[model4006]

Can anyone tell me what this round is? I bought them because it said 7.62 Tracer. Looking at it at first i thought it was 7.62x54. but when i tried to chamber one in my mosin the bolt wouldnt lock shut, so i poked the round back out and set it next to the other 7.62x54 and heres what you get. the first pic has a 7.62x39 on the far left for reference. the far right is the 7.62x54 that my mosin shoots, the middle in the brass casing is the unknown. so can anyone tell me what this round is? I was all excited to shoot my first tracers.

sorry they turned out blurry, if you need better ones let me know.

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c197/91nx2k/Picture009.jpg

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c197/91nx2k/Picture008.jpg

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c197/91nx2k/Picture007.jpg

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c197/91nx2k/Picture002-1.jpg

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c197/91nx2k/Picture001-1.jpg

[JesseL]

Looks like 7.62x51mm / 308 Winchester to me. The round Pyle was referring to in your sig.

Definitely don't try to fire it in your Mosin.

[Outlaws]

7.62 Nato by my guess. AKA the .308WIN

[elric]

In the second picture, it looks like the headstamp has the nato cross in a circle on the left, and a mfg/date code on the right. So looks to me like 7.62 Nato aka 7.62x51.

[BobMcG]

Yupper, certainly looks like a 7.62x51 NATO to me too.

[Blackfork]

Next time, a photo of the headstamp will tell us as much as looking at the overall cartridge beside others.

Looks like a 7.62X51/ 308 Nato to me. The NATO cross stamp is the giveaway.

[mrmeval]

Focus! Focus!

[justashooter]

tracers are not such a good idea, anyway. most of those made since WW2 light up a dim red about 200 yards out, so the shooters position is not revealed. they also set fields on fire, and if of an early type, can destroy your barrel's accuracy potential rather quickly by corrosive effect.

tracers were designed to simplify lead with GPMG in anti-aircraft application.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Looks like 7.62x51 NATO (.308 Winchester) to me as well. Another good indicator it doesn't belong in the Mosin-Nagant is the 7.62x54R round - the R stands for Rimmed. You can see the difference between a rimmed cartridge and a normal cartridge very clearly in your pictures by looking at the base of each cartridge.

[Soulrider]

I agree, looks like a 7.62x51 nato tracer.
http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g3/ennairem/tracer.jpg

[Chawbaccer]

7.62 NATO,Manufactured by Western Cartridge Company, Made in 1965

[Don Gordon]

7.62 nato, manufactured by Western Cartridge company, in 1965 and inspected by Tom D. Harry and shipped to Great Britian on a Thursday. :D

[Don Gordon]

Sorry, My first post here and I have to be a wise A$$. My appologies.:o

[model4006]

here i figured out how to work the camera a little bit better. so i guess this means its a 7.62x51 NATO / .308 Winchester made in 1963?

Are there any more freakin 7.62xsomething rounds i should be aware of?

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c197/91nx2k/Picture.jpg

[model4006]

oh btw, what gun was pyle referring to then? i thought he was talking about an enemy weapon in 7.62x39. maybe i need to watch that movie again and pay closer attention.

[model4006]

if they dont light up until 200 yards out, how do they hurt the barrel any more than all this other old corrosive ammo im shooting anyway?

[Outlaws]

most of those made since WW2 light up a dim red about 200 yards out

Are you saying the tracer doesn't have a tracing effect until its 200 yards out? The way a tracer works is the burning of the gun powder during the firing process burns the substance on the tip. Its burning by the time it leaves the barrel.

Are there any more freakin 7.62xsomething rounds i should be aware of?

Yes, anything that doesn't say exactly what your firearm says.

If it just says 7.62 on the box, ask what it is or open it up and take a look. 7.62x54R is hard to mistake once you see that fat bottom and rim. Also don't get your 6 flipped upside down and pickup some 7.92 ammo. :D

[Pumpkinheaver]

Yup you ammo is 7.62X51. There is also 7.62X63mm or to us Americans the 30-06.

[JesseL]

oh btw, what gun was pyle referring to then? i thought he was talking about an enemy weapon in 7.62x39. maybe i need to watch that movie again and pay closer attention.

Pyle was referring to the 7.62x51mm NATO used by his M14 "Charlene".

[hksw]

so i guess this means its a 7.62x51 NATO / .308 Winchester made in 1963?

No.

WCC = Winchester Cartridge Company

RA is either Remington Arms (US) or Raufoss Ammunisjonsfabrik (Norway), both of which made/make NATO ammo and are similarly stamped. (I'm guessing Rem.)

