Buyer Beware
- A lot of foreign ammunition made before the 1990s used corrosive primers particularly in Warsaw Pact nations. You will need to be more diligent about cleaning in order to prevent barrel rusting
- Foreign military surplus is often berdan primed and non reloadable
- Most military boxer primed cartridges with have crimped in primers. If you plan on reloading this military brass, it will be necessary to punch out the primer as a separate step before resizing and to remove the primer crimp before seating a new primer
- Military ammunition may have been stored in less than ideal conditions which has resulted in the degradation of the powder and or primer. This can result in misfires, hangfires and wide fluctuations in velocity.
What you see is not alway what you get. One notable example of this is some berdan primed 30 Carbine cartridges with the Lake City headstamp LC 52 which was made by the Peoples Republic of China. . There are people selling this stuff at gunshows who are still misrepresenting it as quality American made ammunition.
Things to watch out for
If the primer sealant is absent and or the brass seems unusually shiny, then the cartridges may have been reloaded or possibly tumbled with polishing media to remove exterior corrosion from the brass.
Loose cartridges in an unlabeled or mislabeled package or container.
Different headstamps in the same package of cartridges.
TZ 80 headstamped ammunition with interior case corrosion.
Test Data for Selected lots of Military Surplus Ammunition
Listed below is chrongraph data from various lots of Military cartridges that I have encountered.
30-06 Lake City - Year 1969
- Bullet - 152 grain FMJ Copper Plated Steel Jacket with Lead Core.
- Bullet Diameter (inches)- 0.308
- Case - Brass
- Headstamp LC at 12'oclock 69 at 6 o'clock
- Primer - Boxer, Noncorrosive
- Powder - Unidentified Charcoal black ball powder
- Test Gun -M1 Garand
- Average Muzzle Velocity 2709 fps
- Std Dev Muzzle Velocity 18.9 fps
Sold through the Civilian Marksmanship Program. This Lake City ammunition worked fine in my M1 Garand, producing acceptable accuracy. I did see signs of excessive pressure when I fired the ammunition in a Remington Model 700, which has a 1 in 9 inch twist barrel. I suspect that the use of steel jacketed bullets in this fast twist barrel is the reason for this.
Turkish 8 mm Mauser ammunition Year - 1949
- Bullet - 155 grain FMJ
- Bullet Diameter (inches)- 0.322
- Case - Brass
- Headstamp - 1949/ FS / 7.9 / T (star over crescent moon) C
- Primer - Berdan, Corrosive
- Powder - nk
- Test Gun -Yugo 48
- Average Muzzle Velocity 2850 fps
- Std Dev Muzzle Velocity 38.2 fps
Decent quality ammunition with few misfires
Turkish 8 mm Mauser ammunition Year - 1941
- Bullet - 155 grain FMJ
- Bullet Diameter (inches)- 0.322
- Case - Brass
- Headstamp - 1941/ FS / 7.9 / T (star over crescent moon) C
- Primer - Berdan, Corrosive
- Powder - nk
- Test Gun -Yugo 48
- Average Muzzle Velocity 2849 fps
- Std Dev Muzzle Velocity 9.6 fps
This particular lot of Turkish 8 mm Mauser generated a surprisingly consistent muzzle velocity. With a standard deviation of less than 10 feet per second, it is one of the best results that I have had with military surplus ammunition.
7.62 X 25 TOKAREV
Romanian 7.62 x 25 Tokarev
- Bullet - 86 grain FMJ, Copper plated Steel Jacket Lead Core
- Bullet Diameter (inches)- 0.308
- Case - Brass
- Headstamp - 22 at 12'oclock, 83 at 6 o'clock
- Primer - Berdan, Corrosive
- Powder - 9.1 grains unknown dark green grey extruded granules
- Test Gun - CZ52
- Average Muzzle Velocity 1470 fps
- Std Dev Muzzle Velocity 19.3 fps
Cycled action properly
Chinese ? 7.62 x 25 Tokarev
- Bullet - 86 grain FMJ, Copper plated Steel Jacket Lead Core
- Bullet Diameter(inches) - 0.307
- Case - Steel, Copper washed
- Headstamp - 11 at 12'oclock, 93 at 6 o'clock
- Primer - Berdan, Corrosive
- Powder - 9.5 grains unknown black extruded granules
- Test Gun - CZ52
- Average Muzzle Velocity 1445 fps
- Std Dev Muzzle Velocity 35.5 fps
Yugoslav 7.62 x 25 Tokarev
- Bullet - 86 grain FMJ, Copper Jacketed Lead Core - non magnetic
- Bullet Diameter (inches) - 0.306
- Case - Brass
- Headstamp - nny at 12'oclock, 1957 at 6 o'clock
- Primer - Berdan, Corrosive
- Powder - 8.1 grains unknown silvery black sheet powder in the shape of tiny diamonds
- Test Gun - CZ52
- Average Muzzle Velocity 1419 fps
- Std Dev Muzzle Velocity 27.7 fps
This air temperature when this load was chronographed was 45 degrees fahrenheit.
