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Thread: Does anyone else use a 0.001mg scale

  1. #1
    Boolit Mold
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    Jul 2021
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    Does anyone else use a 0.001mg scale

    Hello,

    New here. I make my own cartridges for my Mauser C96 cone hammer antique. I notice great precision/grouping with weighing the corresponding milligram quantity right down to the milligram. I use 380mg of Vihtavuori N-340 (5.86 grains) and I have both Sierra 85 grain and Hornady 86grain bullets. Very fun hobby to figure out the powder quantity to finally make my C96 cycle properly. It is at the low end; 1050fps, but I am getting some Power Pistol powder and I can apparently get 1400fps, which I would keep lower at maybe 1200fps at most because it is an old gun.
    My Cone Hammer C96 is a rare low serial number fixed sight and 4.75” barrel pistol with matching serial numbers throughout. Glad I got into this hobby recently!
    Who else has a Mauser C96?

    I am going to be trying titegroup powder along with Power Pistol soon, should be fun.

  2. #2
    Boolit Grand Master


    GregLaROCHE's Avatar
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    You are lucky to own a very collectible gun like that. Be careful to only use published proven loading data for it. It would be a shame if it got damaged. Good luck!

  3. #3
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chemichael View Post
    Hello,

    New here. I make my own cartridges for my Mauser C96 cone hammer antique. I notice great precision/grouping with weighing the corresponding milligram quantity right down to the milligram. I use 380mg of Vihtavuori N-340 (5.86 grains) and I have both Sierra 85 grain and Hornady 86grain bullets. Very fun hobby to figure out the powder quantity to finally make my C96 cycle properly. It is at the low end; 1050fps, but I am getting some Power Pistol powder and I can apparently get 1400fps, which I would keep lower at maybe 1200fps at most because it is an old gun.
    My Cone Hammer C96 is a rare low serial number fixed sight and 4.75” barrel pistol with matching serial numbers throughout. Glad I got into this hobby recently!
    Who else has a Mauser C96?

    I am going to be trying titegroup powder along with Power Pistol soon, should be fun.
    Way to go, making people hate you before they ever meet you! The Mauser C96 has been my dream gun for a very long time. I've actually laid hands on one, once. Couldn't afford it, at $1450 about 20 years ago, when I was a starving student with a family of 5. Now I'm a starving retiree...

    I'm looking for blueprints, and building a small home machine shop in hopes that one of these days I can make my own. There isn't any other way! I'll be interested in your adventures. So it's chambered in .30 Mauser or 9mm? I'd love to have one in .30 Mauser, but I think I'd settle for 9mm if all else failed, and I won the lottery, or manage to develop the skills necessary to make my own. Take good care of it! I once owned (for a very short time, being stupid) a Nazi-marked 1939 P38. Some idiot before me had fired a 9mm SMG round through it, and bulged the barrel. It was also all matching serial numbers. I was strictly a shooter then, not any sort of collector, and was also too stupid to buy a replacement barrel so I could keep shooting it. Every time I think about it, now, 40 some years later, I have to kick myself.

    Bill

  4. #4
    Boolit Grand Master


    GregLaROCHE's Avatar
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    I wish Pedersoli would make some replicas of the Mauser C96.

  5. #5
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    Hi Chemichael, and welcome to the Cast Boolits Forum. What a great first post!

    I have 3 broom handles, but no doubt of lesser quality and desirability than your cone hammer. The reason that I've got them is just because I'm an old guy who was around when they were more available. Two of them came from China and were in sad condition. Neither has much of a bore left, and one is inoperable. I could probably repair the broken specimen, and get both of their barrels re-lined, maybe make one a 9mm, but somewhere along the line other guns took precedence. I did refinish them back when I had a gunsmithing business.

    The third I bought way back in about 1968 from "The Traders" in San Leandro, CA, now long gone. They had a display case with several of them and I picked out what appeared to be the nicest. Turned out to have a gouge in the chamber like maybe someone had tried to pry out a stuck casing with a screwdriver or similar tool. I didn't notice it until I tried shooting it with some Century Arms made in Portugal ammo, and every case stuck in the chamber. The extractor would jump over the rim and the next round would feed and jam up behind it---most distressing! Then along came the influx of 7.65mm Tokarev pistols and ammo, and I decided to try some of the steel cased stuff in the broom handle. It ran like a clock, because the steel didn't extrude into the gouge. So the answer became to pull the Tokarev bullets and download the cases with acceptable Mauser loads.

    So the final score is one that works well, one that works well but isn't very accurate, and one that might be made to work but is a wall hanger. I also had a very nice Bolo model, but it got too valuable for me to keep!

    To answer your question about a scale, I just use an ordinary RCBS 505 scale that weighs in grains and 1/10s grains.

    Have you got a wooden shoulder stock/holster for yours? The combination used to be illegal to own, but I was reading through some interesting ATF regulations the other day and saw where an exception has been made for broom handles with original German mfg. stocks and they can be owned and displayed together. Nothing said about replica or Chinese stocks, so I'd be cautious about owning a broom handle and a Chinese stock.

    Again, welcome to the Forum, and glad to have you aboard.

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    DG

  6. #6
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    The Construction 96 has always been a Grail gun for me. I was young married broke when the wave of affordable ones came from China. A boat missed for sure.

  7. #7
    Boolit Mold
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    Click image for larger version. 

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    Here it is. It was manufactured in 1897 and when looking at it when I clean it, nothing is worn on the interior. It looks pretty much like new and very well made. I am still surprised how well they manufactured 124 years ago! I use starline brass 7.63 x 25 and it is 0.308 or 30 Mauser.

    Here is some reloading data; https://press.hornady.com/assets/sit...-30-mauser.pdf

    I take good care of it, but I keep wanting to look at it and just a slight amount of the bluing is being scratched off from the case/stock. I paid a lot for it, but it is still a bit of an investment and I likely wont sell it. There is some frosting in the bore, but you can still see the rifling.

  8. #8
    Boolit Bub
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    Quote Originally Posted by GregLaROCHE View Post
    I wish Pedersoli would make some replicas of the Mauser C96.
    Why? Nearly one million were produced. They are an extremely complicated pistol to manufacture and unlike the relatively simple muskets Pedersoli makes, the price would be astronomical.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check