8mm Mauser Point of Impact

I'm not an expert, but have some experience with a Yugo M1924. Mine likes the Lee bullet, preferably with the gas check--GSs are available from Midway USA--and sized .325. Without the GC there is,apparently, too much room in the area of the chamber neck and leade between the bullet base and the surrounding steel. If not using a copper/gilding metal GC, a friend with a Persian 8mm uses CF Ventures' wax gas checks.

I cast from straight WW dropped into water, then lube sized in a Lyman 450. The top punch is one I made from a Lyman of similar shape. I took a bullet with a perfectly flat base, coated the nose with a little grease, then with bullet and nose punch in the lube sizer, making sure there was no lube on the base pin to set the bullet cockeyed, I put a SMALL amount of paste expoxy in the nose punch cavity and let the ram down so the bullet nose pressed its shape into epoxy. After the epoxy set up, I cleaned up the squeeze out and now have a fitted top punch.

My best loads have been 23.0-25.0 of SR4759. 29.0 of Reloader 7 is also excellent. The Lyman manual's loads of AA 5744 are OK, as is 10.5-11.0 of Titegroup, but the above listed are better. With the better loads I get 3"-4” groups at 100 with the issue sights. The same as with jacketed.

I also take care to NOT seat bullets too deeply, even though it leaves the crimping groove above the case mouth.

My eye-balls are well-used over 6 decades, so they need some help. So I have done 2 sight modifications. First thing I tried was to put some black epoxy on either side of the front sight blade so that, instead of an inverted V it was more like a wide vertical line. Then I filed it on either side until it was about .10 inch wide. The V notch on the rear sight was next. With a small, thin mill file, I filed the rear sight notch square. The effect of all of this was to give a Patridge style sight picture. With the loads mentioned above, I could use a 6 o'clock hold at 100 yards with the rear sight elevation slider set at 400 to get bullet strikes just above the front sight. For better sights on a budget, the above system is quite good. However, unless you have spares of the sights, it is a more or less permanent modification.

My latest permanent modification is with a Brownell's replacement blade style front sight and a Williams 5D receiver sight. The aperture style rear is my preference on any rifle. I cranked the elevation on the Williams sight down 'til there is about the thickness of 2 playing cards between the sight base and the arm that carries the aperture. (I wanted to have some downward adjustment left if I ever switched to jacketed loads which are hotter than the CBs I prefer.) Then I filed the front blade down until it was on at 100 yds with the loads mentioned above. I also filed the front blade so the side-on profile is similar to the GI original, i.e. lower at the front and higher at the back. Groups are a bit smaller, but also much easier to achieve with the latest sighting equipment.

DISCLAIMER: My Yugo M1924 is not a collector piece, so by improving its shooting qualities I have done no violence to history. It is in really fine condition with a smooth, bright bore and most of the original outside finish on the metal. The stock was dirty, but cleaned up very well. I lengthened and refinished the stock and was able to preserve the Yugo cartouche stamped into the right side of the butt. It had no real dings until it got knocked out of the rack the other day. It is one of the better Yugos and was among the first imported into the US. I bought it about 20+ years ago for $89.00 plus tax at a Rose's Discount Department Store in NC.