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Hello! I recently came into possession of an old German pre-WWII German Mauser from my grandfathers estate.

I have cast the chamber with Cerosafe and slugged the barrel, but plan on getting it to a competent Gunsmith to verify my findings. That being said, What I appear to have is a pre-war 8mm Mauser with a "proofing date" of May 1928. The bore of the barrel is .311" and the rifling is .318', however comparing the chamber casting to the cartridge data that I have available to me, it appears that the chamber has been reamed out to properly feed the newer 8mm Mauser cartridges which of course utilize a .323" projectile. It is my understanding that U.S. manufacturers were at some point in time, making an under powered 8mm Mauser round that was pushing a .320" projectile so that it could "safely" be fired through either a .318" or .323" Mauser barrel. This seems a little suspect to me, and may be why these rounds are no longer available! My issue at the moment is that the only reloading data that I can find is for the 8mm Mauser pushing the .312" projectile and they are extremely insistent that this data should NOT be applied to the 8mm with the .318" barrel!

I am kind of hoping that maybe there may be reloading data available on the other side of the pond for the original 8mm Mauser with the .318" barrel.

Hello
Need to identify your rifle, pictures would help, also any receiver stampings, Military or Commercial.

Hey Mauserbill
So what I know, or at least think I know... Is that It is a pre-WWII rifle made for the civilian market. The starred crown with the "N" underneath would imply that the gun was proofed after 1912 since that is when info that I've found says that marking came into use. In that same pic under the "nitro" proofing mark is "7,8" indicating the bore size. The info that I have found online says that earlier guns had a "gauge" marking here and that later guns used the "#,#" format for the bore size in millimeters. In pic #4 is "2,75 gG.B.P" or 2.75 grams of flake powder of some kind. The "S.G." underneath the powder measure I guess, could, maybe indicate a Steel jacketed Bullet? But that really would not make sense to me since it was made for the civilian market. I DID spend 3 years in Germany... but then that has been almost 30 yrs ago now. And well, I AM American, and according to Y'all we only BARELY speak English to begin with! (LOL) I wont have a chance with the German!

There are some other reoccurring numbers that show up as well, and I will put them into a separate reply. the number "41" for instance shows up in quite a few places. But the number "528" is EVERYWHERE!!!! bolt, barrel, action, it's actually written in 3 separate places on the stock in pencil! and then "27528" is Stamped on the underside of the octagonal portion of the barrel hidden by the stock as well as of the metal butt plate.

I'd appreciate any input that you may have.

2nd group (of 4)

3rd (of 4)

4th (of 4)

Hello
Hope this helps you.
Pay very careful attention to the differences between the J cartridge and the JS
Your rifle looks like and early commercial version of the 1898 Mauser typically a military rifle known as the G98

Can you just confirm that it is Accurate powder loadings.

There are a few 4350 manufacturers but Accurate is the only ones that do a 3100 to my limited ken.

dromia wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2023 1:10 pm Can you just confirm that it is Accurate powder loadings.

There are a few 4350 manufacturers but Accurate is the only ones that do a 3100 to my limited ken.

Hello
Yes the pages shown are from the Accurate reloading manual

Yeah the "J" series stuff is exactly what I'm looking for. Is that what the book is titled "Accurate reloading manual"? and is there an edition #? I can make out everything but the cartridge measurements clearly enough; but figured if I can find a copy of the manual that actually has the data its all the better.