[LAWMAX]

I have read a few posts that suggest that the yugo 8mm ammo is junk.
The price that century has on it is making me consider buying a few cases for future use (havent converted the 1919 to 8mm yet).
Anyway should I absolutely avoid it or are there some manufacturers barrels that tend to run it better than others? If so who's is the best? I can deal with a few minor problems just don't want to damage the equipment or myself.
Any suggestions?
**Sorry if this question has already been answered several times. If it has please direct me to the thread.
Thanks.

 

[Mark Genovese]

I have personally shot sixty thousand rounds and have another sixty downstairs, I love this stuff.

Mark

 

[loboslanding]

Don't buy that stuff...you're wasting your money. Century only has a certain amount remaining to sell. If you buy it there won't be enough of that terrible stuff left for me to shoot more thousands of rounds of and the 45,000 rounds I have will eventually be gone. Don't buy, please.

 

[Chopper28]

Lobo,
Seriously what is the lowdown on the 1950 Yugo stuff. I have heard praises and horror stories. I would hate to blow a top cover on a perfectly running FA 1919 by trying to save a few bucks on ammo. On the other hand it is on sale at a great price. As we say at the hospital it is risk vs. benifit. What is your honest opinion Thanks.
[email protected]

 

[041x]

From what I read it all depends on the barrel you use. Ammunition Store barrels work good with yugo. I run only romy because I haven't read about anybody getting hurt with romy rounds yet.

 

[BEFU]

Yugo use

OK, we know not to use yugo with John M's barrels. I guess I will save that one for use with Romanian.

Yugo is cheap, but longer bullet can cause problems. If you shoot yugo 8mm out of a 1919, what barrels are currently available that will work with it? Are the ammunition store barrels the only ones to get?

Thanks,

Brian

 

[loboslanding]

My guns (1919 and '28) love Turk and Yugo and with no incident (so far thank the Lord). Right or wrong and it can be debated until the cows come home, but I contribute most blown covers to headspace first and barrel second. There is no other logical reason why one shooter can fire 1000's of rounds of Yugo with no incident and another person shooting the same stuff has 3 blown covers. Also, why is it we never hear of a bolt action Mauser blowing up with Yugo? Because the headspace is correct or at least close enough. If the ammo alone was bad it would be blowing up bolt guns too.

Why have I been lucky so far you ask?

#1, I know how to headspace for it.
#2, I know how to headspace for it.
#3, I know how to headspace for it.
#4, I use barrels that will shoot it.
#5, I make sure my breach block cam screw is backed off so when the gun gets hot the bolt still locks up good before dropping the firing pin, preventing out-of-battery ignitions.
#6, I make sure the left rear feed guide is removed so that no cocked rounds on the feed tray can be accidentally banged rearward into the edge of the feed guide resulting in a feed tray ignition from a primer striking the feed guide (8mm front cart stops vary greatly in thickness which can cause this to happen). Look at the sharp edge on the inboard end of the feed guide in the photo below...with the guide removed the primer can't bang into anything sharp in that area. In my opinion, 308 doesn't have a problem because it's better ammo and the front stop is made more accurately.

If you have a John M. barrel that you are sure has a long chamber, take it to a smitty, along with another barrel that shoots Yugo, and have the chamber reamed so that the round protrudes from the rear the same in both barrels. I have two of John's barrels and they will be going to Cole's gun shop, along with my ammunitionstore barrel as a model, to be reamed. John has already told me that there is no problem in doing that. I have 45k of the Yugo and the small investment in getting John's barrels reamed to work with it is miniscule in comparison to the ammo savings. There is nothing wrong with John's barrels, they are chambered to SAAMI specs...unfortunately, Yugo and Turk ammo is no respecter of any standard.

If anyone needs a dollars and cents justification for buyng and having John's barrels reamed to shoot Yugo, here's the economics:
Rommy at 9 cents per round - Yugo at 5 cents per round = 4 cents savings per round
Cost to ream a barrel $35 +/-
$35 divided by 4 cents savings = payback in just 875 rounds

John's chrome lined barrels will likely go 40 to 60k before being shot out and an ammunitionstore barrel is probably good for 15k so the math speaks for itself. When I get John's barrels reamed I will never have to buy another 8mm 1919 barrel for the rest of my life.

For my '28 water cooled, I have my barrels made from 8mm Mauser barrels by one of the machinists on this site and we all know a Mauser barrel has a chamber that will digest anything.

One more caution, the Yugo will sometimes have deep seated primers so you need a firing pin with like new protrusion. Do a search on the old site and you'll see all kinds of stuff on how to do a little filing on the fp to get it right if you have a problem...or post the question on this forum and you'll get a refresher course.

My .02 for what it's worth.

