7.62 x 54R
- Thread starter samdunc
- Start date
What Canadian tire do you go to? I would like to attend. I have not seen 7.62x54 loaded brass under $30 anyplace few bucks more for Soft points often.
Those S&B rounds are market price for em right now.
Look at 8mm it's btw 28 and 35/box depending on bullet. They are less common rounds and unfortunately we must pay the price if we chose to shoot them. Still the surplus was/is cheap shoot that in between hunting or target matches.
if can tire has them buy what you can afford, as the Canadian tire in my area, southern nova scotia, has sold out last year and has not restocked it. they are getting hard to find now and when I had a chance to buy I picked up 120rds of sp. even the reloadable brass in bags is hard to find now.
Make sure your FMJ is 180gr though, there are a lot of different bullet weights and profiles, not necessarily safe and should not be used as a blanket statement.
So because the M/N will take heavier loads we need to condone loading military surplus rounds of unknown bullet weights with random soft point bullets?
The Enfield will take a heck of a lot more force than we put into it as well, that does not mean it is good for the gun or safe to shoot long term.
If you want to load SP bullets into military surplus powder and primer cases you could do so by breaking it down and weighing the bullet then reducing the powder 10% and building up the load as you would any other reload with your desired soft point of similar weight. The boat tail vs flat base, seating depth, a pile of factors will effect the pressure.
gewehr76
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
I would not compare Enfield with mosin. Different rifles and different cartridges.
This thread is about 7.62x54R which is the longest serving cartridge in the world. That is still used by many millitaries as of 2017 lol. Where is 303 nowadays? That's right, nowhere to be found.
X54R is loaded for many firearms that have to cycle and work reliably. main purpose nowadays is (machine guns). Therefore these cartridges loaded to standard pressures. When first this cartridge came out in 1890s there was no machine guns or semis to worry about and only rifle that it ment to be used in is Mosin Nagant. So the 1890 and even after 1908 when Russia went with Spitzer bullets X54R was loaded to its potential and much higher pressures that only mosin can handle. And that is what we mostly shoot in Canada is mosin.
Its after all other firearms that came in to service, cartridge had to be adopted to be safe in all other firearms so pressures had to be minimized.
However mosin is the original firearm that x54 is designed for and what ammo we have now is low pressure offerings that will work in mosin but ment for machine guns or semis. SVD and such.
My point is that yes when reloading or making mexican match ammo out of x54 r one has to exercise precautions, but if for use in Mosin no reasonable amount of powder or bullet weight will surpass limit of mosin nagant action.
Now Lee Enfield oh yes have to be careful and watch pressure curve and bullet weight. Absolutely.
Wouldn't it be great if they planned for a big war then called the whole thing off as a hoax to milk the taxpayer to pay the industrial complex... then they could sell the ammo to us cheap as surplus like the good old days without all the bad memories.
What I meant gewehr76 is that the guns are always proofed higher and can therefore handle more pressure than standard loadings but proofing over an over again is bad, the No 4 Enfield can technically take more pressure than the older generation enfields so the ammo is loaded down for the older versions, I assume that is still the case with the 7.62x54R.
What I was leaning towards though is the evolution of the military surplus ammo and how pulling a bullet and seating another is not something to just throw around. If you have flat base military 180gr and you pull the bullet and seat a flat base 180gr SP to the same seating depth into the powder then you should not have any problems at all but there are a number of factors to take into account. First off there have been many different bullet weights loaded over the 100+ years of surplus, if you have 150gr military ammo and you seat a 180gr SP you have the potential to be over powder by approximately 10% based on the numbers for H4895 from IMR, so verify the bullet weight first, I know that surplus packages are not well marked for this. Another thing to consider is the base, a flat base vs a boat tail will have different pressures, the flat base generally has more contact to the bore on firing but a boat tail creates little pressure spikes around the bullet, they will not act the same way, hence why I said building a load (starting by losing 10% of the powder and trickling up) is a good idea. Another thing to consider is the way the bullet is made, the steel bullets are very long for the weight, a .311 125gr is about the same length as a 150gr .311. Pulling a steel one and seating a lead one at the same OAL should be less pressure as it will not be seated into the powder as far but yet seating say a Barnes into a military case to the same OAL as a lead core FMJ bullet would seat it deeper and potentially cause pressure issues.
