Time To Talk About 8mm Cartridges - Season 3 Episode 12

will nickel plated bullets wear out your steel barrels and who first invented the 6.5 ot 6 and in what year okay we're gonna find out in this episode of Ron spomer Outdoors podcast [Music] hello everyone and welcome to another show lots of questions lots of answers I hope we get some right and I don't know about this nickel bullet business but we're going to find out here as soon as we get to that question from one of our fans first though we've got a gentleman from Oregon informing me something I asked about a a few a few shows back someone talked about shooting bench rest deer or bench leg deer that was it bench leg deer in Oregon I went what's a bench leg deer well this gentleman seems to know Larkin Larkin says hey you Fellers from the eastern part of the country just lack the kind of sophistication it takes to know what a bench leg deer is a bench leg deer is a cross between a black-tailed deer and a mule deer and they are found in the areas of the crest of the Cascade mountains in Oregon blacktails are typically found on the west side of the Cascade Mountains and mule deer on the east side and the marriage if you will between the two subspecies and I'm not sure whether or not they're getting involved without the benefit of marriage but anyway we have some very promiscuous deer up high in the ranges of Oregon and that's what makes the bench leg deer it's a hybrid black tail and mulee hybrid pretty interesting stuff you know what's really interesting years ago I read a book about mule deer I think it was by Valerius Geist and he was quite the wildlife biologist up in I think in Calgary at a university he was a German who immigrated into Canada and he was just doing all kinds of research on sheep and mule deer and elk and all the horned and antler game um and he he had these details from a mitochondrial DNA investigation of deer mitochondrial DNA is DNA that's passed down by the female line so it tells where the female line came from and what they found in their testing of mulear is that the mitochondrial DNA suggested the mothers were white tails originally not blacktails but black tails were not subspecies of mule deer it was the other way around so I think what they figured out was historically deer evolving in North America had white tails down in the Southeast and then they crossed the country when conditions were Optimum for that before the Great Plains kind of became dried out and they were in the woods as they still are up in Northern Canada and that enabled them to cross clear over to the West Coast where they evolved because of the different habitats there think of those extremely wet temperate rainforests on the coast of Washington and Oregon and up into British Columbia not a lot to eat in those places so they gradually evolved there to become the Sitka Blacktail and the West Coast black-tailed deer morphing into the mule deer so when they did this mitochondrial DNA testing they found out that pretty much that DNA suggested that whitetails had gotten back over to the West Coast during another time frame another Eon shall we say and and by then the blacktails had evolved enough from the original prototype deer that they were distinctly different as they are now but when the doe Whitetail got over there the mule or the Blacktail bucks were able to breed and that created the mule deer I don't know it sounds kind of crazy but I guess DNA doesn't lie and that's what the scientists found out so essentially the mule deer is a relatively new and they were suggesting only 10 000 years old as a species and it's sprang from this crossbreeding between a white tail and a black tail crazy stuff and now it looks like the Blacktail and mule deer are cross-breeding to make the bench leg dear and I don't think that's an official title here's something um something about safety hazard from menzos safety hazard the hard polymer tips are not safe in tubular magazines only the very soft lever or Lever Revolution are soft enough to be safe in tubular magazines that's why all the standard ammo for Lever guns had large me plots me plots on the bullets meaning a flat nose bullet or a big round nose um good point there so what what he's saying is you've got plastic tip bullets but not all Plastics are alike plastic polymers and a rubberized thing Hornady is who came out with this rubber Flex tip bullet that allows a sharply pointed tip to be on bullets used in tubular fed magazines like the 336 Marlin lever action the Henry lever actions the Winchester's 94s and such so that tip is flexible enough that you don't have any chance of this potential impact of the sharply tip bullet behind and resting on the primer of the cartridge in front of it could set it off like a firing pin and there's a lot of argument about this it comes up quite often the point being that the manufacturers suggest that this is the possibility that if you shoot The Recoil from that shot could jar the cartridges in the tubular magazine sufficiently to drive a sharply tipped bullet into the primer of the round in front of them setting off a chain reaction now everybody says well does this ever really happen I've never heard of it and some people have videos out trying to make this happen and not succeeding but I found a video in which a tubular magazine slam fire did happen but it wasn't with the sharply tip bullet this was from uh forgotten weapons and this gentleman was working with the Henry replica and the old Henry had