It's not really age that kills ammo, it's moisture related corrosion. Typically caused by high humidity or sudden variance in temperature, this makes storing ammo in the Mid-West exciting! Ammo stored properly can easily last for decades, possibly centuries I guess, but I'm no expert.
If the war was in 2077, perhaps the powder they were using is better quality / more advanced. We already have better stuff than they did 40 years ago. No telling where tech would / could be in 59 years. I bet temperature / moisture stable powder would be easy enough. Or better loading / sealant processes.
Gun Jesus role-playing scientist man and shooting Ethiopian surplus out of a German rifle re-chambered by Israelis, that's absolutely what I subscribed for. Thanks for the content!
From Century's website: FIRST TIME EVER IN U.S.!!!! This ammunition was manufactured in Ethiopia for use in U.S. supplied M14 rifles. It not only shoots great, but will also be a great collector item due to the limited quatities that were imported. Condition: Excellent They even have a Video tab under each product page. This video is notably absent under the Ethiopian 762 page. Lol.
not a gun guy, but it seems to me that the hangfires have to be a problem of chemical degradation of the primer, which ought to make th condition of the ammunition less than "excellent".
TL;DR Seems like they made legitimately good ammo 40 years ago, but they made it 40 years ago and it may not have been stored in the best way possible.
Ethiopia was aligned with the US until the Commies took over in 1974 and kicked out US advisors. After that all hell broke loose - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ethiopia#Communist_period_(1974%E2%80%931991)
ammo is really storage sensitive it seems. it also seems like the eastern block spam cans fare the best long term, they must do something to the air on the inside to keep it dry, but i have pretty much never seen bad 54r, 7.62x39 or 5.45 with the exception of a case failure that was just a plain bad round. the american style ammo cans seem to work great if you keep some desiccant in there to fight off moisture but by the looks of the outsides of these ammo cans they where not exactly stored dry. Well stored ammo seems to last about 60 years from what ive seen and shot with surplus.
If the spam cans are sealed then it's possible that they were filled with dry air or nitrogen to prevent damage from moisture. Ultimately though neither smokeless powder nor priming compounds have a great shelf life on their own, just like other energetic materials.
Yeah if it isn't sealed in air tight containers with some sort of desiccant, I wouldn't expect this stuff to last all that long in Ethiopia. Not sure about the rest of the country, but assuming this stuff spent most of its life around Addis Ababa, it went through 40 quite warm and more importantly humid summers.
Conor Climo in a mag, NO. that will weaken the spring to much. what i do 2 months, then switch between loaded mag and non-loaded. give that spring time to relax a bit.
Century just needs to market it as flintlock simulator rounds. "Get a flintlock firing experience but with bolt action convenience!" I would have bought some if only for the cool anmo can, but I will give it a hard pass.
Gee, it's nice to see a really honest test/review in the firearms video world. So often the the reviews are more like puff pieces for the manufacturer or the distrutor. Thanks Ian!
@@kirkstinson7316 still, the cartridge that comes out after could go off at any point and could be pointing any direction on the ground and then from there ricochet god only knows where...are you going to pick it up to dispose of it? All I'm saying is that I can understand the concern.
An interesting video Ian, particularly in light of Karl's response on In Range about factors affecting accuracy: ammunition being more pertinent to accuracy than modestly poor barrels. So, more "Forgotten Ammo" than "Forgotten Weapons"
From Century's website: FIRST TIME EVER IN U.S.!!!! This ammunition was manufactured in Ethiopia for use in U.S. supplied M14 rifles. It not only shoots great, but will also be a great collector item due to the limited quatities that were imported. Specifications 145gr Lead Core FMJ Berdan Primed Brass Case Corrosive 20rd Box 280rds per .30 Cal Can 1980's Production LMAO. I bet it's $0.45 a round.
Good work Ian, I like watching your videos in part because of your integrity. If Century didn't want the truth they could have gone to any number of reviewers that will make excuses or just edit out anything negative for free ammo or a pay off. I know you won't sell out because you've put your money where your mouth is and demonitized your content. This was an entertaining and educational video, thank you.
Cartridge evaluations an interesting and appreciated augmentation to your channel. Please continue this. BTW: Had seen some 7.62x45, 7.62x25 and some 9x19mm Czech produced ammo from1950s that had misfires. Perhaps Ethiopians never updated the primer formula.
The shelf life and general quality of ammunition, especially if details on how it was stored are given, is definitely an interesting enough topic that I'd like to see more on. This was very interesting.
The "Ethiopian script" is the Amharic language, which is related to Arabic and Hebrew. If Mike from Bloke of the Range were there, he would say that the ammunition is a bit "click-bang-y." I wonder with that spread of velocities would affect the performance of self-loading rifles.
Damn good question and I wouldn't think so to be honest. At least not too vast a difference. That 2500 fps round, might have caused problems. 2600 fps rounds, not to much. Tweaking the gas system would probably be a good idea, in principle.
In working up reloads in AR's, even the low charge starting loads cycle just fine, meaning "normal" loads are way over gassing the system. But no one really cares as long as it's cheap and goes bangbangbangbang and doesn't send the bolt out the back of the buffer tube. Or break an op rod, I guess.
This may sound weird, but how did it smell when you fired it? A friend bought some Egyptian 7.62x39 ammo some years ago and we had duds, hang fires and an acrid stink. The duds and hang fires were so bad, he just dropped the remaining 40rds or so in the dud bucket at the range.
Ian, in addition to looking at surplus ammo, I can see you expanding into the design, development and production of ancillary items such as ammo, optics, etc. for older firearms.
One of the reasons I watch your videos is you call em as you see em. There are too many out there hawking someone's junk just to get a buck. Not every product can be the best thing since sliced bread. Thank you for being honest!
Goes to pick it up then "Oh, that looks nice, I'll just leave it like that". And yes, this was an extremely informative video, I would love videos on all the major milsurp ammo available.
Ian, I really liked this video. In particular, I liked that you showed the spread and standard deviation. A lot of ammo videos just show averages, which don't really help you much if you're trying to get a picture of what the ammo is really like.
Good video and would love to see more. I could see these being time capsules to the surplus ammo we see pop up for a couple of years, and then disappears forever. For instance I used to shoot a lot of South African 5.56 that came in 30 round Chinese takeout shaped wedges, and I haven't seen that in at least 10 years now.
A lot of tears have shed by those who did not jump on current milsurp ammo offerings. Like 7.62x39 for $80/crate. Wish I'd jumped on Danish 30-06 harder, same for Australian 7.62, Greek HXP .303 and Romanian 8mm. I did use my experience to stock up on 54R by the crate while it was under $100/crate. Experience can pay dividends if you've learned from the past.
I am quite surprised you could find that old (or "old" since I was born in 1979 myself and don't consider myself old yet ;) ) Ethiopian ammunition, given that they have been fighting on-off against foreign and domestic adversaries since the 70s. One would presume they would've used all the ammo available in those fights already. I bet these ammo cans would have a very interesting story to tell if they could talk... Maybe they were stolen by some of the rebel factions of the country early on in the early 80s, hid in some cache and forgotten there. To be found later and sold out as surplus.
Actually, that is probably it and for some strange reason it escaped me earlier :D Nowadays they mostly use 7.62x39 and the AK platform. Probably due to Derg-Soviet connection.
Ha ha ha! "Old" is relative I guess. At 40 years you don't think of yourself as old, but that carton of milk in your fridge is definitely old at 40 days :-)
I dig it, and I hope you do more of these. I love seeing statistical analysis and I have long wished you or Karl would do some stuff specifically about ballistics, either here or on InRange.
Ian your videos have been a constant unending source of joy and information ever since i started watching. Just straight facts no bullshit backed up by a bunch of primary sources, with a humble acceptance when facts are lost to time or are open to debate. I love this shit. Thankyou for your work.
Ian, your sample size is a little small for a statistically relevant standard deviation. 30-50 is a the general "minimum". I recommend shooting more :)
Another important point: to calculate the average of a number of samples you have to eliminate the highest and the lowest score because in this way you eliminate many of the casual errors that can happen
@@iaial0 Except in this case the highest and lowest case did occur and it is cherry picking to remove them from the data. The also occurred in a very small number of samples. That is worrisome by itself.
Another great video, thx Ian, and thx for not ever selling out to anyone. You will always be our guy as long as you keep doing what you do. I for one would be interested in continuing your ammo series and reviews of your findings. Although I have spent a lifetime of doing just that for myself, with all manner of surplus 7.62x51mm, it is always good to have a fresh set of eyes and ears to give another opinion.
Corrosive or Non-Corrosive? Certainly interesting video content and would want more. Ethiopian military was and is better than many would give credit too - very tough fighters and good marksman as we observed n Iraq.
Sold my custom built .308 a few years after I left the PD, but it was a great round for the purpose it was designed. Thanks for this video, it is nice to see an honest evaluation of what is in the pipeline. By the way, I love the shots of Arizona, I am going to miss being there for the winter, as this year we cannot make our normal trip to Topock.
