8mm Rast Gasser

[Egostomus]

Greetings,

Having determined to amass a quantity of cartridges for all my firearms, and having already been provided excellent information concerning 455 Webley ammunition made from 45 Auto Rim from persons on this very site, I have now come to the 8mm Rast Gasser revolver.

Fiocchi ammunition is nearly impossible to find, and I am going to use 32 H&R brass to make up some rounds. The bullet is the question. Buffalo Arms has an 85 grain copper washed .320 diameter RN bullet available. Though a bit on the light side, it looks like it might serve my purposes well.

Can anyone comment on this?

What would be a good starting load for this weapon?

Any other ideas on bullets?

Thanks.


Vis Superavi Ignarum

[mosinman]

Egostomus,

The MidwayUSA site has the Fiocchi ammo available and ready to ship.

Bullets may be an issue, consider the Lee C309-120-R, paper patched and sized to whatever your chamber throat diameter(s) happen to be. Go to the Smokeless Paper Patching section of this forum and do a search for "revolver" for more info.

First thing to do is to slug both your barrel and cylinder chamber throats. If your chamber throat dia. are smaller than your barrel groove dia. you may have to enlarge the throats to match - something you may choose not to do with a collectible.

As for load data, found some for .32 S&W Long with 120 gr. boolits. Dropped the charges 20% for safeties sake to use for the starting loads:

Bullseye 1.6 - 2.0 gr.

Green Dot 2.0 - 2.6 gr.

W231 2.4 - 3.0 gr.

While load testing, it would be prudent to check for a boolit stuck in the bore if there is any audible or visual doubt.

Remember that paper patching/lube will add a small amount of weight to the boolit so check the finished OAW to be sure of what you've got.

Also don't go under the factory cartridge OAL of 1.417". Probably won't have to crimp, just remove the flare from the case mouth should be enough.

It's great if you have a chronograph, a MV of 800 fps (+/-20 fps) should come very close to duplicating factory ballistics and is a good place to stop.


mosinman