Mannlicher M95 8x50R shooting over the top of the target frame at 50 yds - 1936 Bulgarian military ammo

[cohenmj660]

I tried replying to similar threads but I'm new to the forum and i haven't earned my wings yet I guess. Even when i set the rear sight to 300 Schritte, my 30" barrel rifle shoots very high, maybe 12-18" above POA. And I'm running out of the old military cartridges. Yes, when i reload using a modified Lyman 323378 244 gr. RN cast bullet I can get the POI to match up with the POA using the 500 Schritte setting, but only when i load them down to about 24 gr IMR-3031 and get a velocity of ~1200 fps. When I go to 100 yds I can't find any hits. Any suggestions out there? BTW the way i modified the Lyman mould was to carefully dremel out the parts where the two bearing bands are formed to about 0.335" and then size/lube them down to 0.330 (with gas checks).

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[thorborg]

If your loading to 1200fps your just over half of a normal load of around 2000, considering the bullet weighs around 225 gr no wonder it is not on target @ 100 yards, its likely barely spitting it out in the dirt in front of it. Unless, 160 gr or so which could be @ that speed you didn't mention its weight.
Best to find a ballistic chart on line to see what trajectory should look like for the weight your using. If a 225 gr lead, it makes quite an arc especially a round nose.
load to spec for the projectile, move up your target to 25 yards, bore sight it point blank, try a round see where it goes if not there use a larger backing to the target till you find it, work from there. By the way 7.62X54 can be reformed by fire forming with a light load to 8X50R.

 

[bcp]

I suspect it has the wrong front sight. You need a taller one. Maybe build it up with epoxy to find the right height, then buy or make one that height. Or a welder could add more than enough, then you can file it down to the correct height.

M95 carbine sights

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Source for tall M95 front sight blades?

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Bruce

 

[gmerkt]

I suspect it has the wrong front sight. You need a taller one.

This. I used to shoot 8x56R, this was a typical problem with those rifles. A couple of mine I replaced the front sight with a Mauser front sight sold by Brownell's, that fixed the problem. Tall enough that it might need a mite of filing. I think when the Austrians and later the Bulgarians rebuilt these rifles, front sight equipment was pretty much at random. I've seen short rifles and carbines with varietal front sights. As to any of them having a low front sight, it wasn't very realistic to figure on these being effective at 1,000 yards or more.

 

[Xaevian]

So, let me get this straight: when you set the sight for 300 paces on a rifle that lobs heavy bullets at a very pedestrian speed, you are hitting high? At what distance, 100 yds, yes? 12-18" high at 100 sounds about right, actually.

 

[Lilhigbee]

So, let me get this straight: when you set the sight for 300 paces on a rifle that lobs heavy bullets at a very pedestrian speed, you are hitting high? At what distance, 100 yds, yes? 12-18" high at 100 sounds about right, actually.

This!! Jeannie bought a Swedish Mauser with the original sights on it. Took it to one of our military rifle shoots and it was hitting about 10" high at 100 yards with the sights set at their lowest setting, 300 meters. Bought a tall front sight and filed it until it was correct at 100 yards.

 

[cohenmj660]

If your loading to 1200fps your just over half of a normal load of around 2000, considering the bullet weighs around 225 gr no wonder it is not on target @ 100 yards, its likely barely spitting it out in the dirt in front of it. Unless, 160 gr or so which could be @ that speed you didn't mention its weight.
Best to find a ballistic chart on line to see what trajectory should look like for the weight your using. If a 225 gr lead, it makes quite an arc especially a round nose.
load to spec for the projectile, move up your target to 25 yards, bore sight it point blank, try a round see where it goes if not there use a larger backing to the target till you find it, work from there. By the way 7.62X54 can be reformed by fire forming with a light load to 8X50R.

Thanks so much for the feedback. I guess I neglected to include a number of details. First, the target is only 50 yards away. I've clocked the vintage military loads (8x50r 1936 Bulgarian headstamp, 244 gr RN steel-jacketed bullet with the Pb core exposed at the base). Since these old vintage cartridges are so rare I only shot two, 1 at 2013 and the other at 2032 FPS (maybe 15' from the muzzle). These both hit the target, but were close to 12" high when the rear sight was set to the lowest, 300 paces. I guess that makes sense. Does anyone know what the point blank setting is on these old girls? If it's when the ladder is down (i.e., 500 schritte) it would seem that the designers of the gun expected there to be quite a bit of bullet drop over that distance. That could explain why at 50 yds, even with the sight set for 300 schritte, the POI would be quite high. Is that correct, that these rifles were set up for 500 paces? Does anyone have a ballistics chart for the vintage 244 gr. RN cartridges? Maybe 12-18" bullet drop mat 500 schritte makes sense?

