Yesterday's Weapons Forums

Been reloading a bit last week.
Here’s a picture.



No,no, I never owned a rifle in .303 British.
These are .303 cases reformed to 6.5x53.5mmR.
Been reloading for my Dutch Steyr Mannlicher M95.
This is what they look like when I’m ready.



When I bought the Dutch M95 several years ago I used some Dutch military ammo, but that was no success.
Probably due to bad storage most of the ammo refused to work.


Dutch military ammo….

Besides the military ammo I also tried some factory reloaded ammo.
This ammo was made by the Janssen Company in Arnhem.
They used the military cases and reloaded them.
I don’t know where they got the 5mm Berdan primers, but I wish I still had a few to reload the cases I have.


…JA means “Janssen Arnhem”…..


....different stamps in one box……

To be honest….I prefer to use my own reloaded cartridges.
I don’t trust the military ammo I have and the factory reloaded ammo has a huge recoil.
Here are some pictures of the three different cartridges.






From left to right:
* Military case with 5mm (.196 inch) Berdan primer
* Factory reloaded case with 5mm(.196 inch) Berdan primer
* Reformed .303 Winchester case with 5.5mm (.216 inch) Boxer primer.

The Winchester cases work perfectly and the 34 grains of VihtaVuori Finnish powder behind a 140 grain Lapua bullet performs very well.
Besides the fact that it is fun to shoot this rifle, it draws a crowd every time I take this rifle to the range.
It might be Dutch, but you just don’t see this type of rifle very much over here.

Met vriendelijke groet,

Martin

A big plus of the ammo you made is that you won't have to worry about the brass being too brittle from age. The old Italian ammo will separate at the head way too often for me!

I still find it ironic that the old European rifles are harder to find in Europe than here. SW

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Slava Ukraini!!

Martin,

I believe the M95 you have is a mannlicher turn bolt. Did any nation ever have Steyr M95 straight pulls in 303 or 6.5 mannlicher?

Greg

According to the Mannlicher military rifle book, no. It's always possible some were made up on an experimental basis in an armory, but that would be unlikely. SW

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man those are big bullits

Thanks for your answer SW.
I appreciate it.

Michael, I agree.
The OAL of the cartridge is 79.75 mm (about 3.14 inch)


Met vriendelijke groet,

Martin