8mm surplus reloading

[L Bruce]

Has anyone ever heard of or pulled surplus bullets,lowering the charge then re seating the bullet in the same case?

[joem]

I pulled many hundreds of Turkish garbage, saved the powder and bullets and reloaded them in my cases. Any surplus I've bought was Berdan primed and corrosive. The Turkish stuff had varied charges by 3 to 4 grains. Some cases were split as they came out of the bandolier. All the cases went to scrap. Bullets were great and powder was good.

[musketshooter]

It is easy to do. Why reduce the powder charge? Most people pull down surplus ammo to salvage the bullet and powder. Some of us decap the corrosive primers and reload with new NC primers.

[meterman]

Did that with a lot of Spanish-made 9mm Largo. Fired as issued, the primers would puncture and flatten and the words on the cases were burnished and made illegible. So, I pulled the bullets, reduced the powder charge 20%, and the results were a normal-looking fired brass. Of course they were Berdan primed, so I tossed them. But it made me feel a lot safer about shooting them in my old Astra. These were Santa Barbara, manufactured in the early 1970s.

[joem]

I shoot a bit of 9mm largo but I reload for it. Cases are available from Starline brass when they make a run of it.

[Dave in NGA]

I have reduced charges in 7.65x53 argentine ammo to each my mind while shooting the 1891 mauser. Kicks less and shoots just fine.

[Sunray]

"...lowering the charge..." Using what data? You have no idea what the powder is. Making up your own data for completely unknown powder is unsafe.
"Mexican Match" is well known though.

[Litt'le Lee]

it would be OK to say reduce by 10% or more to reduce recoil--you would have to do a test session--i was taking 06 from CMP ammo and using the bullets and powder to reload 308--then I would sell the 06 brass,banderlers and clips--the 308 turns out to reload for 10 cents a round

[bruce]

Re: OP. Pull the bullets. Sample the powder charge weight in a selected sample... say 100/1000 rds. Average the weight. Now unless you plan on combat operations,etc., consider reducing the powder charge a bit. A Kar-98 w/ full power surplus heavy ball ammo will get your attention after about 30-40 rounds. Reducing the charge by say 10% will result in a lighter kicking load that will be easier to use for extended range sessions. Save the left over powder for later use. Depending on how much surplus 8mm you're working with, you might end up with enough powder to load some more ammo. Of course this does expect that you will be working with one lot number of ammo. Either that or keep the lot numbers separated. JMHO. Sincerely. bruce.

[PhillipM]

I've never thought to reduce the charge, but as said above, paper punching doesn't require a combat load.

I call my stash of Turkish 8MM my flintlock simulator because it hang fires so often.