[SDC]

That'll be M62 Tracer, made by Remington in 1963; these rounds are made with a "trace delay" that's actually just a thin copper cup pressed into the base of the bullet, so the propelling gasses burn a little hole in that cup, but it's slowly eaten away as the bullet travels downrange, making the trace more visible. It should definitely be fully ignited and visible within 100 metres, though.

http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p22/StaceyC123/762mm_tracer.gif

[Fu-man Shoe]

I'm no tracer expert, but when I have shot 7.62x51 tracers, I've never seen
any action until they were at least 100+ yards out. Sometimes they wouldn't
even light up until they hit the berm, and then kind of fizzled for a little bit,
like a little tiny road flare.

Are they "lit" when they leave the barrel? I'd imagine so, since it takes only
fractions of a second for a 7.62x51 to get out to 100+ yards.

[Ned Flangers]

Holy cow, I've learned quite a bit in this thread!

[Snowdog]

OMG, you mistook a 7.62x51 for a 7.62x54R? :uhoh:

I'm not trying to be a smarty-pants, but serious, there's a HUGE visual difference (case dimensions, rimmed case, etc).
If you had enough difficulty distinquishing the difference between a 7.62x54R and 7.62x51 as to try to chamber the mystery cartridge in your Mosin Nagant, the next time you have the slightest doubt or feels "something's off", go to the nearest gunshop and ask the fellow at the counter or post the question with photos here for your own sake. :(

As for the cartridge, I believe I purchased a pack of 10 of these very same cartridges from some catalog (AIM Surplus maybe) some years ago. I suspect they're berdan-primed and corrosive, so I've been reluctant to fire them from my gas-operated Springfield SAR-4800 that I'm quite fond of.
You know, now that you have some 7.62x51 cartridges, you've got to by a rifle chambered for it! Es la ley, amigo!
Reminds me that I have to buy a .25-06 to fire the box of shells I "accidentally" bought. :D

[kungfuhippie]

Hey everyone, model4006 seams to be new (30 some posts). We're all on a different point of the learning curve. The whole 7.62x____ can be confusing. Something to remember is to always compare with a round you KNOW is correct.

And chambering an odd cartridge is always a bad thing. I can chamber 7.62x54r into my steyr 8x56r:eek: You can reform the russian brass (in a press, not a gun)to work for reloads. I read somewhere of some hillbilly shooting off some rem. 7.62x54r in his steyr to "reform the brass" he didn't like it when I said "you'll shoot your eye out:neener: He was also mad that every other case was splitting.

[mrmeval]

http://www.cartridgecollectors.org/headstampcodes.htm

[DWARREN123]

A learning experience and no one was hurt. 7.62 is the size of the bullet or the bore depending on when and where made. Always make sure you have the whole designation of the round when buying ammo or look at it first.
There's a lot of similar ammmuntion out there.
Be safe and have fun.

[model4006]

heres the problem, this is what the box looked like.

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c197/91nx2k/Picture010.jpg

in my newbieness i bought them thinking they were for my buddies ak47. i never even opened the box. then i pulled one out of the box and said, woah! this must be the 7.62x54. so i didnt pay close enough attention when i stuck one in the chamber. They dont say ANYTHING else on the box, JUST 7.62, not nato, not x54 or x39. i didnt even know .308 was called 7.62x51 by anybody. just two names for the same thing caused confusion. i mean outside of the rim, without laying them side by side they are close. at least i learned the not so hard way to double check what hell im doing.

[Ian Sean]

Heck, I have been shooting almost 20 years now, and just last year I bought 2 boxes of 8x57 JR mistaking them for 8mm Mauser....:banghead:

Getting familiar with all the different nomenclature takes time, be patient, read everything you can get your hands on and don't be afraid to ask questions.:)

[Gewehr98]

tracers are not such a good idea, anyway. most of those made since WW2 light up a dim red about 200 yards out, so the shooters position is not revealed. they also set fields on fire, and if of an early type, can destroy your barrel's accuracy potential rather quickly by corrosive effect.

The tracer materials don't even light off until well outside the bore. They're no more corrosive than the primers and propellant used to get the bullets going, and if it's U.S. 7.62mm NATO ammo, it's not corrosive, anyway. Many years ago, I bought several thousand of those 142gr M62 orange-tip bullets from Widener's, and have been loading them in my .30-06 rifles, .308 Win rifles, 7.5x55 Swiss rifles, and even my .30-30 Winchester Model 94, chambered one at a time. The red trace starts about 100 yards downrange.

