1936 S/42 RC k98, my first Mauser

Honkey Tonk Devil said:
Right on. Personally for me finding time to balance life in general I just shoot ppu. Buy it when it's on sale ect. Brass winds up I bucket. Reloading would be nice but for a dollar a round...it's money well spent.
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and with the ridiculous run up in prices and scarcity of primers and other reloading components in general, it’s pretty much a wash. I buy ammo on sale, components when reasonable & hoard. I was happy to buy 220 win LR primers for $5 recently, not as good as $35/thousand, but as new as my hoard lot #.
 
Cyrano4747 said:
Sort the brass by caliber and throw it on the trader. Or hell, GB. Even ebay, although I'm not sure if they allow brass any more. Point being it's pretty easy to unload.

You can make some decent beer money selling your brass if you're not going to reload it.
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Going to send you a dm.

Muncher 1953 said:
and with the ridiculous run up in prices and scarcity of primers and other reloading components in general, it’s pretty much a wash. I buy ammo on sale, components when reasonable & hoard. I was happy to buy 220 win LR primers for $5 recently, not as good as $35/thousand, but as new as my hoard lot #.
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Reloading is something I have wanted to get into. Just hard to justify the cost of it all even excluding what ones time is worth. Imo unless your doing a obscure caibers or magnum loads hard to justify. This is just for me though. I get why guys do it seems like a great thing to get into.
 
Honkey Tonk Devil said:
Going to send you a dm.


Reloading is something I have wanted to get into. Just hard to justify the cost of it all even excluding what ones time is worth. Imo unless your doing a obscure caibers or magnum loads hard to justify. This is just for me though. I get why guys do it seems like a great thing to get into.
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It depends on two things: what you're shooting and how much your time is worth, as you said. I keep a spreadsheet of my reloading costs so I know where I'm at on that front. For full sized rifle calibers I'm usually coming in around $.50/rd if I'm reusing brass and $1.25-$1.50/rd if I'm using brand new brass. The way the math works out for normal calibers where you can buy Prvi or whatever it's almost always cheaper to buy ammo rather than reload with brand new brass, but once I have the brass I'm saving anywhere from $.25-.50/rd with my reloads. Then you factor in the cost of the dies. Glancing at my spreadsheet it looks like my break-even on reloading 8mm Mauser in particular was 175 rounds, and now it's all savings.

Of course there are some calibers that are ruinously expensive. The cheapest 8.15x46r runs $2.88/rd last time I checked from Buffalo Bore and the cheapest 11mm Mauser is $5.37 from the same place. And that's when they're even making it, I think those prices are from the last time they did a run a bunch of years ago. My x46r reloads cost me a bit less than my 8mm Mauser because I"m using cheap lead bullets there, so I'm going to ballpark it that the dies paid for themselves after the first box of ammo. That's a situation where I had to make my own brass, though, but reforming and shaping old .30-30 casings isn't much of a hardship. With the 11mm it's even starker: Once I finally found some brass (which is hard to get for that caliber and costs a lot) even with that cost I broke even on the dies etc. after the first ten rounds fired. These days I can shoot 11mm for about $.44/rd which is literally about a tenth of the cost of having someone else make it for me, again assuming that you can even find someplace doing that. For really obscure calibers (I have been eyeballing 8mm Kropatschek of all things recently) it's either reload or don't shoot.

The other variable is that often you will get much higher quality ammo than the equivalent that you could get without reloading. My savings on 5.56 are only about two cents a round, which normally isn't worth my time, but that's comparing a nice cartridge using 77gr SMKs to the cheapest Wolf or PMC Bronze you can find. So in that case I'm paying about the same for ammo but what I'm shooting is much, much nicer. I'll caveat those numbers by saying that the last time I ran them for 5.56 was a couple of years ago, so the math might have changed. You get the idea, though.

The long and the short of it is that it's a whole second hobby in and of itself, and if you get into the weeds chasing maximum accuracy it really is its own whole thing and you won't be saving money. But, if all you're looking to do is feed old rifles cheaply than you really can save a few bucks at the expense of giving up a few hours of your weekend.
 
Varget is one of the best rifle powders for accuracy and being less probe to temperature variations and is a top choice for match shooters.
It is also harder to find and one of the most expensive rifle powders
8MM Mauser is one of the easiest calibers to load for. The ratio of case mouth width and case body with makes it open to a wide choice of powders.
If you look in the Lee reloading manual you will see CFE223 (yes for AR15 rounds) gives the highest velocities for the same pressure

American Reloading sells surplus powders in 8 pound jugs. The prices including hazmat and shipping (Depending on state no tax, at least for me, Florida)

One of the best powders for many 8MM bullets weights is Accurate 2520.
American sells surplus advertised as "similar" to 2520. They sell other "similar" to for H335. AA2230, 2460, Win 748/760 etc etc

I have bought various "similar" to powders from them and every one was not similar it was exactly the claimed powder and loaded to the same weights and velocities. 8 pounds of powder is $230.00 delivered. That is $27.50 a pound. Varget runs $50-65.00 a pound plus hazmat, shipping and tax,

Now if you have a $8,000.00 custom Surgeon rifle with a $6,000.00 piece of German glass using brass that you paid $2.00 a case and a dollar a bullet you want Varget for the match.
IMO not for shooting a K98k 8MM Mauser that has trouble on its best day shooting a 2" group with Sierra match King 200gr HPBT bullets

AA2520 is also one of the best powders for 223, 308, 3006 I even use it in my 7MM Mauser
I just loaded 60 150gr 308 using the "similar" to 2520 which I had tested with AA2520. Exactly the same

