7.62 ex military cases

[Sonicdmb73]

I c

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.

only go from what we found at the time. It was back in the 90’s the lad that owned the gunshop bought a shed load of link for very little money. TBH I got sick of stripping it and pulling bullets etc. A collet bullet puller would of been very handy.

 

[dodgyrog]

I use 7,62 brass.
Usually the MEN or DAG German made stuff but French, or Radway Green all reload if you want to do it. I've even got some Egyptian stuff. The only two difficulties are getting the primers out (Wamamdet hydraulic decapper - I have two of them) and obtaining Berdan primers (I have lots) occasionally available at gun auctions.
As stated above the brass is somewhat thicker so the maximum load is to be reduced by 5%.
The advantage is the brass is cheap (usually free) and it doesn't matter if you lose some in the long grass.
Lake City brass is excellent (again, I have quite a few) and the primer pocket is easily decrimped then normal Large Rifle Primers fit right in. 5% reduction in max load again is the rule.
As I see it the only draw back is finding some Berdan primers.
I reckon I'm spending 2 1/2 pence per reload on brass and primer - well worth the decapping process.

 

[flying felix]

I took a group of students to the RG factory a number of years ago. The two things that really surprised me was that the machines they were using were already over 50 years old! But they did say that due to the level of mechanical engineering at that time it means that they had never needed to upgrade.

The second was their level of QA: They proof fire the batches of ammo on a 70yd range! and looking at the target and a little bit of mental arithmetic it work out that their acceptance level was in the region of 2MOA! To be fair, the batches usually exceed well above that, but it did strike me as being very low.

 

[enfieldspares]

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.

Absolutely not!

Indeed MG ammunition...when such was produced as specifically for MGs....was always specified to a tighter specification. If you are using an MG in an overhead fire role the very last thing your troops want is a lower trajectory round going through the back of someone's head as they are underneath it. Originally the reason was for use with synchronised MGs firing through the propellor. Which probably by the time of the Battle of Britain and after was likely only the Gloucester Gladiator.

The easy way to tell the rounds apart in British service is that ammunition loaded specifically for MG use had the year date stamp in full as in 1940 or 1943 etc. whereas if intended for general use and not for use in synchronised MGs it had the mere last two year numbers date stamp as in 40 or 43 etc. Anecdotally it's why the Greek HXP .303 Mk VII was specified for "Cadet Use ONLY" as it wasn't tight enough in its velocity specification to be safe for overhead fire use in MGs.

The best "civilian" .303 available in the 1980s and into the 1990s was, by far, the South African stuff that sometimes came on to the market in the UK. As the opinion was was that this was ammunition made for "war use" in which it might be employed for overhead fire and so was produced with a tighter specification. Certainly it would outperform HXP in accuracy through most No.4 and SMLE rifles that the users were lucky enough to have a supply of to use it through.

As a PS to this I can remember firing the GPMG on a tripod and fitted with a dial sight.

 

[25 Sharps]

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.

Ggg is boxer primed and good brass, the RCBS swagger is a good bit of kit and far better in terms of ease of use and consistency than reaming the pockets.

As for case capacity in 5.56 I have recently checked GGG and it is on a par with RP (Remington) and lake city, other headstands could be different

 

[Woodsmoke]

Not so I'm afraid.

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

Yep. This is why the LMG was less effective than it's predecessor, the .303 BREN. When it was re-barreled to 7.62 it became far more accurate due to the barrel harmonics changing, and was far less useful as a section weapon for laying down suppressing fire as a result

 

[Harry mac]

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.

It seems strange to me that a military unit would be leaving brass behind. I'm pretty sure that any range detail is expected to return quite a high percentage of their empty cases (I'm not sure of the actual percentage; I never did an ammo storeman's course). If the "bucket" is there for the RQMS's boys to collect at a later date, you could be thieving.

 

[nic531]

It seems strange to me that a military unit would be leaving brass behind. I'm pretty sure that any range detail is expected to return quite a high percentage of their empty cases (I'm not sure of the actual percentage; I never did an ammo storeman's course). If the "bucket" is there for the RQMS's boys to collect at a later date, you could be thieving.

As it was left for some amount of time, it may well be classed as abandoned under the theft act. It is only a small percentage that is currently expected to be returned according to guys that have just left my regiment. Also I have found out that what i was offered was NRA purchased GGG that people do not want for reloading and have offered me directly.
but thank you for the advice.

 

[25 Sharps]

As it was left for some amount of time, it may well be classed as abandoned under the theft act. It is only a small percentage that is currently expected to be returned according to guys that have just left my regiment. Also I have found out that what i was offered was NRA purchased GGG that people do not want for reloading and have offered me directly.
but thank you for the advice.

NRA GGG is good brass for reloading!

 

[dreddrockz]

I never like to disagree with Paul 'o - but if you have a constant supply of something half decent like GGG, swaging with something like the RCBS kit is not onerous and will work fine. Just remember potential case capacity differences and start your loads accordingly.