i need some ammo help.

[trickyasafox]

Hi All and Merry Christmas!

i recently got an M44, and was going to order some surplus ammo for it. I was curious if anyone had any preference between:

czech or hungarian surplus ammo in 7.62x54R?

price is close, but czech is cheaper. I am planning on ordering from AIMsurplus.

also, is there a hazmat charge? i always get screwed up when ordering ammo, ergo, i've never done it because of that. if anyone knows of a better deal than AIM let me know.

thanks in advance, hope everyone had as great a holiday as me!

mike

[Shepherd2]

I like the Czech silver tip ammo myself. I tried some Hungarian yellow tip ammo with the heavier bullet early on and decided I didn't need the heavier recoil for plinking. The Czech stuff has been quite accurate in my 4 MNs. All of the surplus ammo I've tried, regardless of caliber, has been dirty as well as corrosive so it takes some extra cleaning.

I've bought 7.62x54R Czech silver tip from AIM on 2 occasions. Both times it was the best price I could find at the time even with the state sales tax added since we are both in Ohio.

[Bret4207]

I never understood why so many guys buy the surplus stuff when you can buy Sellior and Beloit for a bit more, you have no corrosive ammo and you get reloadable brass, although it needs annealing most times. No flame intended, I just don't get it.

[Scrounger]

Hi All and Merry Christmas!

i recently got an M44, and was going to order some surplus ammo for it. I was curious if anyone had any preference between:

czech or hungarian surplus ammo in 7.62x54R?

price is close, but czech is cheaper. I am planning on ordering from AIMsurplus.

also, is there a hazmat charge? i always get screwed up when ordering ammo, ergo, i've never done it because of that. if anyone knows of a better deal than AIM let me know.

thanks in advance, hope everyone had as great a holiday as me!

mike

No HazMat on ammo.

[Shepherd2]

Mike - I forgot your other question - There is no hazmat fee on ammunition.

Tpr Bret - I buy surplus ammo because it is CHEAP plinking ammo. The surplus 7.62x54R that I've bought has cost just about $0.10 per round including tax and shipping. The cheapest .30 cal jacketed bullet I know of will cost you that much and you still have to add the primer, powder and time to reload it. The surplus ammo is ready to go when I am. I bought 200 Graf cases for reloading cast boolits so I figure I may have a lifetime supply of brass.

I checked AIM a couple minutes ago. A case of Czech 7.62x54R surplus is $69.95. They sell a brand of ammo called Igman which I suppose is comparable to S&B. The price for 800 rounds of that is $340.00 with the quantity discount. That's $0.42+ per round before tax and shipping. S&B may be cheaper but I didn't take the time to look for it

No flame intended here either. I'm just explaining why I buy surplus ammo. It's cheap and I have 0 time invested in it. The fact that it is corrosive is not a big deal to me.

[Hip's Ax]

I have Russian copper washed light ball, Hungarian Heavy Ball and Hungarian Light Ball and my two 91/30's prefer the Hungarian Light Ball by a noticeable margin. I never bought any of the Czech as its laquered case can give some rifles extraction issues. Corrosive isn't a problem in a bolt gun provided you take the extra cleaning step, I follow the instructions given at the link below. I use the ammonia and water mixture at the range before I leave and oil everything up good and then clean as usual as soon as I get home. I also am set up to hand load 7.62x54R but due to the large amount of mil surp ammo I have I haven't fired a single hand loaded 7.62x54R round yet. I always see that I have a good supply of mil surp for each of my rifles for comparison.

http://www.empirearms.com/clean.htm

[trickyasafox]

thanks for the advice everyone! i should have specified i was looking at the light ball.

tpr bret you bring up a good point. But for me the difference in price is significant enough to be relatively prohibitive. Eventually i'll get enough cases to reload 7.62x54r and then i'd really like to play around with it. However at this point i think i'm still a bit better off with surplus.

thank you for the idea though. that's probably better than just buying brass for reloading :)

[MtGun44]

I tried the Czech silver tip and the Polish ball in my 91/30 and M39. The Czech wasn’t worth shooting in either of my rifles, and I had a 50 cal ammo can full! I pulled it down and now use the bullet and powder for making great .303 Brit loads with my brass and primer. Better than throwing it out and there doesn’t seem to be any decent .303 surplus anymore. The Czech powder charge wt varied more than 10% - can’t do anything good for accuracy! Anybody need
corrosive primed steel cases in 7.62x54R?

The Polish (IIRC) is really excellent ammo, extremely accurate in my M39 and far better than the Czech in my 91/30. It has brilliant red primer and case mouth sealant, and AIM used to sell it in metal “sardine cans”.

Good luck and remember to run a couple of patches wet with “Windex with Vinegar” thru immediatley after shooting to clean out the corrosive primer residue.