You will get 150-180 rounds of 8MM per pound of powder or 1200-1450 rounds per 8 pounds. Surplus powder would run 15-18cents a round. Varget 35-45 cents per round. If money is no object Varget is great powder so is IMR 8208XBR and others

IMO (there is no wrong answer just different ones)
 
Cyrano4747 said:
It depends on two things: what you're shooting and how much your time is worth, as you said. I keep a spreadsheet of my reloading costs so I know where I'm at on that front. For full sized rifle calibers I'm usually coming in around $.50/rd if I'm reusing brass and $1.25-$1.50/rd if I'm using brand new brass. The way the math works out for normal calibers where you can buy Prvi or whatever it's almost always cheaper to buy ammo rather than reload with brand new brass, but once I have the brass I'm saving anywhere from $.25-.50/rd with my reloads. Then you factor in the cost of the dies. Glancing at my spreadsheet it looks like my break-even on reloading 8mm Mauser in particular was 175 rounds, and now it's all savings. ----------------------
than you really can save a few bucks at the expense of giving up a few hours of your weekend.
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Outstanding.
Love the spreadsheets and making ammo for those almost impossible to find stuff.
You sound like a true craftsman. I am more of a "Quick that paper is coming right for us----------- FIRE!!!"
 
God no. I'm just a cheapskate who wants to shoot antique guns with obsolete ammo. I'm very much not coming at this from the perspective of wanting to make hyper accurate ammo. I'm happy if it is accurate and try to make it as well as I can, don't get me wrong, but you should see the people who are REALLY trying to make small groups at range.
 
Wulfmann said:
Varget is one of the best rifle powders for accuracy and being less probe to temperature variations and is a top choice for match shooters.
It is also harder to find and one of the most expensive rifle powders


American Reloading sells surplus powders in 8 pound jugs. The prices including hazmat and shipping (Depending on state no tax, at least for me, Florida)

One of the best powders for many 8MM bullets weights is Accurate 2520.
American sells surplus advertised as "similar" to 2520. They sell other "similar" to for H335. AA2230, 2460, Win 748/760 etc etc

I have bought various "similar" to powders from them and every one was not similar it was exactly the claimed powder and loaded to the same weights and velocities. 8 pounds of powder is $230.00 delivered. That is $27.50 a pound. Varget runs $50-65.00 a pound plus hazmat, shipping and tax,
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One of the reasons I like varget is it is a good do anything powder. It's not the best at anything, but it can do everything from 5.56 to 30-06 well enough.

Do you happen to know how old the surplus powder American is selling is? Those are some suspiciously dirt cheap prices if that includes hazmat. I'm curious but also suspicious because I always squint a bit at a deal that good.
 
I do not know how old their powders are.
I can say they look, smell and feel very fresh but that is an opinion not based on anything but an opinion (albeit an experienced opinion)
I have not had a bad purchase in all 80+ pounds from them
However, I have only bought their H335 and AA2520 "similar" powders and never pistol powders

A couple years ago I bought a partial 8LB AA2520 container from an estate sale that was over 30 years old and made in China.
First I heard AA2520 was originally a Chinese powder.
The container appeared very old with faded printing and deteriorating paper label with about 6 pounds of powder.
It shot to spec. I was impressed it was all GTG

The only stuff I ever bought from AM-RL that was a little disappointing was/is their M193 55gr FMJBT blems. The box contains 2 very different bullet types and must be carefully separated. The shape is different with the canelure (meaning agive) located higher/lower and could be dangerous if loaded at the same seating depth. One of them has to be wrong and as we know crimping past the ogive can create dangerous pressures for an AR.
Separated they are fine when properly seated but it is tedious to check every round but you have to
 
Turbo Archie said:
As stated, this is not a matching RC rifle, more of a put together of parts. Bolt is not RC. Action may not be either.
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Muncher 1953 said:
I was kinda thinking the same about how much was rc & how much was good ol boy…….
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I appreciate yalls wisdom on these mausers. Either way I’m happy to have one, and now I know I’ll have to do more research before getting my next. What about it tells you that it’s put together later on?
 
Get some pictures of the receiver ring and people can tell you more. Ideally three, one from each side and one from above.
 
TweedD said:
I appreciate yalls wisdom on these mausers. Either way I’m happy to have one, and now I know I’ll have to do more research before getting my next. What about it tells you that it’s put together later on?
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Russian captures are "matching" in the sense the stock and bolt will be renumbered to match. He stock will be stamped and the bolt electropenciled. It is a Russian capture stock but not the "correct" one as it's not the same number. The Russians also dip blued all the metal including the bolt so would be a dark almost black color
 
Jakeman664 said:
Russian captures are "matching" in the sense the stock and bolt will be renumbered to match. He stock will be stamped and the bolt electropenciled. It is a Russian capture stock but not the "correct" one as it's not the same number. The Russians also dip blued all the metal including the bolt so would be a dark almost black color
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& "almost always" the barrel & receiver will be the original pair. rc features as described, fall into a "if it's most of these things, then....." category, not every one has an x, but most do, same w/ bolts, mostly scribed on, not all that often are orig sns marked out, just mixed. some other countries (there were many 're-users' of these rifles) like the Norwegians were very thorough when crossing out old sns on parts. The black oxide sometimes looks like barbeque grill paint its so thick, but not every rifle is like that.
 
Jakeman664 said:
Russian captures are "matching" in the sense the stock and bolt will be renumbered to match. He stock will be stamped and the bolt electropenciled. It is a Russian capture stock but not the "correct" one as it's not the same number. The Russians also dip blued all the metal including the bolt so would be a dark almost black color
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I don't think I've ever seen an RC that didn't have the stock numbered, but the EP'd bolts aren't universal. I'd wager that they're the majority, but certainly not all of them.
 
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