Ammo shortage? What ammo shortage.

[Gunnut 45/454]

Well I've gone and done it! Just picked up an Yugo SKS about two weeks ago. There was some ammo on the selves- but no more! Wally world had Tula at 5.19 per 20! Haven't had any for a week now! So whats a guy to do when you can't get good plinking ammo at a decent price? Easy- reload that steel case with a Boolit! Here are some of the batch I did up. Used the Lee 155gr GC as cast, 25 gr IMR4895 and Modified Rem 9.5's. :-D73872

[mace2364]

So I'm going to be that new guy here: What's a Rem 9.5? And then how did you modify it?

I'm asking because I'm sitting on a crapload of berdan primed cases, a chunk of them 7.62x39 steel, and I'd like to try what you did here.

[Dschuttig]

did you pull the anvil out?

[JIMinPHX]

The prices on SKS rifles really seems to have shot up lately. I saw them at a recent gun show with tags ranging from $500-$600. Even J&G is asking about $550 for them now. Conversely, the price of AR rifles seems to have dropped back to whet they were before the latest round of insanity. I saw new DPMS & Bushy basic guns for about $850.

Ammo supply in general does still seem to be thin for the masses. Casters are now a privileged class.

The nice thing about the Yugo version of the SKS is that it has the gas shut off gizmo that was intended to be used with the grenade launcher attachment. If you shut off the gas port, you can operate the gun as a straight pull bolt gun & not have to chase your brass around.

[Gunnut 45/454]

Yes you pop the anvil out- carefully!

mace2364
I'll try and find the Youtube vid on it for you!
Here you go this will get you started!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwmmsZ-aX4g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcRE5j8e-vw

Now do all this with great care! Inspect your cases! Any extreme dent, cracks at the necks -reject the case!!! I can't express this enough! When seating the primers- if they fall out -reject the case. Use more pressure then you normally do to seat a primer- you need to get them slightly below the pocket- other wise you not set the round of on the first trigger pull- ask me how I know! I would not use a progressive press to load these - single stage only!

[Smokepole50]

Also realize that you are putting a thin wall primer in a semi-auto military rifle that is supposed to have heavy duty primers used in the ammo so you don't get slam fires. This is why they have CCI Nato 34 primers, they are thicker for free floating firing pins. Then again you may like the occasional double bump....or does the SKS have a firing pin spring. It has been so long since I tore any of mine down that far I don't remember.

[3006guns]

None of the SKS variants have firing pin springs that I know of. Best to use those thick primers.

[JIMinPHX]

A place called Murry's (sp?) makes a firing pin retrofit kit for the SKS that gets rid of the slam fire issue.

[Gunnut 45/454]

Smokpole50
Form what I've seen and read one must make sure the firing pin is clean and freefloats! Replace it if it has any damage /burs! The slam fires are caused by stuck/broken firing pins.

[10-x]

Rooski SKS's are going for $500.00 +, got my chi-sneeze 1 for $79.00 wayyyyyyy back. Got it cause it looked like it had been to RVN,never got a chance to pick 1 up. Had 2 RPG's but they wouldn't let me demill them and bring them home.....

[Smokepole50]

You are correct, slam fires are caused by dirty, greasey, and cosmoline packed free floating firing pins. However, most all older military semi-auto rifles had free floating firing pins and that is why they use primers made from thicker material. It is the inertia of the firing pin that can set off the thinner walled primer. The firing pin in the SKS might not be heavy enough to set off a standard thickness comercial primer when the bolt goes into battery but I would not use them in a Garand, M1A/M14 and many other miltary semi-auto rifles. Let you bolt slam home at the shooting range and then eject the round and see if there is a small dent in the primer. You may be just fine using standard primers but I can tell you for a fact that the military uses thicker, tougher primer cups for a reason and its not because they are cheaper. At a bare minimum I would use CCI primers as I believe they have the thickest primer cup of all non Nato Military type primers. As well, I believe Remington's primer might be the softest.

[dkf]

Well I guess my dad did not do too bad on the Yugo he got a few months ago for $425-$450. (don't remember which) All the numbers matched and it was caked with cosmoline inside and out. Looked like new after the cosmoline was removed.(that was fun[smilie=b:)

There is a good supply of good priced 7.62x39 on the net. I picked up some for my dad my last order for $5.59 per 20 (steel cased)

[JIMinPHX]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj3QtnUWCwQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibIVvm4k8BY

http://www.murraysguns.com/sksown.htm

Proudly made in Texas

[mace2364]

Very interesting. I was wanting to figure out how to do that. Even though you can finally find 7.62x39 with some kind of regularity here, the cost has definitely increased a lot(it was about $2.50 a box locally for 7.62x39 when I got my first rifle in that caliber back in 2004, as opposed to the $5.17 it costs now). So it makes a lot of sense to reload for 7.62x39, provided you use the steel casings. From what I am seeing, your cost to reload 20 rounds in this method, given the costs of powder and primers I saw local yesterday, would be something like $2.25-2.60. Obviously this will vary some depending on what you're paying for your lead, but it's still much cheaper than the $5.17 tula costs at my walmart right now.

