Mystery ammo found. Google and I are clueless...

[Oyster Stew]

Hello, I'm still a bit new here and hope this is the best place for my mystery
ammo question.

here is the list of features

It looks like 7.62x39

On the back it reads 04 82

It chambered in my 7.62x39 barrel
Im not planning on shooting it until I know what they are

my worst thought is that they use a 308 bullet not a 310

I wish I had calipers to give you and me a better picture.

I suspect that it came from some military somewhere

But mostly Im just clueless

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

To my understanding...

04 indicates East German manufacture. 82 indicates 1982.

Probably not exactly common any more. Might be worth more to a collector than a shooter...

or then again maybe not, I don't know a thing about it.

 

[Gunplummer]

.308 does not matter. .311 in a chamber cut for .308 diameter bullets may increase your pressure. I have shot .308 bullets in all kinds of .311 barrels and some shoot quite well. I have one 7.62x39 bolt gun in which they actually shoot better.

 

[300Whspr]

I have a 7.62x39 barrel for my TC Encore. It is a .308 bore barrel. TC says shooting .311 bullets in it is just fine, no problem. I've shot both .308 and .311 bullets through it with no issues...

You should be fine.

 

[Oyster Stew]

Wow so assuming my barrel is ok with 308 I could use the more common bullets.
I bet lead 309 bullets would not have much difference in performance from 308 or 311. That concept is exciting to me...

 

[300Whspr]

Oyster, just curious, what gun do you have?

I used to shoot IHMSA Silhouette competition a few years ago, and that 7.62x39 barrel soon became one of my favorites. I shot a LOT of cast bullets out of it, it was quite effective on the 200 meter rams.

The thing to watch out for, is you'll need a .308 expander button for your dies (most 7.62x39 dies come with a .311 button) if you want to load .308 bullets. For cast bullets, I used gas checked hard cast bullets sized to .310". Remember, this is in a .308 bore barrel... If you have a .311 barrel, you'll likely have trouble with cast bullets sized for a .308 barrel.

Good luck!

Brian

 

[mikld]

For jacketed bullets .003" smaller is OK. There's still plenty of rifling to give decent accuracy (I shot some .310 jacketed bullets in my oversize Enfield 303 barrel, .318", with fair to good accuracy...).