I know we have members that can tell me exactly what I have here. The old paper labels are long gone and my memory is faulty.

I do know it is probably 8mm mauser.

Thanks for any help.

7.92mm Mauser most likely.

"7.9 Metaka"

Yes, But how many? and from where?

Yugoslavia perhaps. 900 round crates for sale on SG Ammo that look much like it.

http://www.sgammo.com/product/...9-spec-brass-case-co

Looks very similar . Thanks

It is sealed up and I'm loathe to open it and let all that 1950's air out.

Yep, 1953 Yugoslavian 8mm Mauser ammo.

I have several thousand rounds of 1940s and 1950s Yugo surplus 8mm from back when it was stupid cheap in the early-to-mid 2000s. It's decent for the most part. Some will have hard primers, and require a second strike (on a Mauser 98 that involves lifting the bolt handle to recock then back down and try the trigger again). And it's corrosive, so clean accordingly. But it's way better than the crappy (and borderline unsafe) Turkish 8mm surplus that was available at the same time.

If you can ever get your hands on some of the 1990s Yugoslavian surplus that came into the US in small batches a decade or two back, that's the best surplus 8mm ammo I've tried. Some batches were noncorrosive too. I have about 500 rounds of that left, which I hoard like a dragon.

Way back in the 1960s it was under a dime a round. A gun shop in Norwood, OH would sell whatever it was for under dime a round. I cleansed my closet of the guns and all the ammo by 1970. I don't remember any of it misfiring.