Thread: has anyone tried loading 8x57 mauser as a subsonic?

I have an old sporterized 8mm mauser , that doesn't get used, thinking about getting it threaded and put a supressor on it, could they be loaded as a subsonic and still be usefull for close-ish hunting?. i'm thinking fallow and out to 100-ish meters

Factory 139gr isn't too brutal on fallow and low recoil don't have to go subsonic

IF - and that's the big IF... If you can find a suitable pill it's fairly easy to load up 8mm as subsonic. You need a specialist subsonic pill or even better a soft lead cast pill with a good open hollow point on it. 175gr plus would be nice too.

Suppressed you could easily download a bit but stay supersonic and have much better terminal results. A super soft speer projectiles would be good place to start heavy or light entirely up to what the rifle prefers.

Gives you quiet load not silent but quiet and bugger all recoil. You could do worse than same volume of trail boss as another load and just see how it patterns/ groups.

scotty has some 150grn pills for sale for this...

I've loaded one with cast bullets for a reduced load which was plenty good enough for goats deer and pigs to 100-150 yards. Subsonics weren't really a thing then but these were quiet and deadly.

This may help.

Just a stab, would a 32-40 projectile work for a sub load? Mold might be available...

Subsonic it won't matter... You only really get two terminal results. Most projectiles will pencil through with little expansion so what they are and how heavy doesn't matter,once heavy enough for pass through any more weight is wasted. Or super soft and super big Hollow point...I class the specialist monos in here as same terminal effect. A bigger hole but still no shock value so kill very much like a Broadhead arrow. They kill by cutting a hole in stuff be it lungs/ heart so it bleeds out fast it nervous system so brain disconnected. Shoulder shots might also slow do ability to move which is good as long as pill still reaches vitals.8mm is still a reasonable sized hole.

Greetings,
I have had a lot of luck in using reduced loads in my .308 rifles for target shooting at 2,500 fps or below. In the 8mm a reduced load of 42 grains of AR2206H/ H4895 should produce around 2,500 fps with the 150 grain flat base projectile. This would be quieter than full power loads especially when suppressed and is fast enough to get reasonable expansion and good penetration. This load is slightly below the Hodgdon/ ADI start load but well above the minimum loads in the Hodgdon light load data. It is a nice soft load to shoot when suppressed as well.
Regards Grandpamac.

Originally Posted by hairyone

I have an old sporterized 8mm mauser , that doesn't get used, thinking about getting it threaded and put a supressor on it, could they be loaded as a subsonic and still be usefull for close-ish hunting?. i'm thinking fallow and out to 100-ish meters

If you can find some trailboss you can quite easily load down to subsonic. You will burn through a fair bit of that gold dust verifying your drop out to 100ish though. As far as accuracy goes, its a role of the dice, my .223 that usually shoots like a laser, can hardly hit paper at 25 with subsonics. Meanwhile a mediocre .308 seems to put subsonics in small groups almost regardless of projectile within sensible weight range.

As others have pointed to, using subsonics on deer is a different ball game to the supersonics. It's like having a .22 but often you might think you would have been better off with an actual .22

It's not like a .22 at all, a well set up sub rifle can make a skull into a rattle... Think of it more like reaching out and trying to stab something with a skewer and you're more right than what we are used to with normal supersonic ammo.

just find a bullet that stabilizes when pushed with trailboss. lots dont like going slow and will pattern like a shotgun

100m is very far with subsonics, they tend to be very inaccurate and beyond 60m fall like the proverbial lead balloon
I usually limit myself to 30-40 meters to make certain of the shot

you need to hit brain or CNS (I shoot for the earhole or brain box) shoulder shots will not reliably stop pigs even with subx and hollowpoint lead bullets

If you site subs in for 30m the supersonic bullets tend to be sited in for around 130m as a good little bonus to check for when you are siting in

My last fallow was shot at 37 some metres, suppressed 308, 204gn .313 dia Softish Cast gas checked HP over 6gn of ICI Nobel Shotgun Powder No 78 doing 960fps. Very quiet, shoulder hit, no exit wound, bang flop.