Portuguese 7.62 NATO ammo

Holleyman

Holleyman

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I fired off the last 220 rounds of my 8 crates of Portuguese surplus today. I love this ammo, bought the crates about 8 or 9 years ago. Is there any more anywhere around? This stuff fires and groups as good as Winchester white box for a fraction of the cost. I would love to get a few more crates, anyone seen this stuff around.

The stuff I had was all 1978 production and said MATCH on the boxes
 
Seem to remember it being around 300 for a case of 1000, great ammo, long time ago and don't remember exactly. Too bad it is all gone. Should have bought 10 more cases.
 
Light Infantry said:
Isnt Santa Barbara ammo Spanish?
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Yes it is...

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... here is some Portuguese

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There was one lot of that Portuguese 7.62x51 that was over pressure and toasted a couple of guns. This was in the early 90's IIRC. Can't recall the lot #, and my Google-fu is not strong tonight.

Auggie D.
 
The Hirtenberger is hit and miss in my opinion, but at least boxer primed.
The Santa Barbara while better and more consistant, sucked that it is berdan.
Luckily still have a bit of both left, but when it's gone looks like I'll have to lower myself to the IVI.:puke:
 
Auggie Doggie said:
There was one lot of that Portuguese 7.62x51 that was over pressure and toasted a couple of guns. This was in the early 90's IIRC. Can't recall the lot #, and my Google-fu is not strong tonight.

Auggie D.
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Ok, I really dont mean to be sounding off as a know it all, but again :D, I believe that ammo was CBC out of Brazil. Also, only 1975 headstamp iirc.
 
Portugal's headstamp was FNM. Some was remanufactured for the DCRA as match ammo by Brit' John Carmichael in the mid '90's..

SB is Spanish for Santa Barbara.

CBC is Brazil. Some was remanufactured from unsafe imported ammo by Gold Cross for sale to DCRA shooters. Some guys had problems (weak crimping etc), and sadly Gold Cross lost its otherwise stellar reputation.

The long and sad tale of CBC ammo includes rejected lots in one South American country sold to another, where the powder was somehow adulterated with pistol powder, and then rejected again. Those pallets of ammo wound up in the US, where they did indeed blow up guns and all of that ammo was supposed to be condemned. Once again, boys were boys and bad ammo came North, but Gold Cross got their hands on the bulk of it to be feedstock for their target ammo. I did find a case of unsafe ammo which has since been remanufactured into reloads for blasting.

FWIW, I had some Austrian Hirtenberger 148(?)gr factory ball and reloaded CBC cases with 168gr bullets. The Hirtenberger was disappointing; twice as big a group as the reloads with my good M700.
 
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I recall reading a long time ago, that the Hirtenberger ammo came in both berdan and boxer primers. Anyone care to shed some light on that?
 
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