Ethiopia uses a different calendar if I remember right, and they lag behind by seven or eight years, so that could explain the difference in the dates on the packaging and cartridges.
yeah, they start on a different date and have differing leap year rules, difference seems to be 7-8 years. So packaging is dated on ethiopian calender and the ammo on standard western calender
By the looks of it, this was probably pretty good ammo in it's day - primers well staked and sealed, good bullet uniformity, and for those rounds that fired promptly, really not bad velocity uniformity. On the other hand, a two in 15 chance of not firing on the first attempt. I'd buy it if the price were right.
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine I doubt you’ll find it again. Not something I’d run through any semi auto, but if you feel like running 150+ rounds through a bolt action it’s perfect. Only 2 duds and just some slight hangfires.
About 10 years ago I bought a few large card board boxes of German 1943 dated WWII 8mm ammo. If I remember correctly the story was that it was captured in Tunisia and kept in storage there. The boxes where designed to fit into a German ammo can and the top would be rip off to access the smaller cartridge boxes. The cartridges were on steel stripper clips. The brass cased ammo looked great for the age and who knows how it was stored. Though it did not shoot well. There was at least one dud on each stripper clip and plenty of hang fires. The average speed recorded by the chronograph was pretty consistent for old ammo. I shot about 150 Rds, gave some to a friend, and then kept the other intact boxes for display. I do not remember what I paid for it though I do believe It was pretty pricey for 8mm. At that time you cold get Comm block 8mm Romanian for a lot less. I believe Century imported it.
I bought 300 rounds for 80 bucks, three in five had hang fires, one in five were completely inert, and one in five would shoot like normal. The video shows them to be pretty reliable, and I'm not the greatest marksmen, but I swear these shots go absolutely everywhere when compared to romanian, german, and privi partizan ammunition. Certainly an adventure to shoot.
I feel like if I tried to shoot through a chronograph like that, I'd end up putting a round right into the sensors lol. Makes me nervous almost just watching you do it haha.
20 Years ago I had some Ecuadorian 8mm surplus and it had hard primers. My friends K98 had hangfires shooting it but my M48 shot it all with no problem. The ammo might be okay but the firing pin spring might be a little soft in your rifle. Just an observation.
Ammo boxes like those are cool. My early '60's (AFAIK) Yugoslavian mil-surp x39 containers have an equal amount of character. Kinda like a little time capsule. Interesting to learn that other countries packaged the smallest boxes in, what seems unconventional to myself, 15 round amounts. Very entertaining video!
This episode was very nice, it also made me remember some of the OG RU-vid channels that reviewed ammo in all its variations, provenances, and forms. I miss those times.
Considering that m2 ball pretty much goes off every time, I expect it could be better. Although it is worth considering that what we just saw of the Ethiopian 8mm was a small sample size and my own experience with m2 is merely the experience of one dude.
As a massive fan who hasnt ever fired a gun (i did get to hold a hunting rifle once!) this is an interesting detail of the gun hobby I would never have seen otherwise. Keep up the cool content!
I love collecting ammo as much or sometimes more than firearms. I have some very old ammo and its awesome to see how stuff was made privately and from big factorys. Keep doing ammo reviews like this 👍🔫
This is so much like a Paul Harrel ammo test video (Or basically any Ammo test) I kept expecting his voice, whenever Ian looked up from the readout, the first few times. Surreal.
Again Ian, thank you for all the informative and interesting videos you do. I am amazed at how busy you are and what a diverse amount of weapons you seem to be able to get your hands on.
If reggae is anything to go by (and they do really like him, oh boy), high-lee is the pronunciation. See if my linguistics friend knows better. I was all ready to say 'hey, these are better than the last set' from the first clip, but then, no, hangfire city again.
Well, yeah... probably due to the fact that the Rastafari church/religion views him as God incarnate and their messiah. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie#Rastafari_messiah
Always interesting to see someone work a bolt the same way I do. Interesting because I didn’t know how it looked from an onlookers perspective. Not as daft as I thought it looked. 👍
Just fired some of this ammo (though not many considering the ammo shortage). However, ZERO misfires, ZERO hangfires. Used a Yugoslavian M24/47, noted for having a strong firing pin spring. Also, while the ammo seems to have some kind of very light cosmoline on it, a quick wipe each cartridge with an old t-shirt cleaned it up pretty well. Not sure what the complaints are about, since I couldn't duplicate the problems, and yes, I did watch the video.
