7.62x54R Ammo

What I can tell you is that I bought some lapua Brass recently at the advice of a dealer, it is listed as 7.62X53R it is in fact 7.62X54R they are exactly the same , after I received the brass i actually went thru the trouble to make double sure and it was in fact identical , i was also told by my dad (from germany) that europeans measure metric different from how we do it in canada , no idea how that works , but also was told that by other old time folks as well. and there is plenty of ammo available , just call peter at hirsch precision , has lots of it :)
 
The safe answer is DO NOT TRY TO EXCHANGE CARTRIDGES OR BULLETS UNLESS YOU ARE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. As has already been pointed out, although both are nominally 7.62mm, the U.S. cartridge designations are .308 Dia. bullets and the Russian struff is .311. The .308 would be loose in a .311 bore while the .311 would be tight and overpressure in a .308 bore. The .311 bullet for a .303 British would be reloadable in a .7.62X54. Before you think of exchanging anything buy a reloading manual or access other reference material available online. Do NOT interchange cartridges.
 
I have 2 mosin nagant rifles , one is exactly .308 (7.62) the other is exactly .312 (.303) and i have heard of as big as .317 , as stated already , donot put any catridge in any old gun , unless you really want to hurt yourself , also , bullet wise , when in doubt , get the rifle barrel "slugged"
 
Bushwacker, the pressure differences you are talking about would be negligeble at best. Wartime specs on rifle bbls were very generous to say the least. I've got Mosins with .308 bores and at least two Long Branch No4 Mk1* Lee Enfields with .308 bores as well, probably Savage manufactured barrels. Savage sent these barrels to England as well.

That being said, I've also got rifles that should have .311 bores with diameters as high as .315 and one of them is as new.

I would be more worried about case differences than anything else, but with both the 7.62x54 and the 303 brit haveing near identical rims, even that won't be much of a problem.

bearhunter
 
Add to that
.30 calibre is not .30 but .308
303, is not .303 but .312
7.62, is Not 7.62, but .311
.310 is Not .310 but .320to.323
.38 is Not .38 but .35
8mm can vary as well from .319 to .329 depending on which country's rifle uses it and what vintage it is.
577-450 is actualy anywhere from .459 to .469
:runaway:
 
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My understanding of the 53R vs 54R issue, as I have read in I believe, "Cartridges of the world" (I might be out to lunch on this one, and if I am please tell me so) is that they are indeed the same round, but Europeans tend to measure the lenght of the cartridge before the rim, while in North-America we tend to measure the entire lenght, and since the rim measures around 1mm, here's your difference.
 
I'm still trying to understand why anyone would be interested in firing a cartridge in a rifle that it's not chambered for. These aren't toys and this isn't a game of mix and match then let's see what happens when we pull the trigger.
 
it's not that he wants to mix and match , he wants to find a way around the so-called shortage of 7.62x54r ammo, which as we all know isn't going to happen , so we have all been trying to tell him that and what will/could happen if he puts wrong round into wrong rifle........ Not a smart thing to do , and no you can't circumvent the lack of ammo , just do what I do , buy some brass, get some powder, and bullets and learn to reload , I have more 7.62x54r than i need , all reloaded, plus go to gun shows in the fall , lots floating around , depending on where youn are located :)
 
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