Turkish 8x57 (8mm Mauser) powder.

[Dick Dastardly]

My sidekick gave me a peck of 8x57 Turkish surplus ammo. It has corrosive primers and fmj bullets. I will use the pulled bullets in my 8mm-06s, but what, if any, information is available on the powder. It appears to be a flake powder and was loaded at high density, but not quite compressed.

I hate to waste this powder as rose food and it does not appear to have deteriorated at all.

Dick Dastardly

Edit . . . . That header was meant to read 8x57. My fingers did a typo. DD

[45nut]

Header fixed,, wish I could help on the powder that easily.

[Jim]

DD,
I got into the same thing years ago with a huge load of surplus Turkish 8MM ammo. After investing more time than it was worth, I just shot the ammo out of my VZ24 and cleaned it.

[Gunfreak25]

Just shoot the ammo. Turkish is primo stuff and is no longer found anymore, at decent prices that is. I've shot various years in my Turkish K.Kale Mauser with zero problems. I've shot 1937, 1940,1942,1944, 1945,1954 ammo and it was all sure fire and accurate.

Most Turk is loaded with a flake type powder and is often loaded very hot. The Turks loved loading their ammo hot for some odd reason. So if your bolt is a bit stiff to open it's normal with this ammo. One guy chrono'd his Turk ammo at 3000+ FPS. Bullet weights are pretty light weighing around 150 grains. The jackets are normally cupro nickel with the later 50's being copper. Bullets are all flat base with the lead exposed.

Just shoot the stuff, you'll love how hot it is!

[Junior1942]

My Turk ammo gave me smoked primers about 1 in 8 rounds. I quit shooting it and pulled some bullets. They were supposed to be 198 gr but varied probably 10 to 15 grs up or down. They were supposed to be .323" diameter but varied from .321" to .326". As said, the powder is a flake. It loads like/sorta like 4895. If you shoot it in an 8x57 and start getting smoked primers, stop shooting and start pulling bullets. Long story short, my surplus Turk ammo was no bargain.

[richbug]

My Turk ammo gave me smoked primers about 1 in 8 rounds. I quit shooting it and pulled some bullets. They were supposed to be 198 gr but varied probably 10 to 15 grs up or down. They were supposed to be .323" diameter but varied from .321" to .326". As said, the powder is a flake. It loads like/sorta like 4895. If you shoot it in an 8x57 and start getting smoked primers, stop shooting and start pulling bullets. Long story short, my surplus Turk ammo was no bargain.


Then it wasn't Turk. All Turk 8x57 has 154 grain bullets.

[Junior1942]

The writing on the boxes looks Turkish and JG Sales said it was Turkish.

[richbug]

The writing on the boxes looks Turkish and JG Sales said it was Turkish.


Turkish stuff all came in 70 round bandoliers, 20 bandos to the lead sealed tin 1 tin to a crate. No writing on it anywhere except for the wooden crate.



Egypt used 198 grain ammo, have seen it in boxes. Boxes had farsi/arabic type print on them.

What does the head stamp look like?

[Gunfreak25]

Richbug is right. Turkey did not use 198 grain bullets, but 154 or so grain. A few other countries used the 198 grain spitzer round which duplicated the German type S cartridge I believe. Yours could have been Egyptian, Czech, or if J&G is really that dumb in their labeling, Yugoslavian.

[Larry Gibson]

Junior1942

I never saw any Turk ammo, or heard of any, that was not loaded with the 154 gr bullet. I've shot a lot of it, pulled the bullets and reloaded a lot of it and have a good cast bullet load for the berdan primed cases.

