8mm Lebel load data?

[Tommie]

Just bumped into a fella who was asking about load data for the Lebel. Said he has 2 vintage rifles. He has brass and dies but has no clue where to start on load data. I found nothing in PO Ackley’s books. Found bits of info online but nothing real to go on. I’d be stunned if anyone here loads for this ancient cartridge but ya never know. Anybody have any ideas?

 

[Zero333]

Where is he gonna find .327" bullets ???

Lee makes a 205 gr cast for lead bullets in .329" which should work good as long as it's hard cast and you don't push them to the max. somewhere around 40 gr would get it going around 2,000 fps. A little fast for cast. But with H-4895 he can start around 34 - 35 gr of H-4895

Or he can try 205 gr Hornady .330" Jacketed SP with H-4895 or Varget.
Very safe Max with H-4895 would be in the area of 45 gr and can start at 35 gr.
Same mid pressure load with Varget would be around 46 gr and could start at like 42 gr.

Woodleigh makes .330" FMJ 250 gr as well.

Let us know what bullets he's able to get or already has and what powders he has on hand. That will solve a lot of guessing. And who knows about bullet availability to begin with. I know in Europe they make .327"- .328" bullets. But good luck importing them.

 

[Tommie]

Yeah I told the guy about the .327” bullet situation. He seemed to have that covered - dunno how.

 

[Kurz]

Graf & Sons has the ammunition for sale.

 

[jsn]

Free:

CHARGE TABLE FOR 8MM LEBEL

Needs subscription:

Reloading Data 8mm Lebel (Lee Precision Data) Metallic

8mm Lebel (Lee Precision Data) reloading data with 70 loads. Using bullets from Jacketed. Powders include Accurate, Alliant, IMR, Winchester

loaddata.com

There seems to be some disagreement regarding bore size, might be a good idea to double check it with a soft lead slug.

8x50r lebel load data for berthier and lebel rifles

I have two rifles in 8x50r a 1916 berthier long rifle and a lebel. Currently Im shouting surpluss ammo from 1948 I managed to stumble across. However I now have components to reload and am looking for load data for it. The projectile is a 200gr fmj .327 bullet and I am hoping to use Vn140...

castboolits.gunloads.com

 

[mace2364]

Prvi Partizan makes the proper bullets, and Grafs has them. For some reason they’re listed with the rest of the 8mm bullets. The ppu catalog number for them is B-417.

Data for 8mm lebel is tricky. There is not a lot out there and a chunk of it is based on .323 bullets-so you probably shouldn’t just use it as is. I know I used IMR 3031 for at least one of my loads, but I’m not next to my data. So I’m not going to venture a guess as to what the charge weight was.

I’ve also seen people use both types of 4895.

There is a portion of a book out there, that’s been translated to English. It has w bunch of good info in it. But you also have to figure out what the European powders are labeled as here.

I did come up with a plinking load using cast bullets over unique.