Bill

[kywoodwrkr]

trickyasafox,
After you get whatever you decide on and try it and find it very inaccurate in the M44, extend the bayonet and try another round or two, or three etc.
Most M44's don't shoot worth a pididdle without the bayonet extended from what I have been able to glean from various reports.
FWIW
DaveP kywoodwrkr

[trickyasafox]

kywoodwrkr

extend bayonet-
noted and will be done. to be truthful i wanted to take the bayo off, but i can't bring myself to hurt an original milsurp
so i just wanted to remove the screw, but it was on there so tight it couldn't be done without stripping the face. Rather than mar an otherwise great looking mosin, i decided to just deal with the bayo on the side, and keep my eye out for an m38

[Ricochet]

Yeah, better to just deal with it and leave it like it is.

[Bret4207]

Well, yeah, I guess I can see what you mean. Maybe I'm just too cheap to see myself throwing the brass away?!

[trooperdan]

MtGun44, I'd be interested in your primed cases; how many do you have and where are you located? I'm in cnetral North Carolina.

[MtGun44]

Trooper Dan,

I am travelling now, far away from home – the Christmas to New Year’s Grand Family Tour.

I have maybe 100 cases pulled down, total I have a 50 cal ammo can of the blue boxes with the silver stripe painted on. I have no idea how to ship primed “steel”. Do you have to be some sort of commercial hazmat dealer or something?

Bill

[Scrounger]

Trooper Dan,

I am travelling now, far away from home – the Christmas to New Year’s Grand Family Tour.

I have maybe 100 cases pulled down, total I have a 50 cal ammo can of the blue boxes with the silver stripe painted on. I have no idea how to ship primed “steel”. Do you have to be some sort of commercial hazmat dealer or something?

Bill

Ordinary loaded ammo can be shipped UPS, no HazMat necessary but you must have an ORM-D sticker on the package. I have a photo of that sticker posted; download and print a copy and tape to package.

http://photos.gunloads.com/images/Scrounger/ormdlabel2.jpg

[MtGun44]

Scrounger,

Thanks. I have shipped loaded ammo, with the ORM-D sticker, but I know
that to buy primers you need to pay a hazmat fee. Sounds like they treat
primers differently than ammo. So - do primed cases seem more like
ammo or primers???

Bill

[Scrounger]

Scrounger,

Thanks. I have shipped loaded ammo, with the ORM-D sticker, but I know
that to buy primers you need to pay a hazmat fee. Sounds like they treat
primers differently than ammo. So - do primed cases seem more like
ammo or primers???

Bill

I would treat them like loaded ammo. Apparently shippers have no problem with that. For some reason it's the primers alone they worry about.

[Bret4207]

Marking depends on the quantity of the items shipped, it's hazard class and mode of shipment. I don't have my Tittle 49 HazMat book here at home, (not really light reading), so I can't say whats what for sure. If you send it by commercial carrier- UPS, FedEx- they should know what you need to do. It shouldn't require shipping papers, which would put some record keeping/registration on you until you get up into very large quantities.

[gregg]

Found this over here http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061224184302AAVWAs0

Thought it interresting.



Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

It can be a bit confusing.

Plain silver would designate it as light ball ammo. 150-152gr. "Ball" means it's common, everyday military ammo and the term comes from back when the usual loading was a single, solid lead ball. Plain jane military bullets are always referred to as "ball ammo"

Standard heavy ball, the most common type 7.62x54r ammo, runs in the 180-182gr range depending on where it's made and is designated with a solid yellow tip.

Silver over yellow is heavy ball made in Hungary. It's widely regarded as some of the best made, most accurate milsurp ammo you'll find for your rifle. It's steel cored with a thin lead coat and then a steel jacket. There's no off center airpockets etc to throw the shot off as it flies. It's designed for acccuracy, not for armor piercing as some folks will tell you about steel cored ammo. Silver/yellow Hungarian is as close to match quality as any milsurp ammo ever was. Corrosive, so wash carefully!

Tracers are green tipped. Incendiary is always red tipped.

[trooperdan]

When it comes to ammo color codes an absolute statement is absolutely wrong! You just cannot say the incendiary is "always red", just taint so! All depends on the country, caliber and time it was loaded, maybe the phase of the moon as well! And it isn't always the tip color that ID's the type of load; some countries used the primer annulus color as a marking!

That said, the info on the silver/yellow Hungarian marking was spot on.

[trickyasafox]

hey one more question (sorry to keep this thread going) what metal are the cans the ammo shipped made out of? can i put it in my recycle bin, or should i take it to the recycler when i take my brass down to sell it? I really try to not just throw things away if i can help it.

thanks!

mike