[mag]

If you owned and shot several of these , you will find that the bore sizes do vary some [ as on most old military rifles ] . Just looking figures up in books does not help much in the real world . I have 5 of them and the bores range from .314 - .327 to .318 - .330 . So a short bearing surface .321 bullet would shoot really bad in the .318 - .330 rifle as it would be almost a smoothbore with that small of bullet . Even in my tightest .314 - .327 a .321 would be a bad choice when there are so many .323 bullets to pick from . The Hornady .323 170 r n is a good start . The best bullet is a Speer.323 225 r n with a cupped base , they are old so you have to look for them . My larger bore rifles shoot the .329 cast ok . Slug your bore to find where to start .

 

[mag]

The soft jackets found on US made 8mm lead core bullets will not wear out your barrel STEEL . With the deep rifling found on those rifles , even a little wear would not matter . I have many 1880 - 90 's rifles that I shot a lot of full house jacketed loads through and never found any measurable wear . I shot over 300 hot jacketed loads through a M-71 Mauser hunting rifle for load testing and had no wear .