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Another Comment on Romanian Steel Cased Ammo

Banjo1928

Member
I believe this has already been discussed but I would like to add that sadly I had not checked or read up on steel cased ammo use in the K98. The 8mm steel cased I used was called Hotshot and is made in Romania imported/distributed by Century. Even though it has a different name the rest of the package looks speciously like a lot of other steel cased Romanian ammo so I suspect all made by the same company. It may work just fine in all sorts of Mauser's but in my K98 the bolt became hard to close and hard to open until finally stuck closed on a jammed case. Yes, if I had a clue at the first sign of the bolt behaving differently than it did with brass cases I should have quit but lack of experience and not wanting to quit or "waste" ammo I kept on so tonight I will sit down with the weapon and see if I can get it unstuck. Learning by your mistakes sucks!
 
Been there and done that.

DO NOT use wood dowels to tap it out from the crown end. Or else you could end up like me...... a jammed steel casing AND a barrel tightly packed with wood. Getting that mess resolved was tedious and frustrating.

I went to Home Depot and grabbed a 3 foot 1/4 inch steel (brass only came in wimpy 1/8 inch) rod. Wrapped it in masking tape to protect the rifling. Then used it to tap out the empty casing after I got the GD wood out.

If the bolt is stuck as well have someone else slightly pull back on it while you gently tap from the other end. You'll be surprised how easy it pops out.

Do not do this if there is a live round or for sure a misfire chambered. You'll need to pull it out from the receiver end with a special tool.

John

Sent from my SM-G860P using Tapatalk
 
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Thanks John. That's where I'm at. I tried to use an aluminum cleaning rod but couldn't really tap it well and put back pressure on the bolt by myself. I was at the range and had fired a round. I went to cycle the bolt and as others have said in various threads the bolt would not rotate the whole way, maybe two thirds of the way and that's it. I would like to try your method before just getting medieval on the bolt with a hammer. It's a 1943 ar and a great shooter. It is a bolt mismatch so not the end of the world if the bolt is damaged. That being said, the bolt matches itself and was a good match to the gun locking up tight with good headspace. It would be a pain to try and find another one that works as well as this one. So this weekend I will have my son work the bolt and I will try the taped rod method and see how it goes. Thanks for the encouraging reply and even though I know I fired a round I did check the bore with a bright light to make sure there was not something pointy looking back up at me and removed the remaining rounds out the bottom.
 
I completely stopped using anything steel cased in all my pistols and guns. Too may problems. My Glock had many FTEs and stovepipes. My two mausers did exactly what you described. Nothing but brass for me moving forward. I will gladly spend the extra money for some piece of mind.

I still have that steel rod with me though every time I hit the range.

Hope you get your problem resolved.

John
 
I had the same thing happen; tried to see how many steel cased rounds I could use before the receiver heated up and made the casings swell. I tried to pop the bolt back with a mallet to pull out the casing and wound up pulling a chip out of my extractor and trashing the extractor. The rest of the bolt was fine. Still had the casing stuck. After everything cooled off for and hour or so in the cool basement I put a rod in and popped on the end with a hammer and the casing came out.

The steel cased rounds are cheap, but I'd only use them as your first 5 shots at the range and switch to brass, or avoid them all together.
 
Surprised no one has yet commented on the out of speck Romanian 8mm. There was a few years ago a large amount of this imported-I can't remember the brand name used-and the case length was not correct. The older Romanian 8mm, 77' and 78' out of the tins is fine, I fired over 5k in a G43 and my 43 CE Kar98K and had zero problems. It is more dirty than most 8mm and uses a 150gr bullet, so poa must be compensated for.
I wouldn't worry about the case being steel, that metal is not as hard as the steel the barrel is made of. It must be somewhat soft to allow the case to expand and seal the chamber without splitting.
 
Well, I followed JohnInPa's and others advise and carefully wrapped a steel rod in two layers of masking tape after making sure again the round was not live as in it was just the case down there. I tapped the rod gently into the bore until it bottomed in the case. Then my son put some back pressure on the bolt handle. Just a gentle tap on the the rod and the bolt popped right open. You could see how the heat had apparently had an effect on the case lacquer. It had pooled along the bottom of the case and at the rear below the primer. The lip of the case had a good scar from the extractor but the extractor appears to be unharmed. The masking tape stayed in place on the rod and I did not damage the bore. If I had known the case would dislodge with such a light tap I would have used a brass rod or tube but I had heard stories of some REALLY stuck bolts where brass and aluminium were not strong enough. Also, even though the tap was light I'm not sure if I could have done it all single handed.

So here is a question. I cleaned the weapon well until patches came out clean. On visual inspection I don't see any lacquer in the breech but is there a method of insuring there is no residual lacquer in there such that it will cause my brass rounds to stick? Maybe a solvent or gently heating the metal while it's out of the stock?
 
It's interesting that the Germans were using steel cased ammo during the war, but 70 years later we are having problems with the stuff. I think that says something about German quality...
 
Well, I followed JohnInPa's and others advise and carefully wrapped a steel rod in two layers of masking tape after making sure again the round was not live as in it was just the case down there. I tapped the rod gently into the bore until it bottomed in the case. Then my son put some back pressure on the bolt handle. Just a gentle tap on the the rod and the bolt popped right open. You could see how the heat had apparently had an effect on the case lacquer. It had pooled along the bottom of the case and at the rear below the primer. The lip of the case had a good scar from the extractor but the extractor appears to be unharmed. The masking tape stayed in place on the rod and I did not damage the bore. If I had known the case would dislodge with such a light tap I would have used a brass rod or tube but I had heard stories of some REALLY stuck bolts where brass and aluminium were not strong enough. Also, even though the tap was light I'm not sure if I could have done it all single handed.

So here is a question. I cleaned the weapon well until patches came out clean. On visual inspection I don't see any lacquer in the breech but is there a method of insuring there is no residual lacquer in there such that it will cause my brass rounds to stick? Maybe a solvent or gently heating the metal while it's out of the stock?

When I had an issue with a stuck casing, I was also concerned with possible residual lacquer, since someone had said that the lacquer was what caused the sticking. I ran a few patches with acetone through and didn't see any residual, nor did I have any further sticking issues.
 

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