SVT40 vs chinese surplus ammo

[Lungorthin]

I have no problem with Chinese ammo in mine. Fed it 1000 rounds at a gas setting of 1.3

[HIT_MAN]

It's been a while since I've touched mine but was plagued by Various issues on 1.3 so I bumped it up to 1.5 and broke the firing pin shortly after. Was using Russian ammo.

[papovka]

Ive had rounds not go off with Chinese surplus. Would fire with a second strike (initial strike looked good) I suspected hard primers, i will try some Russian ammo. (Firing pin is clean and not damaged). The Chinese ammo was labeled machine gun on the packaging.

[Travis Bickle]

Can't you adjust the amount the firing pin protrudes on a SVT? Maybe its out of spec?

No Sir, the protrusion is set on the SVT40. You cannot adjust it.

Firing pin is fine, and it is all cleaned out of gunk. The rifle is just picky in regards to ammo (or it might be more accurate to say the ammo has hard primers, which only a Mosin Nagant eats easily). It is a noted problem with the SVT-40s is that they are sometimes particular in regards to ammo (likely a small part of the reason the Soviets didn't like them). Not all are this way, could very well be a rifle by rifle basis, could just be crap ammo, could just be both. Just making sure the OP knows these aren't a super reliable rifle (like a SKS or a M16/AR-15) as that is what my initial hopes for mine was.

That's really weird. I guess I got lucky both times on my other two!

[boss351cleveland]

Mine is very picky on ammo. I have tried 3 different types of surplus (Czech, Chinese, and Russian) and only the Russian would function properly. With the other two ammo types I would pull the trigger, have a hard primer strike, re-cock the rifle and sometimes it would fire the second time around.

It does work fine with modern ammo, but I am basically SOL for cheap surplus. Your experiences may vary.

Had the same issue , new hammer spring fixed it ..

[Butcherbill]

My two svt's love it and any x54r I have run through them so far, for machine gun ammo I'm getting decent groups with it from both my svt's and mosins.