7.62 ex military cases

[nic531]

i may have access to some once fired 7.62 (308) ex military cases- as i understand, the only issue is that the primers are crimped, so the primer hole needs reaming before you can put a new primer in.
anyone had any experience of this? is it an issue that is livable with as the cases are free?

 

[paul o']

I would sell all the brass as scrap that I could get my hands on and then buy .308 cases unless you have access to a seat cutter or swaging die kit RCBS is one I use to use in 45acp and 9x19 but I would't bother when brass is cheap imo.

 

[Sharpie]

They will almost certainly be Berdan primed, at least every bit of 7.62 Nato surplus that I've ever encountered was, and I've used a lot.

Not re-loadable, never designed for it. Unless you are a masochist. Some people are, even try to modify them to take Boxer primers. Worth only scrap value, and for that you'd need to accumulate crate loads to be worth the effort.

5.56 is generally Boxer, and maybe worth the effort if you can deal with the crimp, but it is not at-all the same as .223, heavier smaller volume cases designed for higher pressure and different bullets, quite different loads required. It might cursorily look the same, but it's not.

 

[Alantoo]

As you are in Glos, and if just starting out on your .308 reloading journey, I suggest getting in touch with HPS at Newent and buying a box of 50 rounds of their target ammunition. They do it in either PPU brass or to special order in Lapua which I get. You can use it for plinking and then you will have once fired fire-formed cases from your chamber and have the choice of either full length resizing or neck resizing, and no hassle with Berdan or crimps.

Having said that I found that non-Berdan three point crimped brass was possible to decap and reprime without needing to ream or push out the crimp bulges...decapping removed most of the bulge and any remaining came out with a simple countersink chamfer.

Alan

 

[Sonicdmb73]

N

They will almost certainly be Berdan primed, at least every bit of 7.62 Nato surplus that I've ever encountered was, and I've used a lot.

Not re-loadable, never designed for it. Unless you are a masochist. Some people are, even try to modify them to take Boxer primers. Worth only scrap value, and for that you'd need to accumulate crate loads to be worth the effort.

5.56 is generally Boxer, and maybe worth the effort if you can deal with the crimp, but it is not at-all the same as .223, heavier smaller volume cases designed for higher pressure and different bullets, quite different loads required. It might cursorily look the same, but it's not.

Not necessarily. Radway Green is berdan primed. Lake City certainly isn’t, I have various empty cases kicking around somewhere. From when I had my 7.62 rifle.
The thing I would bear in mind is that the brass tends (at least it used to) be thicker than 308 stuff. As a result the powder capacity is less, pressure can be more so watch carefully.

 

[Laurie]

Yes, as sonicdmb above says, US arsenal 7.62 used Boxer cases - as all US brass has since the first drawn cases came into use around the late 1870s or maybe into the 80s with the 50-70 and 45-70.

I'd still say buy new brass though. As well as being better to start with new (which includes factory ammo cases from your rifle), all NATO era fired military brass has been through a self-loading rifle or even a belt-fed machinegun. These can be very hard on cases through violent gas-powered extraction, case stretching and suchlike. It's not unknown for case-heads to end up being out of alignment with the case-axis.

I suspect though that you may be talking about GGG brass which we've seen a lot of since the NRA gave this Lithuanian company its ammunition contract. It's well-made, Boxer-primed, but does have a primer-crimp that needs removing before priming.

 

[nic531]

thanks for the replies. mostly i think it is ggg, )which is what i use in 5.56... have a wild chambered ar15)
Nic

 

[Mr B]

thanks for the replies. mostly i think it is ggg, )which is what i use in 5.56... have a wild chambered ar15)
Nic

Contrary to what Paul O says, I’m pretty sure GGG ammo is boxer primed, so can be reused. Look at the Dillon Super Swage 600 if you’re going to be reloading lots of this ammunition. It’ll sort out the circumferential crimp in this brass. GGG brass is pretty good and worth keeping if you’re going to use it multiple times.