a long spring lever that you pushed from way back at the receiver up the tube all the way to the top and locked it over into place while you dumped rounds into the tubular magazine then you were supposed to move this thing back and slide it down gently when he just put a handful of rounds in so he had a lot of empty tube left and he let it fly back under spring pressure and that drove those cartridges together and created a firing condition bang bang I think he had two rounds in her that went off and he wasn't even using sharply tipped bullets so what he thinks happened was there was enough pressure enough jarring that the primer itself ignited from the Anvil within the primer compressing enough against the base of the primer where your firing pin would normally strike to compress that powder and ignite it obviously he was shooting 4440 or 45 cold or some kind of a center fire around even though the original Henry rifle was chambered for a Rimfire for so it wasn't a concern back in those days so the point is crazy things can happen and since the manufacturers all insist on flat nose bullets around those bullets no hard sharp points on your bullets in the tubular magazines that's what this gentleman is talking about only safe ones recognize are those rubber tipped Lever Revolution bullets FTX bullets from Hornady good good point there appreciate that that was menzos now from South Carolina there is Mike asking this hey your feedback on a couple of questions what rifle sling do you prefer and we're about the same size so what is your length of pull uh what would be best way to find the correct length of pull thanks Mike P.S your shows are great glad you slipped that in no I always appreciate it folks when you Pat me on the back we try hard around here and we're glad we get it right okay what sling do I prefer I have never been one for all kinds of fancy slings you know just your your basic sling that's adjustable I do like to use a sling as a hasty sling in which I run my arm through it wrap it around once and it gives me some lateral support um and I like it because it's quick so this quick release not quick release so much quick adjust a quick adjust sling one inch wide sometimes I'll go one and a quarter but I like to keep things light this thing has a little tab on it that you can pull to shorten the length of the sling so when I put it away for instance I'll just pull it all the way closing that sling is tight against the belly of the gun and then I can pull on it to bring it out and sometimes I want a little more sling sometimes a little less for carry depends on if I have heavy coats on or nothing on well not nothing but not much and uh yeah it's just nicely adjustable and then I can also adjust it for the rifle depending on how far the sling Mount is forward on the stock I can adjust it so I get that good arm wrap for my Hasty sling now I'll see what is the other part of the question length of pull you know there's no cut and dried way to determine length of pull in a rifle in a shotgun it's way more important than a rifle you can make some adjustments the critical thing is you don't want to be so short in the stock that your nose is essentially riding on the thumb over the top then you get a broken nose or at least a bumped one but you don't want it so stretched out there so far like this either so it's just kind of a balance and I have found that I can work with gosh with stocks as short as 12 and three quarter inches because my short little wife has stocks that short for her uh all I have to remember to do is to keep my head back and more erect obviously it's not my preferred length that's more like 14 inches 13 and three quarter to 14. that's kind of your average that comes in Factory rifles if you find that if you're a tall long armed individual that's a little too short for you you can start to stretch it back out there I think the longest link the pull I ever shot was a 505 Gibbs bolt action rifle built by um who was that gentleman in Hawaii uh wasn't an Empire rifle it was a Kilimanjaro I think um yeah that sounds right at any rate big heavy rifle shooting a 500 green bullet I believe and the length to pull on it was something like 16 inches for this African pH who had ordered it special and I had the chance to shoot it on the Range and I thought I can't turn down this opportunity I mean I was stretched out there guys and that thing hurt I don't know if it was just because it was a 505 Gibbs shooting a big bullet or it was the length of pool messing me up but I thought my shoulder had gone to a next County over I'd never get it back so there may be a component of comfort involved in this as well but basically as long as you're able to reach the trigger comfortably and get your head on the comb far enough back from the scope so you're not getting dinged or getting your nose busted by your thumb I don't think it's really critical if it's a quarter inch shorter or longer here or there it's not like a shotgun where that rifle has to come up exactly to the same position for you to shoot you are looking through a scope most of the time or an open site and can compensate so I guess Mike you're just gonna have to play around with it and figure it out for yourself but as I say it shouldn't be hard and I think anything in that average range you're around 13 and three quarters to 14 inches probably work for you Harry he says right now I'm in Florida so Harry in Florida has asking Roz or a complete comparison list of cartridges such as six millimeter 243 or 280 Remington seven millimeter please let me know and keep up the great info okay appreciate it a complete comparison list so it sounds like you're suggesting can you get a comparison of the performance of the various six millimeters for instance so 243 Winchester six millimeter Remington 243 Weatherby Magnum six millimeter cream or all of them um you know you can certainly find that information in most hand loading manuals I mean that's a great place to look but not all hand loading manuals have all the variable cartridges in there so a really good resource is cartridges of the world I think it's still published by DBI books but if you just look up cartridges of the world oh my gosh what a wonderful reference book quite thick and not only does it have all of the cartridges currently being made and sold in the United States of America but it has all the ones from Britain all the ones from Europe which would include Scandinavian countries in French and German and everything around the world there's a chapter on Military cartridges there's a chapter on Obsolete American cartridges rim fire cartridges wonderful wonderful book so you'll want to get that and then you've got information on all of them now it doesn't have a nice list that would say 243 Winchester Hunter grain bullet muzzle velocity then all the rest of them like that you'd have to compile that information yourself but yeah it's all out there and as for this as far as the seven millimeters I am currently working on that one we're going to have a book out here fairly soon that compares all of the seven millimeters I could scrounge up and I've been looking uh for a long time in a lot of places so I've got some pretty obscure ones we're still trying to find images to to support some of those more obscure sevens but that will be out and that should be fun because not only do I compare their ballistics but I talk a lot about the history how they evolved with the parent cartridges were some of the uses to which they've been put over the years and some of the famous Hunters who shot them etc etc so I'm hoping it'll be a fun book for you guys okay Dave from Central Texas as opposed to Eastern Woodland Texas or dried out Western Texas or even on the mountains where way up in Northwest Texas this is Central Texas Dave here what do you think about the possibility of future rifle cartridge development in 40 caliber the big ammo guys don't turn out much in regards to the 40s in a rifle the 405 Winchester is still around yeah but that's a 0.411 bullet that that thing takes um and everyone's version of the 416 from Rigby and that takes a 0.416 inch diameter bullet so it's not really a 40. and then there's Remington Ruger Weatherby however a manageable deer cartridge in 40 caliber is missing on everyone's cartridge menu there used to be a few the 40 60 40 72 40 82 those are all neat 40 calibers what do you think about a lengthened 41 mag case with a modern operating pressure of 50 000 kpsi really enjoy your videos well thanks Dave um yeah you're on to something here well of course recently there was the 400 Legend just turned out this last gosh last winter I guess um and I had a chance to hunt with that and shoot it a bit we should have a video coming up on that shooting episode here pretty quickly that is a pretty good option you know now this is one of those developments in the straight walled only short rifle cartridge States for deer hunting so think 350 Legend um that was specifically designed for that most of the guys end up having to use 44 mags or 357 mags handgun cartridges revolver cartridges for that kind of hunting so Winchester specifically designed some cartridges that would fit within those State limits that would work well in a rifle and the 400 Legend looks like a pretty good option I was pretty impressed with what that thing is doing but yeah traditionally in a center fires I think you kind of nailed them the I was thinking 404 Jeffrey but that thing actually uses a 0.42 inch diameter bullet why they call it the 404 I don't know or the 405 Winchester using that .411 or maybe it's a 0.410 bullet but roughly the same thing there so yeah true 40s using a .400 inch diameter bullet don't know of any now I would say that they're not being developed simply because you're getting up there in size to where most people in the United States at least probably around the world just aren't that interested because we have such effective 30 caliber seven millimeters 6.5 338s they handle pretty much everything and if you're getting up into Dangerous Game well then we've got the four sixteens and the 450s and whatnot oh I just thought of another one the 45400 that's a 450 Nitro Express neck down but that's not a 40 caliber bullet either it's about a 411 as well maybe a 410 so yeah not too many 40s but I just don't think there's a big demand for them and the manufacturers aren't going to be cranking them out you can generally tell what is going to be popular and what might have significant demand based on how many Wildcats you find in that particular caliber and I know very few Ford three caliber Wildcats you're suggesting one here with that 41 mag case that is a handgun revolver case man I think that one takes a 4 11 or 4 12 inch diameter bullet two but you'd kind of well you'd have to slope the side walls maybe a little more to get a 40 caliber bullet in it not much though so that might work but again you're down to handgun cartridges and how much of the demand is it for