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Blaser R8

About the Blaser

Blaser Jagdwaffen GmbH was founded in 1957 by Horst Blaser in Isny im Allgäu, a town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was then taken over in 1986 by the company’s master gunsmith, Gerhart Blenk. Since its beginning, the company has specialized in high-quality hunting rifles. In 1993, Blaser developed a straight-pull bolt-action hunting rifle, Blaser R93, with which they achieved great success in Europe. By 2016 – when the R93 model was discontinued and replaced by Blaser R8 – they had produced more than 200,000 R93 rifles. In 1997, they merged with Sigarms but remained autonomous in their rifle production, and in 1999 they began distribution of their rifles to the USA.

Blaser has revolutionized the way riflescopes are mounted on rifles by introducing a unique mounting system, called the Blaser Saddle. They were one of the first rifle manufacturing companies that introduced a barrel-mounting system. Most Blaser rifles are made with the same barrel mounting surface with four notches. Today, their rifle products include Blaser R8, combination guns, single-shot rifles, and shotguns. They have also started designing and producing binoculars in 2017, and telescopic and reflex sights in the year after that.

Blaser R8 Rifle Review

Blaser R8 is a straight-pull push-feed bolt-action rifle introduced in 2008. It is regarded as Blaser’s premier rifle, combining innovation, versatility, and safety, and is sold at a premium price which makes it one of the most expensive hunting rifles on the market. R8 is also a very fast rifle thanks to its straight-pull action which allows for much faster repeating and shooting than traditionally designed rifles. The rifle does not feature a traditional receiver design since the bolt locks directly into the barrel (with 14 locking lugs), making R8 a fully modular rifle. The user can easily interchange barrels and bolt heads to switch to shooting with a different caliber. Another special feature of Blaser R8 is the special magazine which together with the trigger and the trigger guard forms one detachable assembly. Therefore, when you remove the magazine, you also remove the trigger, which provides additional safety since it prevents accidentally firing a chambered cartridge when reloading the magazine. Maximal possible safety is also ensured by the presence of a cocking mechanism which causes the rifle to be unable to fire if it was not manually cocked by the user by activating the cocking switch. The rifle originally supported only centerfire calibers, but Blaser later introduced a .22 LR caliber conversion kit. R8 is a successor to the popular R93 model, on which it improved mainly by making its magazine removable and featuring a larger selection of calibers and barrels.

Blaser R8

Figure 1: Blaser R8. Source: https://www.blaser.de/en/products/firearms/bolt-action-rifle-r8/r8-models-with-wooden-stock/r8/

Blaser R8 is chambered for the following calibers:

  • .204 Ruger

  • .22 LR

  • .222 Rem.

  • .223 Rem.

  • .22-250 Rem.

  • 6 XC

  • .243 Win.

  • .257 Wby. Mag.

  • 6.5x47 Lapua

  • 6.5mm Creedmoor

  • 6.5 PRC

  • 6.5-284 Norma

  • 6.5x55 SE

  • 6.5x57

  • 6.5x65 RWS

  • .270 WSM

  • .270 Win.

  • .270 Wby. Mag.

  • 6.5x68

  • 7 mm Blaser Mag.

  • 7 mm Rem. Mag.

  • 7x64

  • 7.5x55 Suisse

  • .308 Win.

  • .300 WSM

  • .30-06 Spr.

  • .300 Norma Mag.

  • .300 Blaser Mag.

  • .300 Win. Mag.

  • .300 Wby. Mag.

  • .300 RUM

  • 8x57 JS

  • 8x68 S

  • 8.5x55 Blaser

  • 8.5x63

  • .338 Win. Mag.

  • .338 Blaser Mag.

  • .338 Lapua Mag.

  • 9.3x57

  • 9.3x62

  • .375 Blaser Mag.

  • .375 H&H Mag.

  • 10.3x60

  • 10.3x68 Mag.

  • .416 Rem. Mag.

  • .458 Lott

  • .500 Jeffery

Caliber depends on the barrel and bolthead.

Blaser R8 is available in the following variants:

  • Professional Success Leather

  • Monza

  • Professional Success Black Edition

  • Professional Success Ruthenium

  • Carbon Success

  • Long Range

  • Luxus

  • Attaché

  • Baronesse

  • Ruthenium

  • Success Mono

  • Success

  • Success Black Edition

  • Silence

  • Safari Rifles

  • Compact

  • Intuition

Blaser R8 features a barrel-mounting system where the mounts are mounted directly on the barrel instead of on the receiver. All modern Blaser guns (repeating rifles, break-barrel rifles, combination rifles, express rifles ...) have the same four notches on the barrel. Thus the same mounts fit on all Blaser modern rifles. The only exception here are some red dot sight mounts that are made specifically for R8 or R93 -- these do not fit other Blaser rifles.

Blaser R8

Figure 2: Blaser R8 receiver

Which rifles have interchangeable mounts

Two-piece mounts

For two-piece mounts to be interchangeable the mounting surfaces of the rifles must match in every dimension except the B dimension which can vary. This is because the distance between the two pieces of the mount is not fixed. Blaser rifles have a special Saddle mount mounting surface, making their mounts interchangeable with most of their rifles. The following rifles have interchangeable mounts:

One-piece mounts

The necessary condition for rifles to have one-piece mounts interchangeable is that the mounting surfaces of these rifles match in every dimension. Again, most Blaser rifles feature a special Saddle mount mounting surface, making their mounts interchangeable with most of their rifles. These are the following:

Important to note: once a mount for a Blaser rifle is mounted, it cannot be used on other Blaser rifle barrels – these mounts are designed so that they can only be used with one barrel. This means that you can use multiple optical sights on one Blaser barrel, but you cannot use one optic on multiple Blaser barrels.

Our recommendations for mounts

Detachable repeatable mounts

We recommend this 100% repeatable, reliable, and high-quality Saddle mount from Blaser.

Picatinny rails

For those who want to use a Picatinny rail, we recommend the Innomount Blaser Picatinny rail which is both reliable and sturdy.

Help us build our riflescope mounts database

If you happen to own this or any other rifle, we would appreciate it if you could help us expand our database by sending us some photos of the rifle receiver (the bare mounting surface of the rifle without the mounts installed). For your help, our company offers a fair return in terms of practical rewards

Please send us an email for more information. You can contact us here: info@optics-trade.eu

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