Turkish 8 mm and others.

[His lordship.]

Bought 4 bandoleers of Turkish 8 mm mauser ammo during the Winter, shot one bandoleer so far and it is really accurate in my Yugo M-48.  Tried the Yugo ammo and was having too many burst primers, today I tried some Italian made stuff intended for the Egyption army, and a box of circa  February, 1945 German army ammo.

The Turkish ammo requires a sizable amount of hand force to open the bolt on the action after shooting a round, there is no sign of high pressure that I can see on the spent cartridge, but on the case head where the markings are I can see where it has been mildly scraped by the bolt head, which would explain the resistance on the bolt.

The Italian ammo has a faint scrap, square shaped on the case head, but you really have to look for it in the sunlight, the German ammo has no sign of contact problems.  Both the German and the Italian made ammo allow the bolt to open fairly easy, a slight resistance with the Italian stuff.

Has anybody noticed this with the Turkish ammo, or others?  I have heard complaints of the Turkish ammo being dirty, I find it cleans up just fine with GI water based cleaner to get out the salt residue, then a thorough cleaning with Hoppes.

Thanks

[crow_feather]

Chris,
Hard bolt lift is a sign of high pressure as is ejector markings on the case.  I do not know if you have excessive pressure but with the conditions indicated, I would hesitate to shoot that ammo in that rifle.  I'm not a gunsmith nor anything but an old handloader.  I like to think I got old because I respected the warning signs.

C F

[Mikey]

Chris:  one of our other posters had problems with the Turkish 8mm ammo case mouth splitting but crow-feather is absolutely correct - those are signs of high pressure.

Most Yugo M-48/48As I have seen are excellent quality rifles - yours may have a headspace (too little ?) or chamber problem (possibly too tight). The signs you provided on the Turkish ammo is indicative of chamber pressures.  So are the burst/penetrated primers on the Yugo ammo.  Scrape marks on the cartridge face are another indication.

If you chamber an unfired cartridge, of any manufacture, and the bolt is difficult to close or open (without firing), stop shooting that rifle and take it to a gunsmith to have the headspace checked and to determine if the bolt is true (straight and of proper fit).  It may need adjustment.  Hope this helps.  Mikey.

[1911crazy]

I haven't had any problems with the Turkish ammo even in my Hakim and yes I shot some in my Hakim but the gas valve was turned down.  But thats another story.  I did have trouble with one of my mosins a similair one the bolt was hard to open after firing.  I went home after having the problem and cleaned the chamber really good.  Then applied a coat of oil in it and wiped it out(excess) and just leave a light film of oil in the chamber.  I went back to the range, fired it and it shot fine. And yes I know the 8MM Turk ammo is hot stuff but how does the primer look?? Is it pushed up flat/flush against the case like flush??  Thats the first sign of high pressure when the primer is moved back flat even with the case.                                                                BigBill

I haven't shot the turk stuff in some time now maybe the next trip to the range I'll check some out I have so much of it on hand.  I don't shoot it that much in the Hakim but it does work if the gun is adjusted right.  Thats one thing about some of these semi- auto's the gun has to be adjusted to the ammo your shooting and you can't just shoot any ammo after that it has to be readjusted again when you change ammo brands.  And yes I know we are talking about bolt actions too.

[His lordship.]

Bigbill,

Yes, the fired Turkish cartridge looks healthy, the primer is indented in like it should be, there are no abnormalities with the case.  I remembered that last year I had a similar problem with my Russian Model 44 Mosin Nagant carbine, no matter what source of ammo I shot through it, I had to use some muscle to open the bolt on it too!  It was attributed to the fact that the 1891 Mosin Nagant has a really short bolt handle.  I only shot brass and steel cased Soviet surplus through it (7.62 X 54).  

Years ago I shot some really hot Egyption 7.92 ammo through my Spanish Mauser 98 Airforce Rifle, that showed all the signs of high pressure.  The primer pushed out like a nipple and that rifle had a fierce kick with that ammo.  I had the fired case inspected by a local ammo collector who confirmed that it was loaded hot from the signs.

I have owned 4 military Mausers and this Jugo made gun has an odd peculiarity about it when pushing the bolt into the first stage of closing the action, that is with the bolt in the vertical position, the second stage is to push the bolt down after it touches the rear of the receiver.  In the first stage the bolt will not go down into stage 2 unless heavier than normal pressure is applied forward on the bolt pressing on the receiver rear.  I suspect that it was machined very tight in regards to the contact of the locking lugs with the receiver indents, my other rifles don't need that much pressure applied.  And this oddity happens either with or without a loaded chamber, so it must be sloppy machining, there are lots of tool marks on the end of the bolt knob where it sticks out from the receiver.

