8mm Gibbs

[mclarenross]

Anyone have any experiance with this round? We just bought a nicely sporterized Mauser K98 that had been reamed to 8mm Gibbs. Guy at a pawn shop knew that we reload and offered us the rifle for $200! Ive found out a good deal about the round and it has impressive ballistics. Biggest problem Ive found is that dies are $180 bucks and take 4-6 months to get from RCBS!!! Pretty simple to make, neck 30-06 up to ~35 caliber and then run the case through the 8mm Gibbs die to neck it back down and give it a small shoulder then fire form them. Anyone have a set of dies they wanna get rid of? For the price of the dies I can buy a short chambered new barrel in 30-06 and swap it out.

 

[Charley]

Unless you are absolutely wedded to rcBS, look at CH4D for oddball dies. Excellent quality, and they don't try to rape you on price and delivery like rcBS does. You'll pay more like $80 or so.
Their website is down for the moment, but do check them out

 

[Okierifleman]

Re-barrel it. Why would you want to go through with all of that crap? I dont know the exact case dimensions of the Gibbs, but if you can make it from an 06 case, you might be able to run a 8mm Rem mag reamer through there and have a very nice rifle. You can buy standard RCBS dies, and loading info is everywhere, not to mention the fact you can buy brass!

 

[mclarenross]

I think were gonna rebarrel it to 35 Whealen. I can get the barrel from Midway for $90 and another little bit to rent the reamer and gauges. It will be a fun project.

 

[dee]

Sounds fun I've never heard of the 8mm Gibbs.Is it very powerfull?

 

[mclarenross]

It a neat round. Its 30-06 necked up to .323 with the shoulder moved .150" forward, almost no body taper, and the shoulder angle changed to 40*. Basically Ackley Improved configuration. It was actually made by Gibbs and Ackley working together.

From the load data ive found, it will basically duplicate a 338 Win Mag. 180gr bullets at 3200fps.