Mauser 71/84, Best Cast Bullet?

[enfieldphile]

Gentleman,

I'm a new member, an this is my first post.

I just acquired a Mauser 71/84 11mm, the barrel, and entire gun for that matter, is in very good condition. I also got a die set and brass in the deal.

What is most commonly used cast bullet (current production mold) to get fine accuracy?

TIA, enfieldphile

[Bullshop]

RCBS 44/370fn
BIC?BS

[Andy_P]

I have that mold and it drops wheelweight at 0.446", which is too small for my guns, which slug between 0.446 and 0.447". I size the Lee 90376 (500gr) which drops at 0.454" to 0.448" and send it out at about 1400 fps in front of some surplus powder with about a IMR4320 burn rate. Accurate and fun.

[RGRWJB]

Dan has made me a bunch of bullets and they work great!

[NickSS]

I use the Lyman 370 gr flat point bullet and a 28 gr of AA 5744 in my rifle it shoots OK. I have not gotten around to trying Black powder yet.

[Buckshot]

..............Welcome to the board. These are very neat old rifles. I have a M71 and a M71/84. The repeater is supposed to be .446" but slug it to see. The issue may be, will the chamber take a loaded round with a groove+ boolit? A lot of these old BPCR's were chambered so tight that they depended upon boolit upset to have the bore diameter slug upset to fill the lands.

If the mould you buy drops a boolit too big by a couple thou, that's no big deal as you can just size it down. The bores run .433 pretty consistantly so if you do have a slug a tad small, then lead displaced by the lands may seal off the barrel......... maybe.

Then again you just might be able to get a +.001" slug to chamber and you'll be home free. The other option is to use the powder it was designed to use, and cast your slugs soft and expect them to upset. Cleaning a rifle shot with BP ammo is a LOT faster and easier to clean then a rifle fired with FLGC ammo. The rub (for me) is cleaning the brass.

Those who enjoy shooting BPCR will tell you cleaning brass is no problem too :-). FYI, you can also buy a mould intended for the .43 Remington Spanish. This will drop a boolit of from .439" to .441". Depending upon the alloy and the mould. Both RCBS and Lyman have these moulds. If your mould drops at .439" you can paper patch it with 9# onionskin paper (.002" thick) and bring it in real close to .446". I have both the moulds and the RCBS is a FN so might be the better choise in the tube fed Mauser. However, my mould is also the one that drops the fatter slug. Again it's no big deal to size it down.

The Germans did try their M71/84's with smokless but the accuracy was disappointing so their colonial troops fought WW1 for the most part in clouds of BP smoke. Nothing I'd read suggested they'd used a fatter slug, and if not it's no wonder the accuracy was dismal, since their boolit was bore sized.

Since the brass for these is comparatively expensive, I personally wouldn't be too thrilled about turning casenecks down in order to be able to chamber a fatter slug. Not that it would probably work, but it would probably shorten caselife (just thinking here).

.....................Buckshot

[d.thomson]

Hi I have a 71/84 in great condition I was wondering how much would you fill the case with black powder to meet the standerd old load using ffg. thanks for the feed back Dave T.:drinks: :Fire:Right now I'm using imr 4198 30 grns with a cotton ball on top to keep the hang fires down.