But, pleeeeeeeeeease, save all the Yugo for me.

 

[BEFU]

Thank you

Lobo, thank you very much.

Spelled out on the barrel, that is the main question I guess. Also listing a source and price estimate for the reaming helps.

One of the reasons I got John's barrel is the chrome lining. Have a friend that shoots turk in his 1919 and man the rifleing and throat is gone on that barrel. Shoots about a 2'+ pattern at 100 yards.

Now, if it is reamed out will that effect the life of the barrel at that point? Chrome is not very thick, I would think that would change the life or is it not a problem. I figure the reamer is going to take out the first little bit of the rifling and change the depth of the chamber. From what I understand, this is the problem with the Turk and yugo ammo.

Saving 4.5 cents per round also makes it real feasible to just buy an ammunition store barrel also. If you are going to play with these things, you are going to pay one way or another.

Brian

 

[loboslanding]

Yes, the rifling is the alleged problem...can't say if barrel life will be shortend or not. John said it would do "no harm" so that's all I can offer up.

You will buy 3 or 4 ammostore barrels to one of John's. Which means over the life of John's barrel you'll save about $300 to $450. Which at a nickel a round means your shooting about 6000 to 9000 rounds for free over the life of John's barrel.

At the suggestion of one of our members, I'm contacting Cole's Gun Shop to get a price for reaming the chambers. If there's enough interest, guys can ship them their barrel and they can ream it. I'll be giving them my two and a correctly reamed barrel so the reaming will be consistent. I'll let anyone know the price if interested.

 

[loboslanding]

Update on the JM barrels

I'm just sticking this over here for general info from another thread.

"There has been concern expressed over the ability of John's barrels to properly chamber 8mm surplus Yugo. We all know that John's work is second to none and I was having difficulty understanding the problem.

I have two new barrels from John that I got about 6 months ago and several ammunitionstore barrels. In an effort to understand for myself what the issue is I pulled some Yugo and Turk 8mm ammo and checked the chambers in both of John's barrels VS an ammunitionstore barrel with about 2k rounds thru it. I firmly seated the rounds in each chamber and measured the cartridge protrusion out the rear of the chamber.

Here's the results:
Yugo
John - 0.130
Ammostore - 0.138

Turk
John - 0.124
Ammostore - 0.131

I pulled the ammo and rotated it and reinserted it to make sure of accuracy in my sampling and it was consistent.

Both of John's barrels measured exactly the same which is testimony to his accuracy.

According to these measurements, John's barrels have MORE chamber depth than the ammunitionstore barrel after 2k rounds...John's barrels should run the 8mm Yugo. I see no need to do anything to these two barrels. If my gun won't feed using his barrels then it will be my problem in how I'm headspacing it.

Anyone having his barrels is welcome to post their measurements to compare them to mine.

As for me, I'm going to comfortably shoot the snot out of them."

 

[Abwehr]

Lobo,

As always, you can be depended upon to provide a great answer to many problems..... HEADSPACE, HEADSPACE, HEADSPACE! Then check again.

 

[LAWMAX]

Ordered the Yugo today

Thanks for the information, especially regarding the barrels.
I ordered a few cases today...not quite the quantities some of you fellas are ordering but its a start.

 

[Ptmetals]

8mm

Wait till you receive the ammo and start opening the boxes and brass fever from all that shiny brass. You will buy more and more. Then you will know what is was like to have gold fever but a little cheaper. After a few orders you wont be able to stop.

 

[loboslanding]

I spent Saturday re-arranging my garage to make room for the 23 cases enroute. It also gave me incentive to label everything out there so I can find the 30-06, 50 cal, 7.62x25 and 7.62x54R when I need them instead of stacking a ton of 8mm on top of them.

 

[autodoc]

Ain't that the truth! I use a grease pencil on the ammo cans/crates, labels tend to fall off.

It's amazing how heavy it all is, and how fast it build up (and goes!!).

 

[loboslanding]

Yeah, a Sharpie marker is my weapon of choice. I guess having so much ammo that you can't tell what you have is a good problem to have .

I also recently ordered a ton of 7.62x39 since it's now available again.

 

[Shattered]

This is part of the pile that cracked the infamous garage floor slab in Connecticut....360 cases of Chinese copper washed steel cased 308. This is what 432,000 rounds of 308 looked like as we picked it up from Navy Arms in New Jersey. Here's hoping the pic takes.

 

[Shattered]

ehhh...not too bad a pic. Lets try another...

 

[cal50]

NICE!!!
Thats my kind of garage.

 

[loboslanding]

Weeeeedoggie Jethro...that's a lot of kaboom!!!

My little piddly 23 cases arrived yesterday and now I'm too emabarrassed to post a photo after seeing shattereds pic .