Thread: Getting an old 8mm to shoot

Several years back I purchased an 8mm for a mate to replace his beloved SMLE – claiming the performance by design would be a vast improvement. It was a sporterised Czech military small-ring mauser in a Ramline plastic stock, with the original 2-stage trigger retained, and the barrel re-chambered for 8mm-06. The bolt handle had been turned down for a scope. It cames with some RCBS dies dated 1973. I suspected it had been through the Collings’ workshop in Karori all those years ago, and the stock replaced more recently.

Later I loaded up a few rounds for my mate to shoot some groups at the range, adjusting the charge weight in grain increments, measuring muzzle velocities while we looked for variations in group size. To my untrained eye the bore looked rough in places so expectations were not high. The thin profile barrel, now free-floating, made it difficult to stop the rifle jumping around. Below is a sample of what was achieved at 100m, 8-10cm groups.

Despite this in the following years, three deer were taken with 1 shot each by keeping distances inside 120 metres – which was fortunate as I felt responsible for foisting a rifle on my mate that was so far proving to be a poor performer accuracy-wise.




Lately an interest in shooting longer ranges with this rifle (on a tight budget) has meant looking into the options of either getting a new barrel or trying to improve on what we had – to see if we could get the old girl to shoot. With this aim the following steps were taken:

- bedded the action,
- filled the forend to stiffen it and opened out the barrel channel clearances,
- swapped out the trigger for a timney (also added a M70-style 3-position safety),
- re-aligned the scope bases,
- re-crowned & fitted a muzzle-forward DPT suppressor to dampen barrel whip as well as tame noise & recoil,
- fireformed new 30-06 Norma brass,
- trialled 3 projectiles before settling on the 175gr Sierra in front of 55.0gr of 2208,
- optimised bullet jump: 0.3mm
- removed the lead tips to get the COAL back down to magazine length,
- kept the loaded run-out inside 2 thou
- one-off thorough clean of the bore with grey scotchbrite & ammonia to remove rust, rough areas, years of layered fouling,
- used printed range targets correctly sized for the scope.

Below, the first three shots fired by my mate at 100m following the accurising work.



He then took 4 more at 200m, calling the upper shot as high (without being able to see the POIs through the scope), remaining 3-shot group = 20mm.



We ran out of time for further shooting, and while I don’t think 3-shot groups reveal that much, we are thinking from this that shots on reds could now be stretched out a bit further should the opportunity arise. A small success story I thought I'd share.

I see squares are as hard to hit as dots

Awesome work!

Well done on getting it to shoot properly. Should deal to anything in NZ effectively.

Good stuff😆

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Gotta be stoked with results like that

try an X as a target it is easier to line up and makes it more precise aiming.

Is it a vz33 action? Make bloody great sporters. Brian has a lot of load data on the 8/06 it will all be with coreloks though

Can we see a pic of the rifle @Puffin?

Well done ! Love reading posts like these.....

Originally Posted by Mangle

Well done ! Love reading posts like these.....

Nice looking Roe Buck you have there on your Avatar

Originally Posted by nor-west

Is it a vz33 action? Make bloody great sporters. Brian has a lot of load data on the 8/06 it will all be with coreloks though

Yes, VZ33.

Originally Posted by Gibo

Can we see a pic of the rifle @Puffin?

Back with my mate at the moment. Will try to remember to get a pic next time we catch up, though pretty much as described + parkerised finish, VX1 3-9x40 scope on top, 19" barrel, the safety is a Dakota Arms through Brownells - nice unit and the only flash part on it.

How come Puffin knows more about my rifle than me?

i like to use a square target, but turned so it is like a diamond. the four points of the square/diamond line up with the cross hairs nicely.

You have given me hope.. my K98 @ 50m hits sideways....

Quite satisfying getting a naughty rifle to shoot