When you reload be sure to check case capacity. It’s probably slightly less than normal brass as the military brass tends to be a little thicker which is good for longevity. Down side is that it can lead to over pressure if you don’t do the load calculation based on actual case capacity.

 

[Muir]

I have thousands of peices of Lake City and SBS surplus brass and use it on a regular basis. It is more work initially, but there is nothing wrong with the finished product once you've Small Base FL resized and trimmed. As Laurie says, much of it was fired in SAW's and often is stretched. My girl friend is a practical thing and uses it in her 308 long range rifle with no problems and enviable accuracy. I even use it to make 7mm-08 brass. (yes, it comes up short) Oddly, the 7-08 brass produces very accurate loads -moreso than commercial Remington or Winchester. I made 200 of them and they are on their 4th reloading, I believe.

The caveat to this story is that I got all this brass for free. I had the tool for removing the swaging and long, cold, winter nights to wish I was shooting with swaging brass was my next best option. If you can afford the swaging tool and have access to free (or near free) brass, go for it. You will learn a lot.
Otherwise, scout out good deals on commercial brass.~Muir

 

[nic531]

I don't have a 308, i was actually trying to check if it was worth grabbing some and offering it out, for postage cost only, to others. One of the places i shoot often has a 5 gallon bucket full of it sitting there from the last military range day.

RCBS also do a swager that sorts the crimp out for a fair bit less money.

 

[Sharpie]

nic51,

It's easy enough to examine the flash hole. If there is a single central one, it's boxer and re-loadable. If there's no central flash hole its Berdan. Shine a little torch in to make it easier to see. If you are using mixed up range pickups you'll need to do this until you've figured out which heads stamps are usable, or risk breaking your die's decapping pin.

If you discover that it is boxer primed, and same headstamp, I'd take a few hundred. A generous offer.

FWIW the real mil-surplus 7.62 stuff my club used had been released due to age, mostly from the '80s, and was all Berdan. On a big range day we'd get through several thousand and fill a plastic crate with the cases. Usually it had markings in German as well as English. Supply got tighter once various conflicts kicked off and stockpiles became depleted.

Some came as machine gun ammo. That's valuable, after shooting it you can glue in cheap bullets and re-link it to make waist belts, bracelets etc. to sell. You could even pull the original bullets, re-weigh the powder for consistency, seat a match bullet the way you preferred, shoot it, then turn it back into a dummy round with the original one and sell it. Some of that had one tracer in every 5, we kept those separate for days when we were allowed to use it.

Allegedly the machine gun stuff was purposely made to be slightly inaccurate, so disperse slightly in a burst, but we didn't find that to be so, some batches were pretty good.

The USA Boxer Prime their military 7.62 ammo, Europe etc. mostly Berdan, IME. So you can't necessarily read across the situation in the USA to over here.

The NRA GGG competion grade stuff is not Mil-Surp, it's "competition grade ammunition" supplied to them by GGG from Lithuania under a commercial contract that they won after a competition and evaluation.

Yes it uses a GGG military 7.62 case, not .308, but the powder is apparently different, specially selected, and the bullet is a Sierra Match king. It is a special, for the NRA, batch runs, not standard military production.

Read about it in the NSRA Spring Journal 2015, page 47.

https://nra.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2015Spring.pdf

I think the NRA still supply standard military spec, GGG as well, but again I wouldn't call it "surplus" in the usual sense. It is fresh stuff sold at a commercial price, not like something time-expired, auctioned off at a clearance to make room in the stores for the fresh deliveries.

 

[Laurie]

The caveat to this story is that I got all this brass for free. I had the tool for removing the swaging and long, cold, winter nights to wish I was shooting with swaging brass was my next best option. If you can afford the swaging tool and have access to free (or near free) brass, go for it. You will learn a lot.
Otherwise, scout out good deals on commercial brass.~Muir

My early book learning on handloading included some excellent books and features by Major George C Nonte Jr who wrote a lot for The American Rifleman and American gun mags in the 50s through 70s (80s?). He mentioned once that he and others like him had barrels full of ex military 30-06 cases obtained free or at scrap prices sold by weight for a few cents per pound. With all this 30-06 on hand, the more skilled guys like Nonte reformed it into almost everything that used the same case-head to avoid ever buying new cases in a large range of calibres / cartridges.