that stuff that's my take on it Dave all right now up in the forested state of Michigan comes Steve Ron I watched all of your videos almost every night with my father anxiously awaiting the next well that's nice appreciate that say hello to your pops for me thanks for watching um question I can't find much relative information on nickel plated brass and bullets do they follow barrels are they easily reloadable I believe prior Norma sold a nickel jacket not sure um I think he means bullet but he doesn't specify a nickel jacket something in addition I'm partly concerned and the jacket is coated a nickel and Clicks in the barrel how would you ever properly clean it out without compromising the rifling you know this is um will this damage my new rifle okay Steve I think we've got a couple of things going on here I'm not quite sure if you're meaning nickel plated bullets nickel coated bullets are only nickel coated or plated cases take a brass case and give it a wash or plating of nickel and what you're doing with nickel coating on a case is preventing the tarnishing of the brass you've had a brass cartridge around you notice they get started to get old dirty looking and they can actually tarnish a bit and the nickel is shiny and smooth and it stops that because it does not corrode like that so that's the advantage in the case itself that's not an issue with following inside of the chamber you mentioned Barrel falling and that suggests you're thinking the bullet is nickel coated or plated or something and there have been a few over the years but I'm pretty sure that that was just a touch of nickel in a gilding metal or copper so it was an alloy and they introduced a little bit of nickel perhaps to make it a little Slicker and and or again just to help with the tarnishing or something now nickel can be as hard as steel or close to it from what I remember in Metallurgy they're getting close but I don't know that it would be a serious threat to a barrel unless you had a fairly soft Barrel steel of some kind but what really informs me on the safety of all this is the fact that these ammunition companies made it if they're building it it's not going to be hazardous to your rifle or how many would they sell they're not going to crank something out that would soon get a reputation for don't buy the XYZ bullets or cartridges because they're going to destroy your rifle wouldn't stay in business long with something like that so I think anything that you see out there that is a nickel plated case and or bullets if there still are some I know they've been around from time to time I didn't need to worry about it now that's not an absolute answer so if anybody has the absolutes as usual we surely welcome that information all right Zach from Texas why isn't the 300 Saum Psalm the short action Ultra Magnum Remington cartridge as popular as the 300 WSM and what's your favorite cartridges for prairie dog hunting what are your favorite cartridges for pretty like two questions here from Zach well Zach first of all I assume the 300 Psalm is not as popular as a 300 WSM because it came out just a little bit later only by a matter of a month or two or three um but the psalm is not as large and fast as a 300 and I think the point being if you're going to buy a short action 300 that's going to come close to or match the 300 Win Mag you're probably going to take the WSM because it does whereas the psalm does not still a great cartridge it's really not a big deal but once again when it comes to people's making buying decisions we usually want the biggest bang for the buck or what we consider to be the best and when you look at two cartridges and one is just a smidgen fatter than the other and puts out a little bit more velocity and horsepower that's pretty much the one you're going to roll with you know there are a few folks really interested in efficiency and they might go with the one that doesn't burn as much powder but as often as said with these cartridges the game isn't going to know the difference I have taken all kinds of animals with both of these well I take it back with the 300 WSM I've only ever taken one thing I can recall with the psalm and that was an elk and it just happened to absorb four or five rounds at least three before I even knew I was hitting it it was really quite amazing all of the bullets were doing their job doing the damage but it so often happens with long-shot animals they don't necessarily react and this elkshire didn't it was a big bull he just continued standing and or walking until finally the fourth shot I think it was got a reaction out of him he kind of hopped up a bit and moved forward and then he started to wobble and down the hilly game so but I don't think that was any reflection on that short action ultramag because they've shot elk with like 30 out sixes that are even slower than the psalm and got better reactions out of it so uh that's my take on it now is for the prairie dog cartridges I don't do much prairie dog hunting anymore because over the years and we're talking going back into the late 1960s I have just seen so many areas that had prairie dogs now don't and it's another one of these cases of overdoing it and we tended to do that historically with all kinds of wildlife ducks and egrets and and uh all big game be before we established the North American model of wildlife conservation and unsustainable use it was all Market hunting back in the day with basic survival and we certainly don't have to do that anymore these