The Jugo ammo had gas leakage from the outer rings of the primer, it was old and I suspect that it was decayed.  I used to shoot alot of the Jap 6.5 surplus ammo that came out of China back in the late 1980's and man, numerous case splits and primers that would punch all the way through.  Strong action those Jap Arisakas!

I was wondering if anyone else had a similar experience.  I will take the advice of the other writers and check the closing of the bolt without firing a round, with each of the brands of ammo to see if there is a headspace problem next time I go to the range.

Thanks

[His lordship.]

I shot about 40 rounds of a different batch of 8 mm Turkish ammo today.  This had a 1945 date and a green bandolero, instead of the blue bandolero and 1942 stamping of the other stuff that was hard to move the bolt on during unchambering of the fired case. :grin:

The Turks obviously had variances in production quality (case dimension) between the different posted years.  The stuff I shot today did not have any resistance, nor was there any scraping on the cartridge case head.  Charles Mcbride mentioned ammo variances like this in his book on sniping and trench warfare.  He found that the quality varied so much that they were hoarding certain batches as the bad stuff could seriously jam his belt fed machine gun in battle, which could be fatal.

Anybody experience something like this in the US Armed Forces?

[Fuzzy Sights]

Chris, turk milsurp ammo has been chrono'd at 2950-3110 fps in the long 29 inch barrelled turk mausers...it is a bit hot. Some of this ammo has split case necks from embrittlement/old age. The stiff bolt lift you describe is very common on yugo mausers, it's not the hot turk ammo but lousy machining(at least that's what most think, myself included).  Had the same problem with 3 of my 4 yugo's and one of them would even do this with my very mild cast reloads. I also notice that the rails/boltlug sides and feed ramps were course. I've polished/smoothed 2 of the ones I had but was hesitant to touch the bolt faces so I never could solve the stiff bolt problem. Didn't help much as they were still not as smooth as my vz24 so I sold them. I also reduced the original turk powder amount from 48 grains to 40/42 and sometimes still had problem...Gary D.

[John Traveler]

Funny that you mention having extraction and stiff bolt problems with 3 out of 4 of your Turk mausers.

The few Turk mauser chambers that I've looked at seemed to have been done by a one-eyed near-sighted lathe operator that lost his glasses and didn't know what a dull chambering reamer was.  Or maybe he was simply running low on cutting oil or his supervisor was glaring at him for his slow output.

I dunno what to make of this.  The Turk Mauser arms and ammunition factories were tooled and set up by the Germans, so you would think THEY certainly know how to maintain firearms quality control.  Maybe something got lost in the translation?   *GRIN*

John

[Fuzzy Sights]

Hello John, sorry for the confusion but these were Yugo mausers that had difficult bolt lift, not turks. The 2 turks I've owned in the past were wonderfully smooth and shot like a dream and had no problems at all. These yugo's sometimes experienced difficult bolt lift, was strange cause it didn't happen all the time and occasionally occured even with low pressure reloads. They all felt somewhat "gritty" when working the bolt-not near as smooth as a turk or vz. They did extract just fine, tho...Gary D.

[securitysix]

I'm wondering if you have a burr on your bolt face or if it is just out of square.  

You did say the Italian ammo got marked up a little, so it sounds like it may not be only the Turk ammo.  Turk ammo is reportedly loaded hot (I haven't shot any of mine yet).  Have you tried it with factory ammo at all?  If so, does it do the same thing?

[His lordship.]

Fuzzy Sights,

You are right about the rough machining on the Jugo M-48s as some of the machining in the action and bolt on my Mauser is not very good.  Lots of tooling lines on the bolt shroud area near the safety.  And I have to push the bolt in with a little more muscle than any of my other Mausers that I have owned to get it to close, as who ever machined this rifle was a little off on the bolt lug to receiver lug dimensions.

Security Six,

My comments in the first top areas go into more detail on the ammo experience.  I have not had case head contact problems with the German, and 1945 vintage Turk ammo, but did get scraping with the 1942 Turk and a little with the Italian made ammo.  I bought the rifle this last Winter, and with the easy availability of 8 MM ammo now, I expect to find other ammunition that will chamber easily without scraping the case head, and some that will chamber hard and scrape the case head.  I don't think I have ever had a rifle so finicky in regards to chamber dimensions as this M-48 Jugo Mauser.  Otherwise, this rifle is very accurate and extracts well.  I have a slip on rubber but pad that really helps in the recoil area as the 8 MM round is a real kicker!