Imperial Kar.88 to the range today

Thread revival time!

I had another "impulse buy" moment and ordered a Kar.88 from Dennis Kroh. It is an 1890 Erfurt, all matching, and stamped with an "S" on the receiver, so it is my understanding that the chamber is reamed for 8mm JS, however the barrel will still be .318.

If I end up shooting this carbine, I was considering the following approach:

Use of Lyman .323 cast bullets (165 gn) in PPU 8mm Mauser cases, sitting on reloading manual OAL data and recommended starting loads for this bullet with IMR-4198 powder to ensure that pressures are below the recommended "threshold".

Any thoughts/concerns? I found very few options for .318 bullets and little to no load data for them (and found forum posts saying that these aren't very accurate in these 88 rifles). I am not planning to shoot modern jacketed spitzer bullets in this carbine.
 
A .318 bullet is not the best to use as there were NEVER any .318 German military barrels . The smallest the barrel will be is a .3208 grove . So the Hornady .321 bullets made for the 32 Win special will shoot better than most any .318 and are cheap and easy to get . Most common .318 bullets are not even well suited for use in a .3208 bore as they are either thick jacketed dangerous game bullets that will not bump up well to seal the bore , or they are .323 bullets that are miss shaped when they were squeezed down to .318 and then have to bump back up . Your .323 cast should be ok as long as they are close to a real .323 . But the .321 jacketed bullet is a much better way to go . The targets shown in the old posts are really bad . If you can't shoot 2 inch groups or better you are not shooting the Gew-88 well . Those are some 12 inch groups , if I can't get a rifle to shoot better than 4 inch groups it goes in the hopeless no shooter stack . Out of about 2000 rifles tested , very few go in that pile . All the S stamp means is that the rifle was checked for clearance with the S ammo and passed . They may have had to cut a neck on a few , but all my S and non S rifles have the same neck size . The case neck on the .3188 dia bullet ammo was only .002 smaller than the neck on the .3208 dia S bullet ammo . A .001 per side , military rifle usually have about .006 or more clearance .
 
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