SVT40 vs chinese surplus ammo

O

one Lonewolf

Member
EE Expired
Ive heard varying stories and seen varying video. Will an Svt40 cycle Chinese surplus ammo or am I relegated to Russian made surplus or the expensive stuff? My Russian SKS seems to eat anything up!
 
My SVT40 on gas setting 1.5 runs Chinese surplus from Canada Ammo %99 of the time (Had 1 FTF in the 300 i've fired)
 
The bulgarian stuff runs really good i know that.. I seen someone else I shot with have issues with the Chinese stuff but it was very uncommon so not a big deal.
 
The SVT40 will eat any surplus 7.62x54R FMJ.
Gas setting may have to be adjusted depending on the rifle but I had an SVT that I literally fed almost every available surplus on the market at one point and it ate every single round without a single issue.
I even ran some really old S&B soft points through it and it still ate it. They are very reliable guns. Acceptable accuracy to boot even with crusty old surplus!
 
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-#### 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.
 
Eaglelord17 said:
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-#### 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.
Click to expand...

Sounds like it may be a worn firing pin?
You can remove the firing pin from the bolt with relative ease on them. Clean it all out and see if it helps, could be worn or could be tuck up with cosmoline or carbon.
I owned two over the years and they both ate anything I put in them with slight gas setting adjustments.
 
Travis Bickle said:
Sounds like it may be a worn firing pin?
You can remove the firing pin from the bolt with relative ease on them. Clean it all out and see if it helps, could be worn or could be tuck up with cosmoline or carbon.
I owned two over the years and they both ate anything I put in them with slight gas setting adjustments.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Travis Bickle said:
Sounds like it may be a worn firing pin?
You can remove the firing pin from the bolt with relative ease on them. Clean it all out and see if it helps, could be worn or could be tuck up with cosmoline or carbon.
I owned two over the years and they both ate anything I put in them with slight gas setting adjustments.
Click to expand...

Can't you adjust the amount the firing pin protrudes on a SVT? Maybe its out of spec?
 
one Lonewolf said:
Ive heard varying stories and seen varying video. Will an Svt40 cycle Chinese surplus ammo or am I relegated to Russian made surplus or the expensive stuff? My Russian SKS seems to eat anything up!
Click to expand...

I bought a 1000 round case from Canada Ammo and what I got was manufactured in 2014 for the Chinese army. No failures to fire in my SVT so far.
 
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.
 
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.
 
Suther said:
Can't you adjust the amount the firing pin protrudes on a SVT? Maybe its out of spec?
Click to expand...

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

Eaglelord17 said:
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.
Click to expand...

That's really weird. I guess I got lucky both times on my other two!
 
Eaglelord17 said:
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-#### 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.
Click to expand...

Had the same issue , new hammer spring fixed it ..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom