7.62x39 surplus ammo

[dnepr]

with the lack of primers in my neck of the woods I said what the h**l and bought a case of czech milsurp 7.62x39 , this is the steel cased steel core stuff made by seller bellot , comes in the wood box sealed in the tin can ( and yes I did save the solder for boolits ) packed in stripper clips in 20 round boxes , ( these stripper clips also work with .357 mag, .38 special and 6.5 carcano so they are handy , (should also work for 35 rem but I don't have one of those yet). I haven't got to the range yet but I was curious to what this stuff was like , i was pretty sure it wasn't match grade :rolleyes: , so I pulled the bullets on 10 rounds and did some measurements and inspections , it is loaded with a stick powder ,there is visually odd ball kernels, longer, shorter ect, most look the same but some definite oddballs in the mix . all the bullets measured .310 I measured the powder charges and bullet weights here are the results

round # powder weight bullet weight

1 - 23.1 gr - 123.1gr
2 - 23.5 gr - 122.0gr
3 - 23.4 gr - 120.8gr
4 - 23.4 gr - 122.2gr
5 - 23.4gr - 122.2gr
6 - 23.2gr - 121.9gr
7 - 23.2gr - 122.4gr
8 - 23.6gr - 122.7gr
9 - 22.7gr - 122.2gr
10 - 23.4gr - 121.8gr

I have never done this type of inspection with any other ammo but compared to my handloads those are all over the place, still I have heard guys claiming 2" groups surprises me with this stuff , I may pull down some more and do a bit of " mexican match " segregate the bullets and even out the powder charges ,
I had a left over dud round of what I thought was the same stuff looked the same, same bullet, but loaded with 22gr of spherical powder.

[Echo]

You could go to a lot of work pulling and putting together 'match' ammo, and probably improve the accuracy significantly. Whether it would be worth the time and effort is up to you.

Let's see - categorize the bullets into batches of +/- .1 grs - probably get something like a normal distribution out of the effort. Work up a load starting with 23.2 grs powder, building a tenth of a grain per test batch, until groups started to spread, or you got pressure signs, but not over 24 grs. My guess is that the best powder charge for your test bullets will be best for all in this batch, but YMMV. Then use that powder load to test different bullet weights. A lot of work, but a lot of satisfaction if things work out right.

[dnepr]

I may need a couple spare bullet pullers ;) might be a good project for those cold winters nights , I think I will probably pull down 20 more and at least put together 10 or so with matched powder charges and 10 of the closest bullets just to see if i can tell the difference . my russian sks is a pretty decent shooter but it still an sks and it has the disadvantage of only having me behind the sights :smile: