can 7.62x51mm NATO be used in .308 chambered barrel

bhanot

bhanot

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hello
can 7.62x51mm NATO be used in .308 chambered barrel
as i have bought xbolt .308
there are mixed answers to this question....did any one tried it??
thx
 
general understanding around here its its a bad idea to use 7.62 nato ammo in a regular "hunting" rifle marked .308
 
.Ben said:
general understanding around here its its a bad idea to use 7.62 nato ammo in a regular "hunting" rifle marked .308
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You have that backwards. 7.62 can be fired in a .308 but .308 should not be fired in a 7.62 chamber. Flip that around again for the .223 vs 5.56. Lots of people don't bother distinguishing the difference of either one. Lots of info on this online so read up on it. Opinions will differ but when you find info from credible sources you should be able to make your own decision.
 
To answer the OPs question, yes I have shot 7.62 Nato in my .308 guns. I have used it to get new guns sighted on paper before switching to more expensive hunting ammo for final sightin. And it was fun to blast away with when 7.62 Nato surplus was cheap and widely available.
 
hbean said:
people have been using both ammo for decades in the same gun with no problems, until the internet came along
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+1

Read this.

http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?t=418462

Most will testify that nothing ever happen after thousands of rounds fired. Myself included.

Do you think the military use a special super high velocity round? No most 7.62mm are 140-150grains at 2700fps. 50000 psi. Nothing fancy or any different from a normal .308 cartridge specs. Heck... I meet a guy who was pushing a 155 grain at 3200 fps... And 168 at almost 2900-3000 fps. Not ideal but nothing ever happen. Chambers safety/security factor/charts are like any other things out there. It can take 10x the mentioned safe specs. Not that you have to go up like an idiot but it just mean that it can take some abuse.

Yes neck might be .001 longer ( even if all my reloading books speculate that the cases specs are all identical ) but most rifles will not even notice that difference.

NATO match/precision ammo are 175 grains at 2600-2680fps. Again nothing out of the ordinary.

Cheers.
 
crashcollins said:
You have that backwards. 7.62 can be fired in a .308 but .308 should not be fired in a 7.62 chamber. Flip that around again for the .223 vs 5.56. Lots of people don't bother distinguishing the difference of either one. Lots of info on this online so read up on it. Opinions will differ but when you find info from credible sources you should be able to make your own decision.
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Are the Norc M14's not reverse engineered off a rifle designed to chamber and fire 7.62mm NATO?
How many millions of rounds of .308 Win go down range fired from these rifles every month?
 
7.62x51 is fine in .308 rifle. Some 7.62x51 rifles may have issues with some .308 ammo.

Stickys? No one every reads them anyways lol ;)
 
Blast away. Millions of rounds of 7.62 NATO have been fired at Bisley and at Connaught Range with rifles chambered in .308Win. when the norm was issued ammo for competitions. If it was unsafe do you think the MOD and DND would allow such dangerous activities on their ranges?

Same with .223 Vs 5.56 NATO. If it was really a problem there would be pages and pages of blown up rifles all over the internet. Blast away.
 
bhanot said:
[/B]

that's what concerned me
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If you read that article a bit closer you would had notice "small arms ranging from numerous M1A/M14 rifles to machine guns such two belonging to Kent Lomont (including a M1919A4" . Those 7.62 surplus rounds blew up in 7.62 chambers, they were simply out of spec overload ammo.

out of spec ammo will cause failures no matter what chamber you use.
 
Ah this old one.

Almost as old as the bear defense threads.

As mentioned earlier, everybody out there was using .308 win and 7.62mm interchangeably forever without a hitch, until the internet came out.

In my experience, same with 5.56 and .223. And yes, I've read all the information out there. It's all about theoretical "This could be a problem, maybe, theoretically..." type stuff.

I haven't seen anything that said something like, "Our research team purchased ten Mini -14's and shot surplus 5.56 threw them and five of them blew up within a hundred rounds..." or anything like that.

I can remember when I was seventeen, my gunsmith handing me a well worn Remington 600 in .308 he was selling, and a handful of 7.62 surplus and telling me to go to the range and try it and see if I wanted to buy it (pre - C-68 of course...).
 
ATOM said:
SAAMI unsafe combinations site (http://www.saami.org/specifications...1-Unsafe_Arms_and_Ammunition_Combinations.pdf) says not to use 5.56mm NATO in .223 Remington weapons. It does not however mention 7.62mm NATO in .308 Win rifles.

What it does mention as unsafe for .308 Winchester weapons are the 7.62 x 39 and the .300 Savage.

Have fun.
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Gee about the only idiotic thing they missed was trying 50 BMG in you 22LR.
Good God if a person can not figure out that they should load ammo correct for the firearm maybe Darwin was right.:eek:
 
Before the internet was invented (and everyone had an arseh...err...opinion), guys were shooting .308 in 7.62 guns for years. Yes, the spec for chamber pressure for 7.62x51 is 55kpsi max, and .308 win is 60kpsi max, but most 7.62x51 rifles are tested to something in the neighbourhood of 1.5xmax pressure, so figure around 78kpsi. I have an old spaniard that people have told me not to load over 40k because they're actually meant for a different 7.62 nato round, but i found that these guns were tested by the importer to over 90kpsi before havign catastrophic failures.

To answer your question though, yes, you can shoot 7.62x51 ammo in a .308.
 
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