General observations surrounding milsurp ammo.

P

Pond James Pond

New member
I just thought I'd share some observations I have made as I've measured and recorded the dimensions of some milsurp ammo I have access to. The origins are Finnish, Swede, Brazilian and US. Despite the no frills packaging, plain FMJs and crimped primers, the Brazilian stuff seems more llike commercial grade.

As I've alluded already, I may decide to pull apart some of this ammo to see if there is scope for giving it great uniformity upon reassembly. Ideal this would be done with all original components.

So I thought I might document my findings for general consumption. May be old hat to some but to other, like me, it may be new information.

Firstly, all are .308, all are steel under copper FMJs, except for the Brazilian which is a true copper jacket. I think all are in the 165-170gn range of bullet weight. All averages, medians and SDs are based on 20 case groups except for the US cartridges of which I can only fiddle with 10.

So far I have only had the calipers out and here are the results:
Values are MEAN, MEDIAN, MAX, MIN and STDEV in mm.

COAL, OAL from Ogive, and difference between the two
Fin:
70.89 55.46 15.43
70.88 55.47 15.41
71.12 55.62 15.60
70.76 55.28 15.18
0.09 0.09 0.11

Brazilian:
70.74 55.78 14.96
70.75 55.80 14.96
70.84 55.96 15.13
70.63 55.50 14.82
0.05 0.09 0.07

Swede
70.82 55.32 15.49
70.81 55.36 15.47
70.88 55.55 15.86
70.77 54.93 15.26
0.03 0.17 0.16

US
70.83 55.44 15.39
70.85 55.43 15.42
70.89 55.74 15.58
70.74 55.21 15.15
0.05 0.17 0.15

So far it seems like the most consistently loaded ammo, tip to tip, is Swedish whilst the Brazilian seems to have the most consistent ogive measured OAL.

It also seems like the Brazilian ammo has the most consistent bullet form as the difference from the complete OAL and Ogive OAL is the smallest.

Finnish seems to be the most inconsistent, compared to the others, although none of the values are miles from one another.

I plan to produce similar measurements for bullet weight, charge weight and case length. I'll add these as an edit to this post or to a subsequent reply, depending on how long it takes me to get organised!

Here are similar values but for charge weight, bullet weight and case length:
Finnish (ball powder)
44.65 146.22 48.47
44.65 146.35 50.96
44.90 146.80 51.05
44.30 145.40 50.95
0.15 0.42 0.04

Brazilian (VV-style stick powder)
43.76 143.82 51.01
43.80 143.80 51.02
44.00 144.30 51.09
43.40 143.40 50.95
0.15 0.23 0.04

This second group of measurements I only did for the Finnish and Brazilian stock as the quantities are too small to do the same with the Swedish and American. The Brazilian stuff seemed generally more well made and it was super heavily crimped. I had to seat the bullet deeper to then get it to come out.

One thing I did notice whilst pulling the bullets with the inertial bullet puller is that neck tension was very variable: some rounds would come apart with a firm tap, others would need several whacks.

The plan is now to shoot some of the standard stuff, record the pattern and then see if that improves once things like OAL, neck tension and charge weights are far closer to one another as they would be in a genuine handload.

Let me know what this tells you and how you would maximise the use of this information.
 
Last edited:
I think there are other factors which will affect performance of surplus ammo more than what you've posted. Storage conditions would be at the top of my list but no way to know that answer. The amount and type of sealant will make a diff in some ammo. The quality of the bullet will be a factor-I've seen some pretty poorly finished bullet bases.
Military ammo had to meet certain minimum accuracy levels BUT many of those standards are far below civilian expectations.
 
Well, I'm not expecting sub-MOA, but it'll be interesting to see. Still, the whole point of this thread is just that I've never done a full inspection of such ammo.

It is, after all, supposed to be the complete opposite end of carefully assembled handloads in terms of consistency of components and parameters so I wanted to see to which degree and how much room there is for improvement.

The Swedish stuff looked like it had been stored in a bucket of salt!! I could use the brass like sand-paper in places!!
 
Last edited:
Finnish has money for good ammo. As do Sweden and the U.S. Brazil doesn't. In any case, military ammo is not loaded for great accuracy. 7.62 x 51 especially these days. It's loaded for reliability in MG's.
 
