) using 150 grain bullets over H4198, but I really question whether their max. load would ever get near 2800 plus fps; since H4198 isn't burning efficiently at that load, some of the powder would be wasted, lowering velocity.