Gunfreak25

The flake powder is similar in burning rater to 3031 or the faster lots of the 4895s. This does not mean that loading data is interchaneable! Many think the Turk ammo is loaded "hot". It is loaded to the top end but I would not call it "hot". Iit is not above the acceptable pressure for German 8x57 milsurp ammo. The pressures of Turk ammo (as tested by me in a M24/47 using an Oehler M43 PBL) run from 53,700 psi(M43) in 1943 Turk to 61,800 psi(M43) in 1942 Turk. Most of the other years I've tested ran in the mid 50,000 psi's. The 1951 Turk was second highest at 61,300 psi(M43). Velocities ran from 2775 to 2870 fps among the various years. Someone may have gotten over 3000 fps on a hot day using a 29.5" barreled rifle. Top end for sure.

The question of sticky bolt lift comes up as proof of high pressure. The fact is that when the bullet and powder charge are put into a WW case with WLR primer there is no "sticky bolt" lift. Closer examination of the cases shows little evidence of annealing. Fact is the brass has become somewhat brittle over the years. This is why much of it splits on firing or when pulling the bullets. It also accounts for the "sticky bolt" lift. The cases expand but do not spring back as they should. This problem can be eliminated by pulling the bullets, NSing and reducing the pwder charge 5-8%.

If you choose to load the powder and bullets in your 8-06 just using the same powder charge as is in the Turk cases in the slightly larger '06 case should give you a comfortable, safe load in the 2700 fps range. The corrosive berdan primed cases may be used with cast bullets for an excellent walk about load and if you lose a case you won't worry over it. Look for my thread on the the GB forum about using the GB C325-190-FN bullet for details of how well they shoot.

Larry Gibson

[Gunfreak25]

Good write up on the Turk ammo Larry, I love accurate info! :wink:
The Turk was good ammo and was my favorite to shoot. Shame it's dried up. Might get some more stocked up if I can find it locally. It beats Yugo for me.

Here's some more info on Turk 7.92
http://turkmauser.com/ammo.aspx
http://turkmauser.com/ammo/mhbTurk.aspx

[Dick Dastardly]

Thank you guys.

I'm going to work up some 8mm-06 loads with the turk powder. Probably something like 50 grains under a 150grain bullet with LR primers for starters.

If anybody wants the berdain primed brass, I'll be happy to swap. Can it be shipped USPS without problems? Since I'm a Cowboy Action shooter, I could use 44 Magnum or 44 Special brass. I'd swap pound for pound and not be too fussy about the ounces.

DD

[Junior1942]

Turkish stuff all came in 70 round bandoliers, 20 bandos to the lead sealed tin 1 tin to a crate. No writing on it anywhere except for the wooden crate.



Egypt used 198 grain ammo, have seen it in boxes. Boxes had farsi/arabic type print on them.

What does the head stamp look like?This stuff is in 15-round boxes, 3 rows of 5 in stripper clips. Looking down at the head stamp, it reads "11" at the top and "54" on the bottom with a star on the left and a star on the right.

Whoever made it, there was poor to no quality control on bullet weight, bullet diameter, and on powder weight.

[Ricochet]

The Turks got their powder from Germany before and during the WWII period. Probably had stocks of it on hand for some years afterward.

[Gunfreak25]

Junior1942, the ammo your shooting is Yugoslavian of 1954 date. I no longer shoot the 1954 stuff because there were reports of some batches of the 54 stuff giving shooters horribly split cases all the way down the side of the case and into the primer pocket. I thought it was rumors, until I experienced 3 similar failures in both my Mausers. I've stopped using the 1954 stuff. While i'm not afraid of a case failure in my trusty 98's, getting a face full of hot gas gives you a hell of a headache and makes for a tough job cleaning up the soot from the bolt afterwards.

As a side note, the vast majority of Yugo ammo regardless of date will shoot just fine. But there are a few batches out there that will split on you.

[Junior1942]

Gunfreak, that's good info. Thanks!!! After I weighed and measured the pulled-down ammo and saw big variances I stopped shooting it. Take a bullet that's overweight and over diameter and put it on top of a powder charge that's too high, you get a smoked primer.

One of these lazy days I'll pull down the rest of it. The powder is just fine, and the bullets would be good plinkers.

