so what's going on with 308/7.62x51mm???

E

Evil Monkey

New member
It's been years and it's still over 40 cents a round, what the heck is going on?

All those countries sitting on billions and billions of rounds of 7.62 and nothing gets trickled out as surplus?:confused:

For years I've been wanting to get a 308 rifle but the cost of 308/7.62 has prevented me from doing so. Commercial 308 is like 50 cents a round!:eek:
 
Yeah...I wish there was some cheap .308. Remington and Winchester FMJ are close to $1. I reload to keep the cost down, but I can't do it for much less than $.40...
 
What billions and billions? A lot sold off in the eighties switching over to 5.56. No ammo will last in storage indefinitely, it has to be used or it deteriorates and goes bad. Inspection and some refurbishing only go so far. After a certain time, it's sold off as surplus because it's no longer milspec - it's too old.

Check the headstamp dates of what is on the market, you don't find much over 25 -30 years old. Some a lot newer. Really old ammo gets sold for scrap to recycle. It's just too old and unstable to shoot.

Billions? Not so much.
 
A little thing called supply and demand
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I don't see why manufacturers can't cut down on the other dozens of rifle calibers, to make more 308.

And for surplus, it may be a problem regarding ammo trafficking laws and such.

Maybe there is no demand problem and people are willing to pay 40+cents a round? I don't......
 
Billions? Not so much
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You'd think that with the number of countries that make 7.62x51mm, and how they'd have a considerable amount in storage as a buffer for ammunition expenditure variables in training or conflict, why wouldn't all these countries together have billions of rounds sitting somewhere?
 
Don't forget we've been at war, along with a bunch of other NATO countries, for a good 10 years. We go through it, so I doubt there is that much being produced that doesn't get used. I'd bet we've cleaned the cobwebs off a lot of what would have been surplus and replaced it with newer ammo.
 
I shoot 70 year old ammo regularly.

The reason ammo is so expensive is because ALL metal prices are going up as the dollar becomes increasingly worthless.

If the price of copper, lead, and zinc go down the cost of ammo will come down too.
 
The M14 was standard issue when I went through basic training in 1965, yet you would have been amazed at the .30-06 that was being used up in training. Remember the course (don't remember what it was called) where you crawled through a course with explosions going off around you and with bullets going overhead? The bullets were from .30-06 water cooled machine guns. Little wonder there's not much American-made .30-06 around. Even so, the National Guard used M1s and BARs into the 1970s and the .30-06 was standard in several other countries well into the 1980s. On the other hand, the existance of surplus would be an example of government waste, now wouldn't it?
 
Chaco is right...

Chack is right, additionally as China and India claw their way slowly to first World status the demand for heavy metals has gone up.

I don't know what the big deal is, I feel ammo is relatively inexpensive again. Especially the military calibers.
 
No ammo will last in storage indefinitely, it has to be used or it deteriorates and goes bad. Inspection and some refurbishing only go so far. After a certain time, it's sold off as surplus because it's no longer milspec - it's too old.
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If stored properly, it pretty much will last indefinitely. Now as far as meeting age requirements for specs, that can be a different story.

Most of the "fresher" surplus we ever bought, was around 20 years old when released.

A lot of what used to be (and in some cases, still is) released was never really "surplus" at all, simply "reject" sold as surplus. Those usually have recent date stamps.

I sure do miss the $100-125 a case prices we were paying for 7.62x51 in the 80's and 90's (9mm was that for 2000 round cases :) ). We bought literally tons of it and Im still shooting some of it today. Santa Barbara was by far, and as far as Im concerned, still is, the very best of the lot. Basically match grade accuracy.
 
A "real" copper penny is worth one cent for copper at $1.22 per pound. Unfortunately, copper is priced at about $4.40 per pound.

Oil--from which we get all manner of products besides gasoline and diesel--is right at $100 per barrel.

In 1999, gold was down to $264 per ounce. It's now over $1,600. If that doesn't tell you something about the degradation of the buying power of the dollar, what will? (FWIW, the world average price to get gold mined and into coinage form is around $600 per ounce.)