I recall reading many years ago about a Camp Perry target shooter who was convinced he could improve on the match ammo furnished by the Army. So he pulled down some ammo from a known accurate lot and reassembled it, weighing and measuring everything. When he was done he fired his rebuilt ammo in his accurate match rifle. It turned out to produce larger groups and less consistency than the Frankford Arsenal National Match ammo he began with!

Jim
 
Well, as I've inspected these more closely I think that the Brazilian stuff is some sort of military spec commercial ammo, rather than true milsurp.

Boxer primed, no bi-metal jacketed bullets and generally seems to be more consistently loaded together with a box that has some design work on it, rather than printed cardboard. It also came in a box of 50, as opposed to the 10 or 20 round boxes for the others. It did however share the same bullet weight as the Finnish milsurp ammo.
 
Since completing my ammo pull-down, I have noticed one or two things about milsurp type ammo, or at least the small selection I have.
It seems that all are pretty firmly crimped. It also seems that, although there is variation in all categories.

However, the biggest ones seem to be not in cartridge assembly, but in the precision of components. In the 20 cases I examined in detail, there was a min to max spread of 1.4gn in the bullets (supposed to be an estimate 146gn FMJBT) and 0.6gn in powder charge where the charge appears to be around 44.7gn or a ball powder in the Finnish ammo.

The Brazilian ammo showed significant variation in those same two categories, but to a lesser degree where 144gn bullets varied by only 0.9gn and powder charges by 0.6gn also, although the actual charge seems to be smaller (43.8gn), so this makes it a more significant 0.6gn!!

I don't know what is deemed accceptable variation in commercial ammo, but in my handloading, I'd feel pretty upset with my charges weren't +/- 0.1gn from my chosen dose. I hope that the quality bullets I buy would be fairly uniform too. With that bullet quality I'd hope to achieve more uniform OALs too.

A further aspect that I'd hope was not common in my handloads was the variable neck-tension. I used inner diameter caliper jaws to measure the neck on the extreme ends of the tension spectrum (if I placed a bullet upside down in a neck, on some cases the bullet would sit higher than others implying that the neck was narrower in those than others). The range in mm was 7.75mm to 7.78mm after bullets had been pulled. I can't say what they were before.

So there are some details of what I found. Some readers may find it interesting, some may already know it, but for me it was a learning experience, seeing how much disparity could exist in cases that outwardly look the same.
 
The Brazilian ammo showed significant variation
Click to expand...

Adapting on old George Bush joke for this thread:

Milsurp ammo shooter:
"I fired five Brazilian rounds and the accuracy was pretty bad."
Wannbe Range Expert:
"After that many rounds the barrel was undoubted shot out. But just exactly how many rounds is a Brazilian?"
 
From "Catridges od the World":

US M59 Ball is required maximum accuracy of 5" mean RADIUS(10" average group) @ 600 yards from "carton or clip pack" and 7.5" RADIUS (15" average group) @ 600 yards from "link pack". I take that to mean the overall group could/will be larger as long as the average strike zone is within that figure(10 shots fired with 5 in 3" and 5 inside 12")
US M80: same specs.
There is mention of a max group size of 25" @ 600 yards. Ammo can be pretty gnarly and still make those specs.
 
25" at 600 is right about 4 MOA, which is about a standard chest width. Hence the accuracy standard to hit at that range for a standard rack grade infantry rifle or machine gun.

Even a very well made and accurate rifle will struggle to get better than 3 MOA with most milsurped NATO spec ball 7.62x51. There are exceptions, good lots of Radway Green and Hirtenburger for example, but generally ammo is surplussed for reasons that it no longer meets some specification.

Jimro
 
the finns have 762x51 nato? not standard arms if so, maybe that is why it is not so good

I thought they were still on russian calibres?

No domestic? Estonia got old Swedish arms when we went from ak4 to ak5 (762 to 556

did you guys get the ammo to go with it?
 
Civilians don't get to see much of any milsurp, as far as I've seen: we are mostly forced to buy mainstream at high prices...

Not because of any rules that I can think of, I just think there are not masses of mil and so very little surp!!
 
I never bothered with milsurp ammo even thou my dad got a bunch from his homeguard days

in 6,5x55 we used it but we mainly shoot 308 now, seen alotta people have trouble with extraction with it
 
ever heard of it?
Click to expand...

Not as yet, but I have to say, given that most I have seen so far has a steel jacket, I think I will choose very carefully. I don't want to get in the habit of sending steel down my bore....

1000yds, no scope!! Nice!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top