Yugo Surplus 8MM silly question?

[RED]

I have several hundred rounds of Yugo 8X57 that has corrosive primers. I wonder if it would be a good thing to do if I pulled the bullets and dumped the powder into virgin boxer primed brass and reseated the pulled bullet.

I know shortcuts in reloading is normally not a good idea but here I can't see the downside.

What do you think?

[leftyo]

id just shoot the stuff, and clean properly afterward.

[kcw]

I recently did just that with some Suez era Egyptian stuff that I got from CAI about twenty ago. I haven't shot any of it for at least ten years and recently found that the primers have now apparently entered their "click bang" and "dud" phase. I recently reloaded some of it directly into a few boxes Remington once fire brass that I picked at the club. I only shot about 10 rounds of the reloaded stuff, but none showed any obvious problems. Obviously, if the Egyptian primers were still good, I wouldn't have wasted the time.

[P. Greaney]

Red; I have done exactly as you describe. I pulled the bullets, weighing each charge. Averaged the charges. I then loaded the decreased charges by about one to two grains into new boxer cases and then weighed the bullets and segregated them into lots and the results were quite good.
There is no downside.

[Art]

Red

Pulling the bullets and re using the powder and projectiles in new cases with non corrosive primers will work fine. The Yugo 8mm surplus I've used though is quite high quality stuff and pretty darn accurate. It's whatever floats your boat.

[Matt Anthony]

Red:
I have seen what corrosive primers do to a weapon if not cleaned properly. One 45ACP officers model ruined! In fact, I warned my friend not to use this ammo for target practice, only in case we were invaded and this was your last stash of ammo!
I would dissassemble and reload to different cases as others have suggested.
Matt

[dave]

Just clean properly and there will be no problems. Black powder shooters do it all the time and their guns last forever!

[P. Greaney]

I disassembled the above mentioned Yugo 8mm ammunition not because of the corrosive nature of the primers but because the ammunition in question had recessed primers that would not reliably detonate. I have no problem shooting ammunition with corrosive primers and clean appropriately afterwards. I also found the original ammunition to be quite acceptably accurate, when they went off.

[dogtag]

Sell it to an idiot. There's a liberal somewhere who owns a gun.

[joem]

I pulled down hundreds of rounds of Turkish 8mm when it was real cheap. It was poor quality as charges would vary by 3 or 4 grains and some cases were split at the necks. Those were easy to pull down as you could remove the bullet with your fingers. The bullets were cupro nickle and excellent. The powder was good and I got good groups. Wish I had bought a truck load when it was cheap.

[RED]

Thanks guys. I pulled down a few rounds and was surprised to find the bullets only weigh 156 gr. The last time I pulled 8MM milsurps they had 196 gr. Which I replaced with 180 gr. Sierra sp's and hunted with them and they were fine. I have bubbaized Mausers that I bought cheap because they were already "sporterized" when I bought them. I just finished the third one and and I wouldn't trade it for a brand new Rem. 700BDL. The smithy did a great job. I will post pics later.

[joem]

The turkish weighed 150 grains and some 1938 german ammo weighed 196 grains. Those are the ones I remember but I have pulled down ammo from other countries.

[jjrothWA]

Are yousure about the "cupro-nickle" jakcets? I heard that the standard 8mm bullets was actually "stainless steel???

[joem]

Are yousure about the "cupro-nickle" jakcets? I heard that the standard 8mm bullets was actually "stainless steel???

Well I didn't have it tested but I thought it was cupro nickle. I think stainless would not be a option during WWII which was the head stamp on this stuff. I did have some 1939 vintage ammo but that got pulled down, reloaded and shot up.

[Tuna]

The Turk ammo is all cupro nickel jacketed bullets. Stainless steel was a very expensive item back then.

[NuJudge]

I once pulled down a bunch of WWII German 198gr 8x57 ammo and loaded it into Canadian boxer brass intended for their Besa tank machine-guns. I got sky high pressures. For at least the first few rounds, reduce the powder charge, seat a bullet, and run the bullet through a Chrony.