Case lot purchases were a common thing for me back in the 80's when I shot an L1A1 on a regular basis, but today it's a much slower pace, with .223 (Bolt Action) and lots of .22 LR.
First-year I was out shooting across the course, I shot about two cases of that stuff because it was cheaper than reloading.308. it shot okay and was good tournament ammo, didn't group the best, however well enough to pull down some good scores and my M-1 National match in .306 function without a hitch with it. -Dave
Being military issue ball one would not expect too much in the way of accuracy. Whart would you say you got out of yours in the way of accuracy? Perhaps three or four MOA?
@@314299 2,, 2 1/2 inch @ 100 yards. a lot of people were shooting it back then. That stuff and that Greman G-3 stuff was plentiful. I would say it would be on par with LC M-80 ball in the accuracy department. Haha. I shot a lot of that stuff too. If you can find it, try some LC M-852 168 gr Match. I found it to be very impressive ammunition. - Peace dude- Dave
Amazing that the dampness ( apparently ) penetrated even these vinyl pouches/.packaging, isn't it? Now I'm thinking to myself, why on earth, did I NOT buy a crate or two of this ammo. when I had the chance! Thanks for this bit of interesting video.
I suspect that this vinyl ammo package was out out of a crate for a long time and may have gotten some small punctures that would allow some damp in, the brass appears to have corroded only where it was in contact with the cardboard package. Like you I'm not sure why I did not buy a crate or two of it when it was on the market.
@@314299 It's that or they packed it in an already humid environment. With the label being moldy, they clearly weren't stored in the best of conditions but if there were punctures in the bag, the cardboard would've also been mouldy. Cardboard looks pristine. I wonder whether a few packets of silica gel would've prevented the corrosion. It's astonishing how one of the jankiest packaged Russian or Chinese surplus ammo is beautiful inside, but the diva packaged ammo doesn't live up to the hype.
I remember when this stuff was readily available, I bought several crates of it for something like $250-$275/crate, I don’t recall the exact price but it was a fantastic deal, somewhere around $0.25-$0.35/per round, it turns out this is quite good ammo! I still have almost a full crate left, but it’s high quality, waterproof packaging & overall reliability & accuracy have relegated it to reserve status, Incase s**t happens & accuracy & reliability = survival... good video my guy!
I think this stuff was about $.60 a round up here in Canada when it was widely available. It's certainly not a bad idea to put some ammo aside for future use
It's the change in temp. High and low temperature swing ruins ammo . Say you leave it in the garage and it gets 10 below, and in the summer the Lights pouring in and heating it up. That kind of swing will ruing any ammo.
One of our local gun shops had 2 cases of this ammo. I bought both for my M305 and by the time the M305 was banned I had gone through a case and half. The best part was they are boxer primed brass cases and I ended up reloading them for my Tikka T3x TAC A1 .308.
Did you find the flash holes on the brass to be smaller than normal? On this stuff the flash holes are smaller than the diameter of a regular de-capping pin.
That's certainly a possibility, some folks apparently have very "salty" palms and will leave blued guns with fingerprint shaped rust on them if they are not wiped off. Another possibility might be acidic compounds in the packaging material, I have seen packed ammo corode where it touched the box it was in.
I got some HP 7.62 from 1980 and they used a green sealant I wonder when they switched to red and why oh well ., and I got some 5.56 from the late 80s with red..it’s good stuff man
Hirtenberger made 7.62x51 with Berdan primed cases and also ones with Boxer primers - perhaps the color of the primer sealant is different depending on the primer type?
@@314299 You know AAC started making steel case 7.62x39 with boxer primers the other week and I tried to see if I could tell the difference between the sound and way it shot between the old Berdan primer stuff and I swear I didn’t notice once difference,, you’d think their be something since Berdan has 2 flash holes and Boxer has has one and plus other differences…Although,,old Berdan is notorious for being corrosive..
My local provincial rifle association provides this ammo for sale to shooters who want to use the club owned rifles, it's seems decent enough for target rifle shooting off the elbows, but not up to F class target rifle use.
Always the 1980s stuff that had corrosion, the earlier 1970s rounds had no such problem in my experience. Wish this were still available. It shoots great, and never any misfires.
It could be caused from the cardboard boxes being a bit on the acidic side. I have seen other ammo that corroded like this stuff where it touched the box.
I doubt it as the corrosion appears to be just superficial, there appears to be lots of solid metal under it. At any rate we shall find out when I test a couple boxes of the stuff.
Austria is not a NATO member, so the ammo they made for their armed forces does not have the nato "compass in circle" marking used on NATO ammo. Despite not being a NATO country this 7.62x51 is very much an equivalent to standard NATO ball ammo for the caliber.
