A friend has a couple of ammo cans full of what turns out to be Egyptian 9mm Luger. 36 rounds per blue cardboard box.
Translating the headstamp says the ammo was built in Cairo Factory 27 in 1978. It is Berdan primed, has 115gr FMJ hollow base bullets and holds 5.0 grains of extruded powder.
Problem is that the Berdan primers have seriously degraded. If they go off at all, they fizzle and smoke. Firing them in a pistol is like shooting a flint lock: pull the trigger and it fires a split second later, if it goes off at all; like a fast hangfire.
So, unless someone thinks these things have any collector value to anyone, I'm pulling the bullets to reload plinkers, and putting the powder and shells aside. Can't deprime Berdan and if I did, where could one locate Berdan primers? Not worth the effort.
If I dump the 5.0 grains of unknown extruded powder into a resized 9mm shell with a new Boxer primer and reseat the bullet, the powder still goes "bang" but often fails to lock the slide back after the last round. Seems a bit underpowered. Didn't do a chronograph speed check yet. Probably not worth reusing 43-year old powder, but it was an interesting experiment.
Anyway, before I disassemble them all, is there a market for this old unreliable Egyptian ammo?