Love this series. Always find it fun to look through surplus ammo for my own rifles and trace their history. It’s an extension of the history of the guns themselves.
Having unsteady fire rate is extremely jarring and will throw off any aim you might have had. If you are just smoking pots from hip and the ammo is extremely cheap.. eh why not
This is a great service you are doing. Please continue to do this. Case in point Ive shot a some surplus from the late 70s that had hangfires and was not at all consistent. But I have fired a fare amount of 1938 production Hertenberger 8x56R that was just as nice as anything produced today.
Absolutely, this content is informative and well worth the time taken , which is very appreciated. Thank you Ian. What I take from this personally is , don't use it for automatic weapons, But great for plinking, and destructive testing if purchased at the right price.
Definitely an interesting option if you want to some cheap ammo to shoot down range, but with the delay wouldn't they be a bit risky to use on automatic firearms? Also. the second language on the ammo-box is called Amharic, and it's one of the more common languages spoken in Ethiopia.
I see. The only experience i had with firearms are handmedown Vietnam-era surplus M16's while i was in the army. And the reason i'm bringing that up is that once when our instructor shot a 3 round burst down range (Though we weren't allowed to do any automatic fire) the 3rd round was ejected somehow with the bullet still in and it fired off half a second after being ejected. Luckily nobody was hurt but all were pretty amazed. How or why did that happen is quite a damn mystery for me to this day, but point is that shit can happen.
I think it really depends on the weapon. As noted, usually on an autoloader the cartridge won't leave the chamber until it fires, so it's safe. Usually also, the gun will recock upon fire so outrunning the ammo and ending up uncocked won't be an issue. But if the weapon does automatically eject the round whether it fired or not, a hangfire would be dangerous. Perhaps this might be even more of an issue on a rapidly fired manual action, since they eject without regard to the state of the round. I think this ammo would be dangerous to fire rapidly in a pump or lever action, since it's possible one could eject a hangfire round before it has fired. Shooting semi-rapid or slowly where accuracy isn't a major concern this ammo would perform. In full-auto the cadence would he weird, and in semi-auto fired rapidly it may not fire with each pull of the trigger, since it would be possible to pull the trigger again before the hangfire round fires.
Main risk of hang fires in an automatic weapon would be in your externally driven repeaters, like gatling based weapons, where the weapon will fire and then begin advancing the cycle whether or not the round actually goes off. I'm sure if you dig around long enough in various designs that you can find some open bolt design at risk of bolt bounce that could give you issues. If anything I think a double action revolver is possibly your most dangerous platform for hang fires, due to the risk of accidentally advancing a hot round out of alignment with the barrel. Having an un-contained round going off near you isn't what I would label as pleasant or very safe, but it also isn't excessively dangerous to your life in most cases. Having it contained in a cylinder so that pressure can build up will really change the dynamics of things.
A good, Honest review. loved it. I bought some Turkish 8mm surp. 5-6 years ago and every single round when fired would either crack the case or have missing pieces of the neck on the case. Wish that I had known this before hand.
They got the M14s during the Clinton Admin. Provision reloading can bring the SD into single digit. No info on primers either boxer or Berdan. Sealant on ball ammo is common.
these hangfires make me question my military training quite a bit..... We were told if the rifle doesn't fire you should rechamber a new round as fast as possible. This of course makes sense if there is someone shooting at you, but you wouldn't want the round to explode in the air infront of your face :/
As Ian noted it's probably a side effect of the storage conditions and time. I would expect when new or otherwise within some sort of best before there'd be no noticeable difference.
It's certainly a matter of concern, but maybe not all that much concern. Back when I was in college, the physics prof (who was not only head of the physics department, but also the wrestling coach, unarmed combat instructor, and small arms instructor) decided to show us what happens to ammo when it gets hot. So he set up a trivet and put 5 rounds of 30-06 on it and put a bunsen burner under it, then stepped back a couple of feet. After about 30 seconds we had a nice series of firecrackers go off in the front of the classroom. For the most part things stayed within a couple of feet of where they started, but we did have one bit of brass go zinging off the wall about 10 feet away. Most of the bullets stayed on the trivet, and the brass largely just split down the side. You certainly don't want a hunk of sharp brass sticking into your eye or face or neck, but if the shell gets down to knee level before it blows you probably don't have much to worry about.
