Long cast for 8mm Lebel????

[abunaitoo]

I'm using the Lee 8x56 boolet in my Lebel.
Shoots great.
Problem is it's to short to cycle through the magazine.
The 8x56 boolet is 1.05 w/check. The 8 Maximum form Midsouth (out of stock) is suppose to be 1.216.
I think the 8 max is still to short.
Anyone have any other 8mm molds that the boolets are longer????

[UBER7MM]

Abunaitoo,

The 8mm Maximum is the longest boolit I'm aware of. (There may be some antique BP boolits out there as well.) The actual cast weights are a bit heavier than specified. I believe the 8mmMax runs about 245 grains and its smaller brother, the 8mm Karabiner weighs in at about 235 grains. IIRC, these boolits were designed long to breathe life back into rifles with shot out throats.

The melplate on these boolits are quite wide so that these boolits may contact the rifling before desired OAL is achieved. This might leave you with a short cartridge and a cartridge with a lot of lubed boolit seated in the case. A spitzer boolit/bullet would have greater OAL because the point can reside into the throat and rifling when chambered.

Also the wide melplate of this special designed Lee boolits might also cause other issues when attempting to chamber the cartridge from the magazine. (The bullet nose jamming on the side of the chamber instead of tracking into the chamber.) In comparison, a pointed spitzer tracks into battery without incident.

Before you buy, you will also need to discern if your rifle's barrel twist is suitable for such a boolit design for the speeds in which you intend to push the boolits. Finally, you can experiment to work up a load for your rifle. There might be other forum members that have experience in these matters with the 8mm Lebel to lend assistance. You may be stuck with jacketed spitzer bullets that will cycle from magazine to chamber.




I hope this helps,

[texassako]

I use the 8mm Maximum from Midsouth. It worked out to be the best for my Lebel R35 carbine. I also have the Karabiner, but it cast to small(.325") for the Lebel's .327" bore. I don't think I would want to go much heavier since my Max already drops at 255gr with a fairly hard alloy. The weight is nice and keeps the next round from hopping out when you cycle the next round. I usually just shoot it single shot with cartridge cut off activated. You should only need .8" of exposed bullet to get to 2.8" OAL which makes the Max plenty long.

[abunaitoo]

This is for a 1886 Lebel.
I might just try the Maximum.

[Donor8x56r]

Why do you think 8x56R bullet is too short?

From tubular magazine of Lebel this should't be a problem unless angle of loaded round becomes too high and round gets jammed when pushed by bolt
I have that problem in 8x56R Steyr and I with I could find .330 pointed but rather short bullit,kind of like Lee Harris design.
Come to think of it this design would be very useful in other calibers like 8x57 etc.

[abunaitoo]

The overall length is to short.
When feeding through the tube mag, the next round comes out to far for the lifter to move up.