Surplus 8mm ammo

[Cheesehead]

I can't withstand the silence any longer....don't know exactly which ammo you may have. Post a pic and we may help identify.

8mm Surplus bad???  I say put it in the gun and pull the trigger.  Clean as you do ANY corrosive ammo possibility.  You may email any number of us ol Milsurpers for our "favorite" way.   I plan to shoot all this ammo in my lifetime and the cleaning is JUST the beginning!


Some one said dump the powder??  HuH?  The powder is awesome!  I pull much of my surplus, weigh and re-throw a charge to a nice 8mm case (or reshaped .06 casing) and download 10% as a rule of thumb.  Works like a charm.  Romanian, Turk, Yugo, Czech, Greek and possibly some others I forgot all pull nice and clean.  The Ecuadorian 8mm (54 per 1000) is caked powder on the inside of the casing.  Have found CHUNKS of metal in with powder....I pour it and strain it before REUSING IT!  I have not had a single hiccup....maybe my guardian angel is sweating with the work though!



1911Crazy can give you square advice as well....7 years + of chatting with him.

Last time I mentioned "rethrowing a charge of surplus powder" the thread was locked by the moderator on the reloading forum.

[slayer]

Windex with ammonia. Soak a patch and swab the bore. Follow up with hoppes and clean patches. Good to go after that. Benn doing this for a number of years and no corrosion problems.

I use the Windex with Vinegar in my muzzleloaders. Is there an advantage with the Ammonia one?

[1911crazy]

I can't withstand the silence any longer....don't know exactly which ammo you may have. Post a pic and we may help identify.

8mm Surplus bad???  I say put it in the gun and pull the trigger.  Clean as you do ANY corrosive ammo possibility.  You may email any number of us ol Milsurpers for our "favorite" way.   I plan to shoot all this ammo in my lifetime and the cleaning is JUST the beginning!


Some one said dump the powder??  HuH?  The powder is awesome!  I pull much of my surplus, weigh and re-throw a charge to a nice 8mm case (or reshaped .06 casing) and download 10% as a rule of thumb.  Works like a charm.  Romanian, Turk, Yugo, Czech, Greek and possibly some others I forgot all pull nice and clean.  The Ecuadorian 8mm (54 per 1000) is caked powder on the inside of the casing.  Have found CHUNKS of metal in with powder....I pour it and strain it before REUSING IT!  I have not had a single hiccup....maybe my guardian angel is sweating with the work though!



1911Crazy can give you square advice as well....7 years + of chatting with him.

  Have you ever shot that 30-06 ammo we grabbed for just $1.99 a box. It was brand new russian manufactured barnaul ammo?  We won't find anymore clearances like that?

[1911crazy]

I have to admit i have taken some of the bad looking surplus 7mm and surplus 6,5mm and lightly cleaned it up on my bench grinder with the wire wheel very carefully and boxed it back up and it looks great today.  Its just too dirty to shoot out of my queeky clean chambers.  I got this ammo from Samco a while back.  The surplus 6,5mm swede ammo from sportsmans guide was also in the same condition. Its not pitted just discolored.

The older '37 turk 8mm ammo is in better condition.

I shoot any ammo if the brass isn't pitted and it looks good and it chambers i will shoot it.

[S.S.]

tumbler cleans them up nicely too.

[S.S.]

Last time I mentioned "rethrowing a charge of surplus powder" the thread was locked by the moderator on the reloading forum.
[/quote]
 
Start talking about Duplex and Triplex powder charges and really scare them!

[cbxboy]

Bill/1911Crazy

I can't recall the name of the place -- keesler??  I sold a boat load of that Russian 30.06 and kept about 1000 rounds.  GUESS what?  I'm pulling and reloading.  That dang stuff has more KARBOOOOOM than Turk ammo fresh off the heating pad!

The mods will lock a post for pulling powder, measuring 40 rounds, remeasuring and seating?  Doesn't seem like common sense in my opinion.  Sounds like anyone who pulls down surplus and reuses the components should get a Peace prize like Al Gore to me.  Oh, were they worried we would download too much and get a Dynamite charge?  Possible....but IT IS SURPLUS ammo.  They all are "dangerous" aren't they?  If/when you pull them down and find STUFF IN THE AMMO, the mods would understand (maybe they have already done this) that if someone types in that they are reducing 5-10% that this represents no scientific published load data.

I'll try and behave.  But YES Bill the Barnaul Tool Factory 30.06 "hunting ammo" is some VERY stout stuff huh?  So why is it manufactured ike a belted magnum?   HUH?  Is it because its so dang HOT?

