Like the 8mm caliber, want something off-beat?
When thinking about great bolt-action battle rifles, one which always comes to the fore is the venerated 8mm German Mauser, the model 98k, also commonly referred to as the 8 x 57mm Mauser. However, there is a somewhat lesser known, but very interesting 8mm battle rifle, known as the 8 x 56R Steyr-Mannlicher.
The 8 x 56R cartridge (the “R” designation denotes a rimmed cartridge, as opposed to rimless) started out as the 8 x 50R, the standard cartridge for the old Austro-Hungarian empire, promulgated by Ferdinand von Mannlicher in the Model 1888 Steyr-Mannlicher rifle (Steyr was the name of the Austrian arms factory where production took place).
The 8 x 50R was a black powder cartridge, however, and around 1893 smokeless powder really began to catch on. As an interesting aside in that matter, Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders ran into Model 93 Spanish Mausers during the Spanish-American War of 1898, and Roosevelt was frustrated by the fact his troops had great difficulty in locating the enemy due to the lack of tell-tale smoke from their rifles. The superior Model 93 Mausers led directly to the development of the 1903 Springfield rifle, and the demise of the then-standard U.S. military’s .30-40 Krag-Jorgenson, and the Springfield trapdoor rifles in use by volunteer troops.
But I digress.
The Austrian army decided that the new smokeless powder meant a new rifle was in order to accommodate it. Enter the Model 95 (M95) Steyr-Mannlicher. The M95 was designed to fire the more powerful smokeless powder, and it retained a very interesting feature of the Model ’88: a straight-pull bolt action. The bolt was so fast acting that German soldiers who used this rifle later in WWII called it the Ruck-Zuck, German for “very-quick.”
I own an M95 and I can tell you, it is indeed a very fast bolt-action, but takes a little getting used to when one is used to a lifting-style bolt. The rifle is loaded using a 5-round en bloc clip that is pressed into the magazine well from the top (think M1 Garand). The bottom of the magazine well is open, so that when the last round is fed into the chamber, the clip drops free and the rifle is ready to be reloaded after the last round is fired. This system has one serious drawback, however: an open feeding system on a battle rifle is not a good idea, and the rifle was prone to mud, rain, and general battlefield guck fouling the mechanism.
After 1930, most of these 8 x 50R rifles were converted to the more powerful 8 x 56R, and many were issued to second-line German troops in WWII. Those that have been converted have a large letter “S” stamped into the top of the receiver. Those that lack it are still in 8 x 50R caliber.
My Model 95 is actually a M95-34 variant, in carbine configuration, and I can tell you that at about seven pounds, recoil is stout. Ammunition is a little tricky to find, but I have purchased some WWII military ammo (manufactured in 1938) and it shoots just fine, and I believe Prvi Partizan occasionally produces fresh ammo (the typical load is 208 grain).
If you like the 8mm caliber, want something a little off-beat, and are willing to dedicate a little time to gun auction sites and gun shows, the M95 Steyr-Mannlicher might just be your ticket.
Mark Heino can be reached at finncop@outlook.com