[bart55]

I also love the turk ammo I had a gazillion rounds of it origionally but it seems that all of my mousers seem to love it , I did have some that was badly corroded and I pulled it down and used the powder with 3031data lowered 10 percent to start . worked well in 35 whelan 06 and 30 ackley with condums.

[jonk]

I'll just stir the pot here...... while most turk ammo is 154 gr, I have seen a few that were definitely 198. Very few, but I have had 1, maybe 2 bandoleers of it. Copper bullet. Standard Ankara case.

[Gunfreak25]

Yeah I was thinking of pulling the bullets on the rest of my Yugo to use the powder and bullet. I love the 198 grainers. But I think i'm going to keep it intact for show with my M48. They are both 50's dated so they look good in a picture thread.

[Crash_Corrigan]

I had about 700 of those Turkish rounds. It kicked real hard and about 10% had split necks when we got done. I pulled some down and found the load to be 48 gr of some nasty looking black flake powder. I had some 30-06 cases which I formed into 8 x 57 and then reduced the powder down to 39 grains and loaded the pulled bullets into the reformed brass.

Good accuracy, reduced recoil and a bunch of scrap brass which I have to run thru a mauser action to fire off the old primers and then sell so I can get some lead in exchange.

[HangFireW8]

This stuff is in 15-round boxes, 3 rows of 5 in stripper clips. Looking down at the head stamp, it reads "11" at the top and "54" on the bottom with a star on the left and a star on the right. .

That describes my Cyrillic-labeled, Egyptian 8mm exactly. Never fired it, now I'm afraid to.

Bought at a time when it didn't pay to reload 8mm!

-HF

[Dick Dastardly]

Thanks for the responses fellers. I'm busy loading up black powder loads for SASS shooting right now, but towards spring I'll work up some test loads for my K98 8mm-06. The gun is strong and I enjoy shooting it. I also don't like throwing away good powder.

Still have the 8x57 brass if there's anybody that might like to do a swap for 44 Magnum brass. I'm not hard to deal with

DD

[Crash_Corrigan]

Maybe I will recycle that old Turk powder I pulled down. I have a '54 M-1 Garand and some decent brass.

If the Turk rounds threw down a 154 GR j word bullet at 2800 FPS using 48 grs of that black nasty flake stuff then reducing the weight down to 34 gr and using a 311284 Lyman boolit with a gas check at 210 grains might be a winner in my Garand.

I hate to waste good powder and I have a few pounds of it and at the prices they are demanding today with the Haz Mat fees also increased for powder my Scotch is showing.

[gunauthor]

I have shot a fair amount of Turkish ammo (in a Turkish Mauser, of course) and had a strange experience with a couple of rounds. A fellow gunsmith needed some help one day and part of the job was test firing several Mausers into his bullet trap. Even a fairly mild caliber (try one of the big magnums some time, it'll rock your world) is no fun to shoot indoors and I dreaded the task. The first couple were no problem, but the third test fire session included a fireball flying out of the bullet trap and traveling up my arm!!!! My gunsmith friend thought I was crazy and it didn't happen when he tried a couple of rounds (naturally). The owner of the rifles showed up later and HE thought I made up the story. Well sure enough, the second round he fired into the bullet trap resulted in a spectacular fireball; now I had witnesses. I've thought about trying the same thing with surplus 7.62X54R as that powder is so slow burning that most of it is consumed after it leaves the barrel (in the carbine versions). Then again, maybe not.....

[JW6108]

I pull the bullets and powder on 8mm Mauser (and a couple of other things) and use those components in Boxer primed cases. Surefire and cleaner than the military primer. Gibson and gunfreak are correct about the velocities on the Turk ammo. The other day, I chrongraphed some 8mm put together as above. In a 98K (23.6" barrel), velocity (10 shots) averaged 2919 fps, extreme spread 51.67, standard deviation 18.43. In my Turkish Mauser (29.1" barrel), velocity (10 shots) averaged 3005 fps, extreme spread 40.45, standard deviation 14.35. The only other ammunition I've tried with lower SD than that is some Aguila Match Rifle .22 LR in a S&W 22A (11 + a little change). To put it mildly, I was surprised at the velocity and consistency.