[1911crazy]

The gun powder doesn't smell funny does it?  I know some of the russian manufactured ammo smells like manure was added to it when it goes off and smokes.  It shoots good and accurate.  I haven't tried the kessler barnaul 30-06 ammo yet.  I guess we'll email the exact amounts you cut them down too so i can do it too. I'll down load them to upload some empty 06 cases that i have. I might as well do my turk 8mm ammo up too.  Since the new primers and powder is hard to get.

I purchased a lot of that barnaul 06 ammo too.  Not too long ago when the imported ammo was so cheap i took my kids shooting and we would shoot off 500rds of every caliber that we had.  Even the wolf 45acp was only  a box back then.

[1911crazy]

tumbler cleans them up nicely too.

S.S.  I can tumble loaded ammo to clean the brass up??? 

[cbxboy]

1911  Many posts I have read say NO sweat.  I have not done so yet but if you think about how HARD some of these military primers are it seems like it would be ?ok?.  You recall the Greek EK ammo, heck you could hit it with a 3lb hammer and get a ftf

[1911crazy]

I reload most of my military calibers using the  CCI #34 Nato primers.  These are rare like hens teeth to find nowadays too.  I found a site the other day and ordered 5,000 primers and within a day they were all sold out but i did get my order.  When i load for a bolt action and i also have a semi auto in the same caliber i use only the nato primers so nothing can get mixed up just to besafe from slam fires.  I refuse to use anything other than nato primers in my semi auto's.

Finding the new gun powder is also rare too.

We are at a balancing point with ammo right now.  If we look at the French MAS 7,5mm ammo the new Prvi-Partizan 7,5mm french FMJ ammo is $12.50 a box of 20 if we buy 10 boxes thats 200rds of new ammo for only $125.00.  If we look at the cost of reloading buying all new components its about $88 for 200rds of new brass,  plus 200 LR primers (nato) and 200 fmj bullets 145gr of 147gr. and at the bottomline were not far away from the 10 boxes of new boxer primed ammo are we?  We kind of at the balancing point wether to reload or buy new ammo.  Since its that close i'd go with the new ammo and i can shoot it once and reload the boxer primed brass.  I did the same thing with the swede FNM target ammo that was on clearance too.

My point is we need to do the math to figure out which way to go is the better way when we look at the bottomline total cost.  Choose wisely grasshoppers...shop smart and get the most bang for our dollar.

[gandog56]

That's my norm when cleaning after firing milsurp.

[Nakota]

I have been shooting corrosive surplus ammo for years without a problem.  I first clean the bore, chamber and bolt face with soapy boiling water.  The water disolves the corrosive primer salts and the soap helps in the cleaning process.  Since the water is very hot it will evaporate quickly after use and you can then finish cleaning as you normally would with non-corossive ammo.

[gandog56]

As long as you remember to quickly reoil the barrel after hot soapy water. Otherwise rust will quickly set in.

[mrussel]

The only surplus 8mm ammo i have had FTF's with is the 50's yugo.  Just a few rounds per case.  For some reason all the 1937 turkish ammo all goes bang.(so far)

I think the romanian 8mm is one of the last shippments of 8mm mauser ammo. But some dealers still have ome 50's yugo too. 

I have lots of turk, ecquadour, yugo 50's & 70's and some romanian tucked away.  But i'm sure we'll shoot it all up. I still have some of the first 8mm i purchased too its made by FN.

 I had a Mosin I bought with 100 rounds of surplus ammo. The guy I got it from was well known trustworthy and guaranteed it was checked for safety and ready to go. I didn't manage to fire it until I had moved out of state half way across the country.I put the first round in it and ... click!... I counted to 30 and then sat the rifle down and thought about what happened. I considered if I perhaps did something wrong. Maybe there was some odd ball thing you needed to disengage or something or maybe the damn thing was just broken,and now I was 3000 miles away from the guy who would be happy to fix it if I just brought it in. I opened the bolt and guess what? A nice indented primer. It was just a bad round. I felt like an idiot for not thinking of that first,but I had never shot something that old before and was thinking of 1) the safe option,figure out what happened before proceeding,and 2) the worst option,it was broke and I would have to pay money to make a 100 dollar rifle work.

 Every single other round of surplus ammo I have shot was perfectly fine.(OK,there were a few that took a second try to fire)

[securitysix]

Hrm...I know I posted in this thread yesterday.  I also know that in my post, I had posted a link to http://cartridgecollectors.org/headstampcodes.htm and identified the ammo as Romanian based on the info in that link.  I wonder what happened to that post....