Pictured above are 2 of several nasty case head splits of Yugoslav 30 Tokarev ammunition fired from a CZ52 pistol. Headstamped with the cyrilic letters for Prvi Partizan and the year 1957, I had fired some of the same lot on at least two previous occasions without mishap. On this day in June 2010, it was unseasonably hot with air temperatures in excess of 100 degrees fahrenheit. I did not notice the problem until one of the cases failed to extract. It was only after I had removed the cartridge case from the chamber and observed the case head failure that I checked the other ejected cases for the same problem.
Chinese Norinco 9 x 18 mm Makarov
- Bullet - 95 grain FMJ, Copper plated Steel Jacket Lead Core
- Bullet Diameter(inches) - 0.364
- Case - Steel, Copper washed
- Headstamp - 71 at 12'oclock, 89 at 6 o'clock
- Primer - Berdan, Non Corrosive
- Powder - 4.0 grayish green short cut extruded powder
- Test Gun - Hungarian PA63
- Average Muzzle Velocity 930 fps
- Std Dev Muzzle Velocity 41.8 fps
Packaged in green cardboard box with Norinco logo printed in red. Cartridges held in polystyrene insert (Styrofoam). I bought several preowned boxes of this ammunition some years for $ 2.50 a box. It functioned fairly well but was somewhat dirty producing a lot of powder fouling. Recoil was somewhat stiff in lightweight gun I was using.
Cartridge Headstamps
| BHA | Black Hills Ammunition,Rapid City, SD, U.S.A. |
|---|---|
| DAG | Dynamit Nobel A-G, Troisdorf, Germany |
| DAQ | Dominion Arsenal, Canada |
| DEN | Denver Ordnance Plant, Denver,CO |
| FA | Frankford Arsenal |
| EC | Evansville Chrysler - steel cased 30 carbine and 45 ACP ammunition |
| ELD | Eldorado Cartridge Corporation aka PMC |
| FC | Federal Cartridge Co |
| FCC | Federal Cartridge Co |
| FCPQ | Fábrica De Cartuchos e Pólvoras Quimicas, Chelas, Portugal |
| FNM | Fábrica Nacional de Munições de Armas Ligeiras, Chelas, Portugal |
| HRTRS | Herters Brand manufactured by Sellier & Bellot of Serbia for Cabelas. |
| HXP | Greek Powder & Cartridge Company, Greece |
| IMI | Israeli Military Industries |
| IVI | Industries Valcartier Inc |
| KA | Pusan Government Arsenal Pusan, South Korea |
| nny | Prvi Partizan - Serbia, initials of company name in cyrilic letters |
| LC | Lake City Independence, MO |
| OFV | Indian Ordnance Factory, Varangaon India |
| PMC | Precision Made Cartridges made for the Eldorado Cartridge Corporation. May be made in Korea |
| PMP | Pretoria Metal Pressings Ltd. Pretoria,South Africa |
| PPU | Prvi Partizan - Serbia |
| PS | Poongsan Metal Manufacturing CO. Seoul, South Korea |
| RA | Remington Arms |
| REM | Remington Arms Company, Bridgeport, Conn |
| S&B | Sellier & Bellot of Serbia or the former Yugoslavia - Commercial production |
| SL | St. Louis Ordnance Plant |
| T | Thun munitions factory Switzerland - headstamp will has two digits at 6'oclock for year of production. |
| TW | Twin Cities Arsenal |
| TZ | Israel Military Industries, Tel Aviv, Israel |
| TZZ | Israel Military Industries, Tel Aviv, Israel |
| VC | Verdun Arsenal, Canada |
| VPT | Valtion Patruunatehdas, Lapua, Finland |
| WCC | Western Cartridge Company |
| WIN | Winchester Repeating Arms |
| WRA | Winchester Repeating Arms |
About Corrosive primers
Primers using potassium chlorate were once in common use and can still be found in much of the foreign military surplus ammunition from the 1970's and before.
All U.S military small arms ammunition made in the early 1950's or before should be considered corrosive except 30 carbine which has always been loaded with non corrosive primers
When cartridges utilizing corrosive primers are fired, they leave a residue of salts such as potassium chloride in the barrel and the action. These salts when in contact with steel will react with moisture to cause corrosion and pitting on a firearm in much the same way that road salt rusts a car body. Firearms shot with corrosive ammunition should be cleaned as soon as possible, preferably the same day.
There are a number of materials that can been used to remove this corrosive fouling. My preference is Hoppes #9 but there are numerous black powder solvents designed for use on muzzleloading firearms which work well. Another option is GI Bore cleaner which is fairly effective. Created during the fifties, it is commonly available in 2 and 8 ounce steel cans painted olive green. There is also the old fall back method and that is to use several water saturated patches followed by one or more dry patches. A lightly oiled patch is then run through the barrel to prevent rust. Don't forget to clean the bolt face and any other steel surface that powder residue may have settled on or in.