.303 Greek Surplus... for those who said it was all gone.

smellie said:
@ BOSS351CLEVELAND:

Absolutely NOT. There is considerable difference between the charge for a 7.62x54R and a .303. A straight-across swap from 7.62x54R TO .303 WOULD be disastrous.

OTOH, dumping a .303 charge straight into a 7.62x54R should give you a nice, accurate load which is a bit on the mild side.

PULL DOWN a few rounds of the Russki ammo and WEIGH THE CHARGES and bullets. The BULLETS you can use straight across. You know what the Charge is and you know what the performance is supposed to be, so you should be able to work out the RBR of the powder in the cartridges.

Remember, it will not be far from what we call 4895: that is your benchmark to work from. Why? Because DuPont built a string of powder mills across Russia for Glorious Comrade Stalin (Hero of the Workers, Peasants and Intelligentsia) and the powder-mills worked fine.... so the Russians just copied them when they needed more.

So you work out what the powder IS, dump it into a clearly-marked can and RE-MEASURE it when loading into your .303 brass. You will have some powder left over, so you can use it with commercial slugs. Remember, most .303s are at their best with FLAT-based slugs.

If you are REALLY looking for CHEAP and ACCURATE target loads, do try the C.E. Harris UNIVERSAL LOAD: a 180-grain CAST bullet ahead of 13 (thirteen) grains of Red Dot shotgun powder. With a 3-cent Gas Check on the slugs, you are looking at a nice, accurate 200-yard-plus load that doesn't kick and costs only $2.50 a box. If you really want to know what this Super El Cheapo load can do, ask TINMAN204 or BUFFDOG; they both get scary results from it.

COMPONENTS do interchange between .303 and 7.62x54R but you have to keep your wits about you.
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Great thanks! cheers
 
Other thing to think about with the x54 bullets is that the poa and poi won't match in a Lee-Enfield, Ross, etc because the sights are calibrated for 174gr Mk7 ammo not 147gr. The powder does work and results are very nice if done right, but as stated be careful.

I'd love to buy some Greek ammo too!
 
I want to hear more about how a 54r powder load would be devastating in a .303 lol if you don't know what your talking about don't post it!
 
I've heard that the Greek HXP .303 British is really good ammo and that it's boxer primed brass cases are good for reloading.

Question: Back when it was being imported into Canada in the crates, how many rounds were in a crate and was it loaded on stripper clips?

BTW, Cheaper Than Dirt is also selling 450 rounds on stripper clips for $177.39.

http://www.cheaperthandirt.com/product/AMM-A13450C
 
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The HXP that I bought was in stripper clips in cloth bandoliers. I can't remember what the larger ctnr was. The HXP brass is boxer primed and is the heaviest .303 brass by weight that I've used. It has a smaller primer crimp than the USGI ammo. Surplus .303 hasn't been available for a long time. The last types I bought were the excellent berdan primed FN ball and the berdan primed stuff from South Africa.

I remember drawing both .303 and .30-06 ball ammo from the supply system for recreational shooting up until 1980 or so. My best score back when was DA55 and DA62 .30-06. .30 cal tracer was used with a sub-cal adapter for the 106mm RCL. We used to draw standard .30 cal belted ammo for this (4B1T) in the early '70s and pull the tracer for the 106s. Somebody had to do something with all of the leftover ball and I was shooting all of M1903s, Model 1917s and Garands back then.
 
purple said:
The HXP that I bought was in stripper clips in cloth bandoliers. I can't remember what the larger ctnr was. The HXP brass is boxer primed and is the heaviest .303 brass by weight that I've used. It has a smaller primer crimp than the USGI ammo. Surplus .303 hasn't been available for a long time. The last types I bought were the excellent berdan primed FN ball and the berdan primed stuff from South Africa.

I remember drawing both .303 and .30-06 ball ammo from the supply system for recreational shooting up until 1980 or so. My best score back when was DA55 and DA62 .30-06. .30 cal tracer was used with a sub-cal adapter for the 106mm RCL. We used to draw standard .30 cal belted ammo for this (4B1T) in the early '70s and pull the tracer for the 106s. Somebody had to do something with all of the leftover ball and I was shooting all of M1903s, Model 1917s and Garands back then.
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Thanks for the info!

That sounds awesome that it was not only on stripper clips, but in cloth bandoliers too!

I'm really kicking myself that I lost interest in Enfields in 1995.

When I got back into them in 2005, a friend told me about how good the Greek HXP ammo was, and how it had been cheap and plentiful not too long before.

It was long gone by the time I would have liked to stockpile some.

It would be nice if somebody found a huge supply of HXP in Greece and offered it to us at a reasonable price.
 
MapleSugar said:
Thanks for the info!

That sounds awesome that it was not only on stripper clips, but in cloth bandoliers too!

I'm really kicking myself that I lost interest in Enfields in 1995.

When I got back into them in 2005, a friend told me about how good the Greek HXP ammo was, and how it had been cheap and plentiful not too long before.

It was long gone by the time I would have liked to stockpile some.

It would be nice if somebody found a huge supply of HXP in Greece and offered it to us at a reasonable price.
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The last time I saw HXP in quantity has to be in the '97-'98 era...
 
H Wally said:
I'm sure there's a connotation to this but not at all sure what it is - good/bad? Usually I look to you guys for ammo deals so if it hasn't been seen here I'm sure there's a reason.
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Nothing too weird. Just means either it was sorted due to corrosion, etc or the government required it to be "destroyed/remanufactured".
 
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