d'Artagnan
Active Member
Somebody was kind enough to leave me some Romanian 8x57 steel cases headstamped 22 over 73 (Sadu 1973) at the AGC range. I use cases like this to show people how to pop out Berdan primers with the RCBS Berdan decapping tool. There were enough cases, however, to experiment with reloading them. Coincidentally, I recently reloaded some German 1935-dated Polte brass 8x57 cases and was still set up for 8x57. The Berdan primers came out normally and weren't crimped in. Initially I sized the well-lubricated (including inside neck) cases like brass cases but most wouldn't chamber in my 1915 Gew98. After playing with the die, I found I had to screw it down another 1/2 turn past where it contacts the shellholder, in order to size them properly. At the same time I noted multiple resizings caused the case mouths to split. The Romanian cases are rather short so (thankfully) didn't need to be trimmed. I chamfered the inside of the case mouth but not the outside, and primed them with Tula-brand KV-7.62N Berdan primers. The 1935 Polte cases I loaded with 49.0-gr IMR3031 and a Hornady 150-gr soft point but the Romanian cases only held 47.0-gr IMR 3031 under the same bullet. Nonetheless, the mv of the Polte rounds averaged 2829fps and the Romanian rounds 2790fps; not much of a difference and I could not feel a difference in the recoil. A comparison of group size might be useful but after firing two Romanian rounds the wind blew over my target backer. Having no interest in reloading them again, I did, however, size them again to see if the case mouths would split -- they did not nor did they require trimming. So it seems these cases are reloadable at least twice. Note: I've read that both the Polte and Romanian primers were corrosive but I saw no evidence of that -- no corrosion, no rust. Nonetheless, I did clean my Gew98 first with Windex with ammonia D, then again with Butch's Bore Shine.
