www.MG42.us

I fixed my ejector problem. My brass was always beat beyond recognition until I rounded the edge of my buffer to more closely resemble the Yugo design. Now, the brass ejects cleanly and with no "dents of death". Food for thought for those that have mentioned seriously dented brass. I am pretty sure there is a slight offset in the rear piece when I welded it, and that was causing my buffer problems.

I observed that the spring literally "popped out" of the spring carrier with the original "shallow" notch that I made, which simply wasn't enough to hold the spring in place. I cut a deeper notch for the spring, and now the spring stays in position. The deeper spring recess in the bolt carrier keeps the front of the spring from flexing off to the side, which was causing the spring to physically impede the path of the carrier.

The rounded buffer, along with a deeper spring recess in the bolt carrier, has completely eliminated my ejection issues. Yippe!


OK... I was against reloading for the MG42 until now. The brass was getting damaged beyond belief when the ejector wasn't being activated, and after reading other people's problems, I assumed it would not be worth even trying to salvage the brass. But now, since my build *appears* to be easy on the brass, I'm re-evaluating the benefits of reloading 8mm.


Has anyone reloaded for their MG builds? I'm curious how much work it was and how much life you get out of brass.


I think collecting the components will be the biggest hurdle, because brass and bullets are really hard to find. Powder and primers are a no-brainer. Bullets are almost certainly going to be a new buy, and I can not see myself casting 8mm bullets. I'd consider swaging my own but that is a bunch of work.

Brass seems to be the *really* hard thing to find. New brass seems absolutely outrageous in price, at least for now. I can see buying a little bit here and there with other orders, but just going out to buy 500 pieces of new brass is going to hurt. Once fired brass is something I have a hard time with. My range access is limited, so range scrounging for brass is hit and miss. I have found only 9 pieces of 8mm brass since I started looking a year ago Gun Show finds are not always cheap and really hit or miss. I lucked out a few times, but typically there just isn't any 8mm brass to be found. Lots of 223 however.

My thought is to get a 308 conversion and then the issues with getting reloading supplies goes away. It may be cheaper in the long run. I have reloaded 8mm for my 98 and Hakin, both of which have a much smaller consumption of ammo.
Another factor S/A weapons require a stricter QA on the ammo reloading because of the lack of feedback when the round is chambered. If the round is not fully chambered you would not know it in a S/A unlike a bolt action, and if the bolt isn't fully locked nothing good can happen from that. Just a couple of thoughts.

I shoot .308 mostly, but I do reload 8mm. Brass fired once from a rifle is fine for reloading for the 42. Rifles don't stress the brass like the MG. If you buy new brass, you'll be able to load it 3 times. After that, carefully look at the sidewalls of the brass for stress lines. Anything that has a faint dark streak in it goes in the brass bucket for scrap. Load it again with the faint dark streak in it, and the case will split. After 4 loadings it goes into the scrap bucket. About half gives 3 loads, and half 4 loads before it all goes to the recycler.

The MG42 doesn't give the brass time to shrink before it's being yanked out of the chamber. It stresses the brass quite a bit. Bolt action rifles give the brass time to shrink, and 5 loadings is average.

When I was looking for a reloading press, I asked everyone that wanted to sell me their's what they were going to get. They all said a Dillon. I figured I'd save myself the expense, and just buy the Dillon press to start with. The guy I bought it from lost one of the little pieces, and when I called Dillon to ask how much to replace it, they said "No charge". I didn't even pay for postage! You can't beat that kind of service, and press works great. They even have a video to watch that shows you how to do everything, so you don't have to rely on some doofus who thinks he knows all about reloading (when he doesn't).

I bought dies for .308, 8mm, .30-06, .45 auto, and .223. Just swap the plate they mount on, and swap the powder dispenser, and you can change calibers in minutes. You'll need a powder scale, a case trimmer, a primer pocket cleaner, and a vibrating brass cleaner too, but it's all on ebay at a good price if you're patient. And if you decide later to sell everything, it's a Dillon. You'll get very close to what you paid for it when you sell it, so there's no loss there. The other presses are plentiful and cheap because anyone serious wants to trade up to something better. Start with the good one, and you won't have an old press wasting your money as it rusts on the shelf.

Save yourself a little aggravation, and spend the extra bucks for Dillon dies, too. (Experience talking there.) Figuring the cost of bullets, powder, primers, and brass, and the fact that you can get 3 shots from 1 brass, I had 8mm figured out to under 25 cents a shot. Is it 8 cents a shot? No, but nothing else is anymore either. The cheap stuff is gone, and it's not coming back.

A little experimentation with loads, and you can find exactly how much powder you need to run the gun, without wasting powder or beating the gun to death. I use 44.5 grains of Hodgdon BLC-2 for 8mm. My 42 runs great with it.

Thanks for the advice! I am still wondering how much I'll be shooting 8mm if it mis-treats the brass like that. Maybe I'll just sell all my 8mm stuff and stick with .308 (rolls eyes).

I have Hornady reloading gear and really like it. I have the auto-feed press and its really nice.

Wanted to share this deal - not sure how good of a deal it is but here goes:

http://www.brassmanbrass.com/monthlyspecials.html

New PMC brass:
8mm MAUSER $200.00 per 1000 shipped, $105.00 per 500 shipped

It is listed as a "monthly" special so I don't know if that means it is over tomorrow or not. Too bad I'm tapped out just before the holidays