days and in order to maintain Wildlife populations we have to limit the take the problem with prairie dogs that they've always been seen as glorified mice or rats and just as you don't allow mice and rats to run around your house or even your granaries on the farm you probably don't want a bunch of prairie dogs eating up all the grass in your pasture or especially not in your hay fields so they have always been regarded as a pest that should be shot and when there were billions of them I mean they used to say that prairie dog towns extended from the grasslands up in Alberta clear down into Texas almost uninterrupted and the Bison were moving across all of that range and it was quite the ecosystem but it was quite productive and functioning too you know we talk about oh the prairie dogs eat all of the grass and there's nothing left for the livestock well when you're farming and trying to make a living off of it it will make a difference but as far as not being able to support any grazing animals because the prairie dogs ate it all sure didn't seem to stop the Bison they were estimating something like 40 million bison in the Great Plains and they were living cheek to jail with prairie dogs I have seen on Prairie Dog towns quite regularly Pronghorn mule deer I don't know if I've seen any elk on it but that's probably because when I was frequenting in dog towns the elk weren't in that country yet Lewis and Clark certainly found them they just talked about huge herds of elk and mule deer and Whitetail and Pronghorn all in view at once just off the Missouri River in Central South Dakota where I have hunted prairie dogs so I know they were there at the same time but your question isn't about what do I think about prairie dog management your question is about what do you want to shoot them with my favorite prairie dog cartridge is the 17 WSM and or the 17 Winchester super Magnum both of those short little things I enjoy because my idea of a fun prairie dog Hunt is a hunt you know the tradition is to set up with a Long Reach rifle like a 223 or 22 250 something like that and just reaching way out there and making Precision shots at long range but I have found it just way more exciting and entertaining for me to test my hunting abilities my stalking through a prairie dog town now some of them are so flat that you really can't do much stocking but a lot of them are rolly so what I'll do is I'll walk up a rolly Hill and then creep over the top as if I'm stalking Pronghorn and then start picking off close prey dogs and a lot of them will be really close like inside of 100 yards and I will pick a few off that way until they get wise and go underground and then I will move off scouting glassing and up and over the next roll and find a few more and I do understand um ranchers and farmers who are plagued by rodent populations whether they're prairie dogs or the various other ground squirrels and it makes sense to trim those populations not wipe them out but trim them so that the ranchers and Farmers don't have to then poison the prairie dogs and wipe the whole Colony out that's a much bigger issue than shooting a few so nothing wrong with managing a population of rats of various Stripes these are rodents in their rats out in the in the grain fields in productive Fields I mean we don't typically allow Brewing ground squirrels to take over our backyards in Suburbia we think we need a nice Green Lawn and our flowers and our bushes and we won't stand for these things why should we then assume that every farmer and Ranch are out there should allow them in his place okay those are my sermons on the rodents in the grain fields all right next we're going to hear from John from Colorado you've done several 6.5 comparisons sometimes even mentioning the first U.S iteration the 256 Newton it would be fun if you'd include its ballistic potential along with the more modern cartridges it is fairly close to the 6.5 by 284 Norma in case capacity the original 1 in 10 twist limited it to 130 grain bullets my Ruger M77 has a one to eight and a half twist for more versatility I know that you use published data but the only loading manual that I have heard of that included the 256 Newton was the spear hand loader's manual volume one that's going back a ways someone posted the pages so I downloaded a copy the max loadings seem a little warm typical of the day I understand I'm not above a little hyperbole to promote a favorite also typical of the day love your common sense journalism reminds me of my hero the gun editor for outdoor life back in my day well thanks for that John hey that's a good one bringing up the 256 Newton most people don't know about this Newton of course was a really productive and effective cartridge designer back in the turn of the 20th century and his 256 Newton of his I think came out in 1912. he actually had a rifle company for a time they kind of went bankrupt from poor business deals or something I don't know exactly what but he also made say the 22 imp the Savage high power that was his creation I did another one for Savage is escaping me right now but he made a lot of really good effective cartridges ahead of their time and I think the 256 Newton was one of them now this was not a 25 caliber it was a 6.5 so it shot a 0.264 inch diameter bullet he took the 30.6 case shortened it a bit and necked it down to make this so really it was the 6.5 out 6 of today was pretty much what Newton was making then the the full one today is full length 30.6 neck down