You are reloading when you do any of these things, learning the load and how it reacts to your gun is what is needed, blanket statements are hard as there are lots of variables. If I were wanting to hunt with a Mosin I would probably go boxer primed brass though, no corrosive primers to deal with when hunting, sure when coming back from the range you plan for the proper cleaning but in the cold of a camp situation with maybe a few friends over I would hate to rot out a barrel by being too busy to properly take care of the rifle.
What I was leaning towards though is the evolution of the military surplus ammo and how pulling a bullet and seating another is not something to just throw around. If you have flat base military 180gr and you pull the bullet and seat a flat base 180gr SP to the same seating depth into the powder then you should not have any problems at all but there are a number of factors to take into account. First off there have been many different bullet weights loaded over the 100+ years of surplus, if you have 150gr military ammo and you seat a 180gr SP you have the potential to be over powder by approximately 10% based on the numbers for H4895 from IMR, so verify the bullet weight first, I know that surplus packages are not well marked for this. Another thing to consider is the base, a flat base vs a boat tail will have different pressures, the flat base generally has more contact to the bore on firing but a boat tail creates little pressure spikes around the bullet, they will not act the same way, hence why I said building a load (starting by losing 10% of the powder and trickling up) is a good idea. Another thing to consider is the way the bullet is made, the steel bullets are very long for the weight, a .311 125gr is about the same length as a 150gr .311. Pulling a steel one and seating a lead one at the same OAL should be less pressure as it will not be seated into the powder as far but yet seating say a Barnes into a military case to the same OAL as a lead core FMJ bullet would seat it deeper and potentially cause pressure issues.
You are reloading when you do any of these things, learning the load and how it reacts to your gun is what is needed, blanket statements are hard as there are lots of variables. If I were wanting to hunt with a Mosin I would probably go boxer primed brass though, no corrosive primers to deal with when hunting, sure when coming back from the range you plan for the proper cleaning but in the cold of a camp situation with maybe a few friends over I would hate to rot out a barrel by being too busy to properly take care of the rifle.
"Where is 303 nowadays? That's right, nowhere to be found."
I have to disagree with that sweeping statement.
The LE No.4 rifle is still in service right here at home with the Canadian rangers for one.
No doubt that it still soldiers on in other countries too.
Industries Valcartier Inc. in Quebec makes the ammo.
I have to disagree with that sweeping statement.
The LE No.4 rifle is still in service right here at home with the Canadian rangers for one.
No doubt that it still soldiers on in other countries too.
Industries Valcartier Inc. in Quebec makes the ammo.
gewehr76
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Russian and US politicians are working on it lol. Oh wait, North Korea as well as South also hard at work.
There will be x54r for ages to come. We just have to keep our barrels clean to use it
There will be x54r for ages to come. We just have to keep our barrels clean to use it
But liability would keep them from selling it to us, in this country anyway. They would have to break down the components and sell them at auction to massive suppliers who would milk us and sell it to us at $0.10 under the commercial prices.
Grandpa told me about the day he bought a case of WWII surplus off a soldier at a bar, ha ha, try that now.
There is tons of 303 Brit, Canadian manufactured SP and FMJ but we will never be able to shoot it unless we join up and don't mind being in the cold.
They may be moving away from the No 4 but they are still in existence and since they are there they need ammo for them, the stock piles exist.
gewehr76
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
I totally agree with what you are stating sir. You are preaching to the converted. Absolutely one has to be careful and really know what he is doing when replacing original components. But with x54r one has to load tnt instead of powder in to the case in order to make damage to mosin nagant action even then im not sure it will.
I got it, they are strong as an ox, I still don't want an over pressure load that close to my face, ha ha.
I am working on some loads for a 135 year old gun, it will be shot with a string at first, even after being checked over by a gunsmith, I like my hands and face too much to be that close on the first shot in 50+ years.