Like this and will like more of them. Had a box of 1918 dated .45 ACP. Fired most of it off a couple of years ago and every one went boom normally. Didn't chrono them but I had some of them mixed in with about five other types, ages and brands of .45 to demonstrate that my XD45 is not a picky eater.
That hang-fired, re-cocked 2505fps was significantly louder at least in my audio.. 2505fps with a 197gr boattail slug is a pretty stout round even by today's standards..
Why the Germans needed a cartridge this powerful is beyond me... That being said, it makes an excellent machine gun cartridge... So that may have been a reason.
Just open my order from classic that was dated 2018. It’s been stored inside the house where humid controlled. The round all have fine sands in them so mine was not in a crate. The first 5 boxes I shot every round was a Hang-fire and also double strike. It’s unnerving as some of the hand fire goes off a few milliseconds after the trigger is pulled.
I demand reload montage! Stripper-and en-bloc clips, single -double and quad-stacked magazines! Internal and external magazines! Don't forget the drum magazines!
Greetings in the name of his majesty, Emperor Haile Selassie Jah rastafari! Ever-living, ever-feareful, ever-sure Selassie the first. Jah (Bob Marley fans will recognize Haile Salassie from many lyrics, and most of the song 'War')
Good Idea for us surplus collectors and shooters. It is always a crap shoot as too what we get when we order and cannot really afford. This helps our choices. Thanks
this is the ammo that I was using that caused my injury. I got a box of this ammo and had 7 missfires in a row, i waited 30 seconds after each one cause safety. Well when the 8th one clicked i only waited 10 seconds cause i was frustrated as anyone would be. So i unlocked the bolt and it fired. It sent the bolt backwards and into my right cheek and cut me just shy of the jaw bone. the cut is about 4 inches long from the center of my cheek to the edge of my jaw. I write this hoping that if someone ends up in the same situation as i did (hang fire) they dont make the same mistake i did.
This was very interesting. I would very much enjoy see more. Last I believe there was a very interesting story attached to the munitions factory and it's name sake. Thanks again Ian.
4:47 - our great and infinitely knowledgeable preacher & purveyor of the firearm himself, Gun Jesus, has laid upon our ears the first sound waves of 'The Hymn of Mouser'! It's just so... ...so, so beautiful, really brought tears to my eyes...
I can see why many old military rifles like Lee-Enfields and Mosin Nagants has cocking knobs you could pull. If the gun had a hangfire when Ian tried to recock the gun, it would have been a out of battery detonation and probably would have damaged the rifle and/or injured Ian's hand.
It's odd that the velocities were so consistent. even with the hang fires. I would like to have seen the primers on the ones that took two strikes. I'm going to say really really hard primers. Or maybe not as well seated as you would think? And Ian, Bless His Heart, at the first failure to fire. Isn't he so adorable??? I don't think I will be buying this lot number of 8mm... Thanks Ian.
Old chlorate-based primers tend to do that after 50 years or so if not kept in temperature-controlled storage...I've encountered the same thing with WW2 .30-06 surplus, which also used a chlorate-based primer.
If the bullet had decided to go off while recocking the rifle would that have been bad? The bolt is unlocked during that brief moment right? Awesome video btw, love seeing the old packaging and how they perform at such an old age.
I purchased some Turkish 8mm mauser ammo several years back, it was steel jacketed, and nearly every case would either crack or parts of the neck would fracture and chip off when fired.
Super fascinating video; looking forward to more of them. As for the two cartridges which required second strikes, I wonder if that could be a result of a slightly offset strike which missed the anvil in the bottom of the berdan case, or if there was an issue in manufacture with the case such that the anvil in the pocket wasn't properly shaped and sized.
As noted earlier, the hang fires were slower, leaving those out of the equation the deviation would be pretty good. seems to have been excellent ammo to begin with.