Cartridge exploding outside of the chamber is mostly harmless.. as long as you are not holding it in your hand. I was taught the same: rechamber asap as the possibility to get hit by brass fragment is very low (and even if hit it won't break skin) but getting hit by not shooting the other guy is very high. ps. Do not pick up misfired cartridge for some time after it has been ejected same as unexploded fireworks, it costs you nothing to wait while visiting hospital will cost you.
Salesman9001 exactly especially when you’re in the field just leave it, at the range just treat it like regular spend brass, pick it up when you clean up.
okay, this ammo is good for teaching the shooter to hold the gun steady a good while after the trigger clicked.. I used to do training with spring compressed airguns, for just the same reasons. If you hit well with them, you hit well with anything...
I still bought 3 cans of this stuff. I figured it was almost "fossil" ammo -- like a piece of history, since the ammo plant was destroyed decades ago. I'll shoot 1 can of the ammo, just for fun, and keep the other 2 for history's sake to pass onto my kid. I paid $116.95-per-can from SG Ammo in November 2018, in case anyone is reading this.
Some British rounds were put in metal cans, sealed and buried. 18 years later they were used in the next war. Other war material was dumped in fairly deep sea.
i only found out today and it annoys me that i never released cos it makes perfect sense, but 7.62x51 is not the actual dimensions of the ammo, its actually 7.82mm and 7.62 refers to the rifling, and 7.82mm in inches is 0.308 hence 308 nato, well it's 308 if you round
wait this may sound stupid but if the rifling is 7.82mm and so is the bullet then how can the rifling affect the bullet? surely it has to be smaller or does the heat expand the bullet to cause friction?
Ethiopia is in Africa, and things there are rather spicy so you really want to have your own ammo industry, because one day you might need it. Europe on the other hand is boring and peaceful, so you'll only make ammo if it's commercially profitable, unless you're France/UK/Germany etc. and you have a huge military (for Europe).
@@jabloko992 Us Europeans are also very unlikely to actually go to war with each other these days. We have replaced warfare with Eurovision and football when it comes to inter-european conflict. Maybe that will change over time, but the world wars really changed the cultural willingness to wage war with each other. It's a nice change overall, though some of the entries in Eurovision should rightfully invoke the next set of Nuremberg trials...
Great review! From the looks of the ammunition, and the ammo can, as cool as it is, that 7.62x51mm WAS improperly stored over it's life time. As we all know this has the most destructive effect on ammunition bar any thing else. Probably in an above ground facility, cooking and freezing since the late '70s. A 15 or 20 round test was enough for the entire lot. I'm surprised that you didn't have more issues with it. Thanks again for your honesty and blunt test. (Century should step right up and just have you test a lot more, it's great P.R.!--LOL!) Thanks again Ian!
good, honest review. thank you for being g candid and honest. if the price is right, I'd still buy a few cans to plink with. but this wouldn't find its way into my precision rifle. this would be good for FAL plinking
@Adam Halsey Mercury fulminate is just a SENSITIZER and accelerant for the metalic cartridge priming mixes jt was used in, not the sole ingredient. Almost inert (due to age) chlorate based primers with Mercury fulminate as an ingredient will behave EXACTLY like this, since the fulminate is slowly degraded by exposure to heat, moisture and Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
I enjoyed this immensely. As a fan of the channel and of guns in general but not being a shooter myself I find this type of information very interesting to learn about.
20 years ago when I had a C&R I had pretty good results with their milsurps especially the fix-em specials, some which didn't need fixing. Mostly very nice specimens. Century really was bad on stuff assembled by them like the CETME, Galil and AK variants.
@@LuvBorderCollies a good friend bought a C308 (G3 built from surplus parts). After a few hundred rounds something in the lower/trigger group broke. From then on the trigger did not reset properly. Another guy with the same rifle, within his first 3 mags, managed to blow out the barrel. When he fired it, the bullet exited the barrel on the side, just before the end of the handguard.
Very very nice video. I really liked the numbers and how you explained the group size isn't a thing that can be scientifically measured. Decent sample size of 10 rounds per box. Good choice in firearms to test. Excellent video
Hi Ian, please start a series on reviewing surplus ammo or something similar to this. I really enjoy buying surplus not only because it's cheap but I also find it much more interesting to try out old and unique boxes of ammo. You never know exactly what you will get or the history behind how it made its way to you.
I would love to see more of these videos. With all the new surplus 7.62 NATO ammunition coming into the United States (Malaysian and Austrian for example) having a video that analyzes them before I decide on which ones to buy is definitely very valuable to me.