 

[cohenmj660]

So, let me get this straight: when you set the sight for 300 paces on a rifle that lobs heavy bullets at a very pedestrian speed, you are hitting high? At what distance, 100 yds, yes? 12-18" high at 100 sounds about right, actually.

Yes, that's about right...I think. I set the target at 50 yards and for the longest time i couldn't even find the hits. I didn't realize that I was shooting over the top of the frame.

 

[Xaevian]

Schritte means steps or paces. A pace was about 30" in the US. 300 paces=750'.

See why they invented the metric system?

 

[cohenmj660]

OK...here's another dumb question for you all out there. I have two of these M95 rifles, both with the 30" regular infantry barrel. One was converted to 8x56r (the "S" stamp on the top) and the other not. Now I know that they had a special rear sight for the schutzen (carbine) version of this gun, but the rear sights of my two long guns are identical, even though the ballistics (i.e., bullet drop over distance) should be vastly different between the two cartridges. How is it possible that the sights were not modified when the conversion to 8x56r was made...or is this one of the reasons they lost WWII?

 

[gmerkt]

OK...here's another dumb question for you all out there. I have two of these M95 rifles, both with the 30" regular infantry barrel. One was converted to 8x56r (the "S" stamp on the top) and the other not. Now I know that they had a special rear sight for the schutzen (carbine) version of this gun, but the rear sights of my two long guns are identical, even though the ballistics (i.e., bullet drop over distance) should be vastly different between the two cartridges. How is it possible that the sights were not modified when the conversion to 8x56r was made...or is this one of the reasons they lost WWII?

My opinion, I don't think there was a lot of science involved in the physical conversion of these rifles. Remember, just before WW1 broke out, the Austrians were about to convert to a Mauser rifle design. They kept the M95 Mannlicher out of expedience and economy. As the war dragged on, they were committed to making more and more of an obsolete design. Then they lost the war. Then the Depression came along. So when is was deemed necessary to update the cartridge, they came up with the 8x56R which was an improvement over the original 8x50R but still a compromise. But the obsolete rifle was retained out of the needs of economy, and I'm guessing that the conversions were done on the same basis. Cheaply.

Re. the long rear sight on the long rifle, I've seen three different versions of that. Meaning, the same long sight with different range markings. So maybe at some point, there was an attempt to regulate them. The same long sight is found on some converted short rifles, as well as those with carbine sights. The short versions, call them what you will, short rifle, carbine, Stutzen, in my mind these are all the same basic thing except for furniture.

Economy can call the tune. The Hungarians also converted the M95 WW1 legacy rifles to 8x56R circa 1930/31. They decided to ditch the obsolete design and adopt the 35M, another Mannlicher design but a turn bolt. Production of the 35M didn't begin until 1938. But in the interests of economy, they retained the 8x56R cartridge. No doubt they still had stacks of 8x56R ammo remaining. They didn't convert to 7.92x57 until 1943.

 

[gmerkt]

Now I know that they had a special rear sight for the schutzen (carbine) version of this gun, but the rear sights of my two long guns are identical, even though the ballistics (i.e., bullet drop over distance) should be vastly different between the two cartridges. How is it possible that the sights were not modified when the conversion to 8x56r was made..

One more thing. Considering the smattering of sighting "systems" on these rifles, standardization didn't really happen. I think it was more up to the individual soldier to determine actual range settings by knowing his own rifle. And consider the soldiers these obsolete rifles were issued to. Bulgaria is about the only country that used the M95 as a front line arm in WW2. And their participation in the war was to grab chunks of land from weak neighboring states like Greece and Yugoslavia. When the Soviets rolled up to Bulgaria in 1944, the Bulgarians folded the next day. The M95 was used by various partisan groups, police formations, Italian native troops in east Africa, etc., but hardly worthy of being called a decisive, contributory weapon.