How different is your point of impact, vs factory ammo?

[Gunnut 45/454]

Smokepole50
Yep the same thing was said for the AR as well! Have people had slam fires sure. I've been using regular commercial primers in my AR reloads for a long time never had one! Will I? Maybe?

JiminPHX
Veiwed the first Vid- now thats just plain neglect in care! I had to clean mine- Cosmoline all up in my firing pin! Zero rust as mine was an unissued -safe queen!

[Nickle]

Most slam fire incidents come about because the primers aren't seated correctly. If they're sticking up, guess what the bolt hits when the round chambers.

Now, some primers are better to use in this respect than others. Winchester and CCI primers, across the board are good. Rem 7 1/2 primers are also good. The rest seems to be slightly more likely to slam fire. But, any primer that sticks up, is prone to slam fire.

[JIMinPHX]

Most slam fire incidents come about because the primers aren't seated correctly. If they're sticking up, guess what the bolt hits when the round chambers.

That's news to me. I've had the opposite effect from high primers - insensitivity. When I failed to fully seat the primers on a batch of .45acp about 10 years ago, I found that I had to cock the gun a second time & give the primers a second hit to get them to go off. The action going home was not enough to seat them the rest of the way or set them off. The first strike of the firing pin seemed to have seated them home, & the second hit of the firing pin set them off.

That's just what I saw from 1 bad batch in a .45. Other results in other guns may vary.

[khmer6]

It depends on how the firing pin set up is designed. I've had issues with primers not fully seated not going off, I suspect not pre setting the anvil. Free floating firing pins and the likes can cause slam fires as the bolt or slide comes forward

[Nickle]

That's news to me. I've had the opposite effect from high primers - insensitivity. When I failed to fully seat the primers on a batch of .45acp about 10 years ago, I found that I had to cock the gun a second time & give the primers a second hit to get them to go off. The action going home was not enough to seat them the rest of the way or set them off. The first strike of the firing pin seemed to have seated them home, & the second hit of the firing pin set them off.

That's just what I saw from 1 bad batch in a .45. Other results in other guns may vary.

That can happen too. A lot depends on the gun, how heavy the bolt is, how hard it goes forward and the primer itself. The firing pin system is less of an issue here, but can contribute to it.

Truth be known, not firing is much more likely to happen than a slam fire.

[Gunnut 45/454]

mace2364
Only cost is powder/primer -leads free! So you can about half the total! :)

[mace2364]

So I ordered a mold, and it should be here shortly. I'm going to give this a try when it gets here.

[mace2364]

OK, so my mold got here today. But I wanted to see about depriming some cases first, to make sure I don't need anything else, and I was having no luck. I got water everywhere, but didn't even budge the primer. What are you guys using for a punch to drive the primers out, using the hydraulic method?

[khmer6]

I forget what size I used. But anything that fits snug. Like an extension socket, screwdriver type ratchet. Check out the threads on it.

[JIMinPHX]

I used to have problems like bulged cases when I first tried hydraulic depriming. Then I figured out a way to do it where the water supports the case on the outside as much as it does on the inside. Now I don't get bulges anymore & I can smack them hard enough to deprime even staked-in primers. I'd post pictures of my current method, but I'm over my picture limit already.

I no longer use a piston that fits the case neck. I now use a hollow piston that covers the whole case. The set up is basically two cylinders that are full open on one end. One cylinder has a primer sized hole at the other end. The second cylinder is closed at the other end. The ID of one cylinder matches the OD of the other with about .01" clearance. The primer hole cylinder is a little longer than the brass that I want to decap.

[mace2364]

Ok, I've managed to deprime a few cases. It seems I didn't have as many 7.62x39 fired cases around as I thought I did. Now all I need to do is get the sizing die to put the gas checks on my boolits and I'll be good to go.

[scooby-doo]

Hello newbie here have Murray setup up is very good, however original sks design Russian had spring loaded firing pin. During most reworks and after 1951 they did not use spring loaded anymore. I have a 1950 russian early arsenal rework ? I think, with all matching numbers.This rifle maintained the original spring loaded firing pin. Russia used spring from around 1946ish to 1950 half year. Rifle dating started in 1949 Ibelieve.