Even at these velocities, the primers (CCI200) appeared completely normal, no flattening whatsoever. Extraction with both guns was flawless, no binding or sticking at all. The powder is very clean burning and overall seems to be of high quality, once you get it away from those old cases and Berdan primers. Good luck.

[Ricochet]

Could that bullet trap be accumulating grains of unburned powder over multiple shots, then they're ignited by bullet frictional sparks, or perhaps by impact or from muzzle flash? I know my Chrony gets pretty littered with powder grains, and silencers have been reported to burst when large amounts of accumulated powder ignited.

[TNsailorman]

I read the above posts and it got me to thinking maybe the 7.92 surplus ammo that I bought several years ago from Widener's was not Turk after all. I went to the basement and got one of the cases and I am looking at it right now. Its marking are: 7.92 at the top of the primer, an "A" on either side of the primer, and 1955 on the bottom of the primer. I bought this ammo just for the fun of trying it about 12 years or so ago. It came in boxes (which i no longer have) 3 x 5 round stripper clips. I tried to shoot and about 1/2 of each clip would not fire. I pulled them down and weighed the bullet; which average 196 grains each with a +/- of .5 grains. The powder ran from 47.9 grain to 48.4 grains of square flake powder which looked like the old flake cordite powder to me. I pulled down all of the remaining cartidges and reloaded them with a measured 45.5 grains of the originial powder with the original bullets and a Federal large rifle primer in cases reformed from LC 30/06 military cases. They shot great in my 24/47 Yugo rifle. I let my buddy have about 100 of the bullets as he wanted to try them also. I used the rest of the powder in the same load only changing the bullets to a Remington 185 grain SP bullet. That was the most accurate ammo I have ever put down the bore of any 8 x 57 rifle and I have been shooting 8mm's since the 60's. Since I had only paid $36.00 out the door for 700 rounds, I went back to buy some more to get the powder and bullets but since 10 years had elapsed, Widener's was out of that ammo and I left empty handed. Now, since I am not a collector or an expert on ammo head stamps, I do not know if that ammo was truely "Turk" or Yugoslavian but I bought it on a special sale as Turk. It definietly had 196 grain bullets of very high quality as evidenced by their extremely close weights and shooting ability. The powder charge also was very close(for military) in weight. The only side effect that I noticed was that it was dirty burning and quite hard to get out of the bore. I know someone is going to diagree with the 196 grain weight as the only surplus ammo I have seen advertised was as a 198 grain bullet but I weighed each and every one of those bullets and they did weigh 196 grains. I am not certain as to their origin but I would have liked to been able to buy more of that ammo, especially at that price. James

[Ricochet]

I think that's Yugo ammo. They used the 196-198 grain boattail bullets. Turk ammo has 154 grain bullets, and except for the last few years they made it in the '50s has silver colored copper-nickel plated steel jackets. Flat based bullets.

[Shiloh]

A buddy had pulled all his, reduced it 8-10% and shot it. I will probably do the same with my stash. It is loaded hot!! In a Yugo Mauser, I experienced smoked primers and split cases, some down past the shoulders. It is all gone. One could sure not beat the price though. When available, it was less than $4 to around $5 per 70 round bandoleer.

Shiloh

[armyrat1970]

I'll just stir the pot here...... while most turk ammo is 154 gr, I have seen a few that were definitely 198. Very few, but I have had 1, maybe 2 bandoleers of it. Copper bullet. Standard Ankara case.

Never seen a copper bullet in Turk. Never a 198gr. What year headstamp and what markings on the head?

[rhead]

Is that the powder called Hotchkiss Glass Plate? Or am I confusing some other memory? I am not close to my notes right now.

[Ricochet]

Supposedly the Turks used German made powder. I can't remember the German name that was given, but it sounded like a generic term. They started using copper colored jackets around 1948.