whereas his was shortened just a bit but boy they come pretty close to the same performance so yeah that would be one be fun to cover if I had a rifle for it the thing with them these old cartridges and rifles is you can't find either one of them to do any work with but if I ever come across an old Newton rifle chamber for that I'd play around with it now what I might do someday when I'm doing another something other about either the 25.6 or some of the 6.5 so like that six five by 284 Norma I can drag the 256 Newton in and pull up its data from the day and maybe even extrapolate what one might be able to do with it today in loading the new powders maybe you'll get a little more efficient load in it so maybe I can pull it in that way I think if I just produced a video on the 256 Newton I wouldn't get a lot of views because most people would go what's this and not even really care so maybe I'm wrong about that let me know folks if if you're interested in the old 256 Newton let me know and I will do some deep research on it and get back to you with a video I mean why not all right uh oh boy we're going to Germany we're gonna go to Germany from Michael is there ever going to be a video about eight millimeter cartridges a good old eight millimeters it seemed like every show somebody brings up eight millimeters this is getting crazy will there ever be a video about eight millimeter cartridges like the 8x57 or the 8x68 millimeter I just watched your video about the best elk cartridges there was no eight millimeter in it in Germany those two rounds are very popular did you skip past it because there are not a lot of hunting rifles Chambers for those two in the U.S exactly right there are not and I have never worked with one but I have been mentioning both quite often here in my recent videos both on this channel in my regular Ron spomor Outdoors YouTube channel because the 857 and of course was the seminal first rimless modern metallic smokeless powder cartridge that was designed by the German military Commission in 1888 and then modified to take a wider bullet in 1905 they went from a 0.318 inch diameter bullet to a 0.323 inch diameter bullet and that became the cartridge that were used in World War one and World War II and of course was extremely popular with German Hunters until I think there was a restriction after World War one that civilians couldn't buy the rifles and or ammunition for the 8x57 so they created the 8x68 if I remember right and that was of course not a military cartridge so it was allowed and that one obviously added more length to the case more powder and you had performance that was equal to or better than the 30.6 so I would guess in Germany the 8x68 is kind of comparable in popularity and performance to the 30 out six over here but exactly as you say Michael because we don't have a commercial hunting rifles from browning Winchester and Ruger and Savage and Mossberg and all the rest of them chambered for that over here we just don't see them it has no reflection on the Iran's efficiency if somebody is liking the idea of a 32 Caliber a little bit bigger bullet than the 30s with about the same ballistics as a 30 odd six definitely something to look for and you might find an old captured or brought back from the war Grandpa Great Grandpa somebody might have brought one back and it's sitting up in the attic looking like an old antique but hey the model 98 Mausers from the German military who were outstanding quality control in those things they're just a beautiful well-built rifle that should still be a shooter so you might find something like that make it a project rifle borderize it or hey just take it out and use it the way it is definitely have it checked out though by a gunsmith certified to make sure there's nothing goofy going on with it but generally those are just dependable highly functional rifles and wonderful smooth bold actions okay there is one other thing about the eight millimeter I did do a standalone video on an eight millimeter and I've mentioned it before in these broadcasts we named the the title of that video if you want to search for it is Mystery deer cartridge is dying so it makes it hard to search for it because we don't have eight millimeter in the title anywhere but we will put the link here for you guys you can go check that one out because that is an All-American eight millimeter that is not very popular and it's dying all right that looks like the end of the question so hey once again we want to thank all of you folks for uh writing in offering your suggestions and your compliments and your questions I hope we had something that was fairly entertaining today if you've got anything that you'd like to add to the program by golly just go to Ron spomeroutdoors.com website there's a comment section up on top hit comment and the Forum will come up and you can send in your question and or correction or comment or request and we'll be happy to entertain it on our next episode of Ron spomer Outdoors podcast on honest and Shoot Straight [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Ron Spomer Outdoors - Podcast

Views: 60,140

Keywords: podcast, hunting podcast, outdoor podcast, outdoor writer, ron spomer, ron spomer outdoors, rso podcast, ron spomer podcast, ron spomer outdoors podcast, Time To Talk About 8mm Cartridges, 8mm, 8mm cartridges, cartridges, 8mm mauser, 8mm hunting, all about 8mm

Id: z6qGwh3YxXQ

Length: 35min 45sec (2145 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 26 2023