By Chuck Hawks
This obsolete number is based on one of the strangest looking bottle neck cases I have ever seen, yet the French relied on it for 50 years as a colonial power and through the First World War, which they won, with a lot of help from their friends. The French do things differently, and that applies to rifles and rifle cartridges as well as warships and movies!
The 8mm Lebel (based on the earlier 11mm Gras necked down to accept .323" bullets) marks the beginning of the period of the small bore military cartridges designed for use with smokeless powder. It was the first of the breed, introduced in 1886.
The original bullet was a 232 grain flat nose, flat base design (Balle M). This was sensible, as the bolt action M1886 Lebel rifle adopted for the cartridge used a tubular magazine! Including a cartridge in the chamber, this rifle could hold 10 rounds.
In 1890, the French began changing the feeding system of the Lebel rifle. A new carbine, the M90 Berthier, was adopted with an internal box magazine that was filled with an en bloc clip that held three cartridges. Cartridges and clip were shoved into the receiver together. The new clip forced the previous (empty) clip out the bottom of the action. Without a clip to hold the cartridges, the rifle could only be fed one cartridge at a time, directly into the chamber. This system was subsequently used in the 07-15 (3-shot) and M16 (5-shot) rifles, and the M16 carbine. All of these, including the original Model 1886, saw service in WW I.
In 1898 the French again started a trend by introducing a 198 grain spitzer boat-tail bullet for the 8mm Lebel (the "Balle D"--named for Colonel Desaleux). This begot all of the spitzer boat-tail military bullets that followed. To the present day military cartridges are bottle neck small bores designed for smokeless powder that shoot spitzer (usually boat-tail) bullets. But nothing made today looks like the 8x50R Lebel. In fact, despite its pioneering role, the Lebel looked obsolete even when it was new.
The famous Balle D load drove its 198 grain spitzer bullet at a muzzle velocity (MV) of 2380 fps with 2481 ft. lbs. of muzzle energy (ME). That does not sound particularly exciting today, but before the turn of the 20th Century it was a very potent load. Basically, for military or sporting purposes, the 8mm Lebel is similar in performance to the .303 British and .30-40 Krag cartridges. It is not quite the ballistic equal of the 8x57mm JS Mauser or .30-06 Springfield, but it is not too far behind.
Here is some European ballistic data contributed by Didier Mottay, aGuns and Shooting Onlinereader. First, the original "M" load (232 grain flat nose bullet):