Love and cherish that 40-cent ammo. Odds are you can enjoy that ancient joke: "I was told to cheer up, that things could get worse. So I cheered up. Sure enough, things got worse."
 
As a MOS qualified ammo handler, what you see as genuine surplus on the market is ammo deemed unreliable to use in combat. It does age, and it doesn't last forever. It's not uneeded "surplus," it's actually unreliable and unfit for duty.

Ammo storage is not in dehumidified refrigerated storage. It's held in earthberm sheltered bunkers with open air circulation to prevent more than ambient humidity building up inside. The packaging is sealed and contains materials designed to absorb humidity, nonetheless, as the powder ages, and what moisture is in the packaging oxidizes the casing, things happen.

You very much do see the results of less than milspec ammo - that's exactly the point of surplus. It's judged Not Ready for Primetime, and soldiers lives aren't risked shooting it.

There aren't that many countries using 7.62X51 as a PRIMARY soldier cartridge. It's largely NATO, and honestly, that's a small handful. Dozens more use Soviet calibers, it's really no match. Since the large proportion of X51 use is in machine guns, and they are NOT issued in large quantities to units, there isn't proportionately huge stocks of it sitting in storage.

Considering that only a small number of Western nations use it for crew served weapons, and that most nations don't use .30 or comparable at all as a primary soldiers caliber, it's not correct to assume there are dozens of countries hoarding billions and billions of rounds out there just to sell it off as unsafe surplus. Especially since they already have. In the '80s changeover from main battle rifles to intermediate assault rifles, NATO let the stocks go as they aged and fell out of service. And we shot all of it we could get our hands on.

You missed out on that party, the next will be whatever new cartridge displaces the venerable 5.56.
 
There's a war on, and armies burn through ammo at remarkable rates when embroiled in conflict. If you've ever studied logistics, you know the rates that we use ammo. I doubt that there is very little surplus, and the ammo companies are filling contracts from lots of places.

Metal prices are up, and I can get bullets in the door for about 30 cents apiece. My brass is almost free, and primers are about 3 cents apiece. I figure that I'm making very good ammo for about 40 cents per pop. Not a bad deal at all. I've got all the .308 that I want to shoot, although I will be ordering bullets again next week.
 
For awhile there, there was a good bit of surplus military 5.56 available too. We bought a bunch of 80's dated Malaysian back in the early 2000's for cheap. Something like $180/2000 rounds. Like the Santa Barbara, it was all in the original packing, all bright and shiny, and all shot well. No duds, misfires, corroded cases, etc. Im still shooting some of that now too with no troubles.

Now Ive also got "surplus" ammo over the years from some countries where it wasnt stored properly, and that was very obvious by the way the packing looked when first opened (even before it was opened). Yea, it was real cheap, and there was a reason for it. Most of it was 50's dated and corrosive. Wooden crates and paper boxes were rotting apart, lots of corrosion on the cases, quite a few duds and misfires.

Ive also had some of our older ammo from the 40's and 50's that was properly kept, looked basically new, and it all shot fine.

Just because its old, or older, doenst necessarily mean its "bad". I understand powder does tend to degrade over time, but storage can have a lot to do with that.

Im sure the military has a "use by" date for each lot in storage, for whatever reason. Probably has more to do with supplier lobbying than powder degradation though.
 
When ammo goes bad it's almost always because the primers go bad. I've heard that older chlorate based corrosive primers have a longer lifespan than non corrosive primers.

I don't know about that but it sounds reasonable, only time will tell.

I have 1942 dated turk 8 mauser that is sure-fire. I also have Syrian 7.5x54 headstamped 1975 that misfires 3/4 of the time.
 
the military shoots a lot of it. I have personally shot more than 1600 rounds in one iteration on a m240b range. and we were at that range all week long. the company literally fired an entire semi truck full of ammo in three days. I will complain when i buy a 7.62 rifle but as long as uncle sam is paying for it im ok
 
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