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

[PawPaw]

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

That's what I was talking about when I said that armies burn through ammo at remarkable rates. What Beowulf was talking about was one company in a training cycle burning a semi-truck full of .308 in three days.

I came late to the .308 as a sporting cartridge simply because when I was in the service I looked at the 7.62 cartridge as a commodity, something to have delivered in bulk. I'd order it by the cord, like firewood. When you figure that each battalion has four companies and each brigade has three battalions, the amount of ammo we'd have to use for just one training cycle was staggering. Some of the Brigade Combat Teams currently deployed to the sandbox have as many as six combat battalions and they rotate in and out on a yearly basis.

While it's no wonder that we have little or no current surplus .308 ammo, what amazes me is that we're able to find it on the shelves at all.

 

[tahunua001]

last time I was home on leave my mom told me about a freind of hers who's husband used to be an ffl before he died and his widow ow had a basement bedroom full of ammo. when I got to her friends house I was surprised to see that this bedroom was actually FULL of ammo. I bought 2400 rounds of m1911, sealed in 600 round spam cans. this ammo was packed in 1942 and inspected and repacked in 1943 since then this ammo has sat in storage around the country and so far I've shot about 250 rounds of it without a single jam, hangfire, misfire, failure to eject and it's all consistent. for ammo that was feverishly mass produced during time of war I think that 69 years with no issues is a great scale on how to measure the life of sealed milsurp ammo. also I bought a crate of yugo 1970s ak47 ammo that has yet to see a failure out of 700 rounds. now the only nato rifle actaully designed for 762 nato was the FAL, AR10(dont remember the mil designation for it) and M14. the fal saw reletively short use in europe since the 5.56 was more manageable as an assault rifle round so many militaries got onboard with it. now you mainly see it as a machinegun round and the all of the surplus FALs were pawned off on poor central/south American militaries and of course cartels. so most of the excess ammo either went to poor countries that couldn't afford the new stuff and what wasn't has been used up for training.

 

[BlueTrain]

Well, actually the FAL was designed for something else but I won't quibble. However, it was used for quite a while, probably for over 30 years, and long enough to acquire those dreaded plastic stocks before something else was adopted.

No one ever has enough ammo, especially armies.

 

[44 AMP]

You're not looking at it the right way....

And you are only looking at what's happening today. Yep, its expensive. Everything is. Boo Hoo Hoo.

Can't change what is, between wars, metal prices, US dollar purchacing power (waay down) and UN regulations about selling "surplus" ammo on the open market (the really dislike it), there isn't as much around as there used to be, and it costs more than it did.

It doesn't seem like that long ago that I was buying a 1200rnd case of 7.62 Nato for $160! But gas wasn't ~$4 and gold wasn't $1600 an ounce then either.

With the exception of consumer electronics (which are very specialised market) NOTHING we buy is going to get cheaper until and unless our dollar increases its value. And with the world situation and our government policies, I don't see that happening any time soon.

 

[pvt.Long]

Very few NATO countries use the 7.62 since the 5.56 was adopted. There aren't many stockpiles of 7.62 since it was quickly phased out as the NATO standard infantry cartridge. Everything will be cheaper when the USD increases in value. the 7.62x54R was created by the soviets and produced in insane quantities starting in WW1 and is still being issued, that's why its so cheap. The US has gone from the 30-06 to 7.62Nato to 5.56. within a short period of time not allowing time for huge stockpiles to build up.

 

[Stevie-Ray]

Yeah, last year I opened the last of my 200 rd "battle packs" bought for 38 bucks long ago. Still got a bunch of LC in strippers, though. Hate to have to tap into that, but it's inevitable I guess.