Had a win yesterday. A friend rang me and asked if I'd like some 8mm rounds as he no longer has an 8mm Mauser rifle. My shooting buddy has one, so I said sure, why not. Long story short...I picked up about 600 - 700 milsurp 8mm rounds, (some in stripper clips), although some of them had gotten wet. It appears they are all of Portuguese manufacture from 1957.

My mate has pulled those that he thinks may be compromised, and now has a goodly supply of milsurp 8mm boollitts and powder. He will keep a count of those where he has collected the powder, weigh the powder, and average out the powder loads for new loading. From his experience in the past, the loads can vary between 47gr and 53gr, so he loaded 50gr of the powder into a new cartridge and found improved accuracy without any pressure signs. He will apply the same principles to this lot of powder before selecting a load. He will also weigh the projectiles and separate them according to weight. Only downside is they all have corrosive primers...primers that have a tendency to deteriorate over time, producing the occasional hang fire.

All in all, a good outcome. My friend now no longer has to worry about how to dispose of the rounds, and my shooting buddy has a heap of components, at no cost, that he didn't have yesterday.

thats awesome Mate...love to hear of happy endings like that.... even if your buddy puled all projectiles and salvaged the powder,discarding primed cases it is still a huge windfall.... but its not that hard to deal with the corrosion side of things,the old boiling water down the barrel then oily rag straight afterwards has been the normal procedure for ever to deal with it.

I would suggest to be carefull with the powder collected from dismantled rounds. I've seen that sometimes hangfire is not caused by the primer but by deteriorated powder. Sometimes powder reacts with the brass (or bits of oil/fat inside the case). When you see lumps or smell nitric acid (= irritating smell), better use that powder as fertilizer...

Aloysius wrote:

I would suggest to be carefull with the powder collected from dismantled rounds. I've seen that sometimes hangfire is not caused by the primer but by deteriorated powder. Sometimes powder reacts with the brass (or bits of oil/fat inside the case). When you see lumps or smell nitric acid (= irritating smell), better use that powder as fertilizer...

Agree mate. My shooting buddy is an extremely cautious shooter who never takes a chance with any components. He checks each load of powder individually before deciding to retain it or dispose of it, and if there is even the slightest doubt, he disposed of the powder.