 

[Sonicdmb73]

nic51,
Allegedly the machine gun stuff was purposely made to be slightly inaccurate, so disperse slightly in a burst, but we didn't find that to be so, some batches were pretty good.

Going back to when I got my FAC in the 90’s.
My first centre fire rifle was an Enfield No4 mk1* which had been rebarreled in the 50’s. To 7.62 with a heavy barrel fitted with a target fore sight.
The shop though which I got it sold a lot of milsurp. The lad running the shop (an ex Green Jacket) and I took a lot of it in bits.
The weight of powder varied quite a bit iirc we put them back together with the average weight in for good results.
The reason for the weight difference is to create the “beaten zone”. An area roughly 100m long and 50m wide if memory serves. I was Artillery not infantry so could be slightly off with the area. But it is meant for the sustained fire mounted role.
I must admit the tracer was good fun.

 

[flying felix]

...The reason for the weight difference is to create the “beaten zone”. An area roughly 100m long and 50m wide if memory serves. I was Artillery not infantry so could be slightly off with the area. But it is meant for the sustained fire mounted role.
I must admit the tracer was good fun.

Not so I'm afraid.

The production of the beating zone is down the designed movement of the barrel.

I would suggest that the difference in weight will be due the breaking down of the stabilisers, which was always a problem with service ammo at that time. Remember that the ammo has been sold on as it has reached the end of its military "use by date".

 

[Lever357]

If it is GGG brass it is excellent quality. Yes you will have to open the primer pocket up the first time you reload it but you only do it once. Friend of mine who worked in the ammunition industry for many years reckons standard GGG brass is as good as if not better than Lapua. I reload it for my Enforcer and have had no issues.

 

[loiner1965]

Contrary to what Paul O says, I’m pretty sure GGG ammo is boxer primed, so can be reused. Look at the Dillon Super Swage 600 if you’re going to be reloading lots of this ammunition. It’ll sort out the circumferential crimp in this brass. GGG brass is pretty good and worth keeping if you’re going to use it multiple times.

When you reload be sure to check case capacity. It’s probably slightly less than normal brass as the military brass tends to be a little thicker which is good for longevity. Down side is that it can lead to over pressure if you don’t do the load calculation based on actual case capacity.

i had a few hundred of these and threw them away in the end....the brass is good quality but it was so much hassle removing the crimp even though i have the rcbs swage kit.
if you spend a few hours doing it and getting the crimp out evenly on each round then the priming will be consistent,
personally i would buy decent once fired brass

 

[Lever357]

Delete

 

[Lever357]

i had a few hundred of these and threw them away in the end....the brass is good quality but it was so much hassle removing the crimp even though i have the rcbs swage kit.
if you spend a few hours doing it and getting the crimp out evenly on each round then the priming will be consistent,
personally i would buy decent once fired brass

What a waste!!! If you get any more you can send them to me!!!

 

[Sonicdmb73]

Not so I'm afraid.

The production of the beating zone is down the designed movement of the barrel.

I would suggest that the difference in weight will be due the breaking down of the stabilisers, which was always a problem with service ammo at that time. Remember that the ammo has been sold on as it has reached the end of its military "use by date".

I doubt very much that any break down of stabilisers would give consistently half grain increments. Because that’s what we found when weighing dismantled rounds. Surely it would be much more random.

 

[flying felix]

I doubt very much that any break down of stabilisers would give consistently half grain increments. Because that’s what we found when weighing dismantled rounds. Surely it would be much more random.

You are right, it wouldn't if the variation were distributed to that consistently. I would then concluded that it would be down to the tolerance settings of each machine.
Generally there is no difference to the construction of ball ammo used in rifles and machine guns (of same rd) for the British military.