Model 4006, you just got a good lesson in how nomenclature can trip somebody up.

Generation-X kids call the ammo used in SKS and AK-47 rifles "7.62", when they mean 7.62x39 M43 Soviet.

Post-WWII Baby Boomers who came of age before or during the Vietnam Conflict know that the ammo fed to M14 rifles and M60 machine guns was "7.62", aka 7.62mm NATO, aka 7.62x51, a very close cousin to the .308 Winchester round.

Of course, if you had a Tokarev pistol, PPSh submachine gun, or Czech CZ-52 pistol, then you would also feed it "7.62", but this time, it's 7.62x25 Tokarev.

You have a Mosin-Nagant, Dragunov, Romak, or SVT Tokarev rifle, it also gets fed "7.62", this time though it's 7.62x54R (sometimes referred to as 7.62x53R) .

I've got a Czech VZ-52 SHE rifle, made between 1952-1957. It also can be fed "7.62", but that particular rifle is chambered for 7.62x45 M52 Czech ammo.


So the opportunity exists for some serious confusion. Don't automatically assume the guy behind the gunshop counter is a nitwit because his jaw dropped or eyes rolled when somebody walked up to him and said, "I need some 7.62 ammo!" ;)

[SDC]

The tracer materials don't even light off until well outside the bore.

You may not be able to SEE them burning, but they begin burning well inside the barrel (the hot propellant gasses pushing the bullet is what ignites them, and after the bullet is out of the bore, there's no way to ignite them anymore). Many tracers use a combination of things to reduce the visible trace, such as the copper base cup in the bottoms of the M62s of this thread, or a layer of trace compound that burns, but burns with very little light (the M276 "starlight tracer": green over pink tip code) has a tracer cavity filled entirely with this "low light" compound, since it's quite visible through night vision equipment all by itself, and using standard M62s would cause that equipment to "bloom out".

[carterbeauford]

Are there any more freakin 7.62xsomething rounds i should be aware of?

there's also 7.62x25 :neener:

7.62x25
7.62x39
7.62x51
7.62x54
7.62x63

(did I miss any?)

[SDC]

There's also 7.62x33mm (30 Carbine).

[Outlaws]

heres the problem, this is what the box looked like.

I would bet money that under that stupid white sticker there is a better description of the cartridge. Someone just assumed someone would assume its 7.62 Nato becuase 7.62 by itself would most likely be refering to the Nato round. At least thats what I would assume...not that I would assume and just use the ammo without checking though. ;)

[CanonNinja]

HOLY MOLY! $12 for the box?!?



Check out www.wideners.com if you want more tracer for your friend's AK, or www.sportsmansguide.com for way cheaper Talon 7.62 NATO tracer (exactly what you bought there, same brand)

[Cosmoline]

It's more confusing than you think. There are dozens of military rounds in the 7.5 to 8mm range, some almost identical to each other. If you want to learn more, I suggest getting the classic reference "Cartridges of the World."

[carterbeauford]

There's also 7.62x33mm (30 Carbine)

First time I've heard of .30 carbine referred to with a metric designation, neato.

[SDC]

First time I've heard of .30 carbine referred to with a metric designation, neato.

That's what the French called it after WW2, when they were using all sorts of surplus US kit.

[model4006]

20 Cartridges 7.62 FMJ BALL thats what it says under the sticker.

[kungfuhippie]

(all this is IIRC, so take it with a grain of salt)
It is U.S. made to "milspec" 7.62 according to the box. If it's U.S. milspec it's not for russian cartridges so you're left thinking about which 7.62 U.S. and Nato military cartridges there are. So you open the box and look at the headstamp. There's a nato symbol. It's a clue. the only cartridges that in recent history were 7.62 U.S. military standard were the 7.62x51 nato, the .30-06 and the .30 carbine. So from there the Nato stamp will give it away. A .30 carbine looks different from the .308 and and is almost always called ".30 carbine" on the box. It hasn't been used in recent military history so a box from the 1970s would not be that anyway. The same goes for .30-06 it was phased out in favor of the 7.62x51 (.308) and hasn't been produced for our military in any large quantity since around the vietnam era.

So, read and learn so next time you will have a little more to go from when you get you stuff. Also ask, shop guys want you to be happy and come back to buy more next time, they most often will help and not be jerks.

[aspade]

The way a tracer works is the burning of the gun powder during the firing process burns the substance on the tip. Its burning by the time it leaves the barrel.

The substance on the tip is just paint for identification purposes. The tracer compound is in the base of the bullet as you can see in the cutaway SDC posted.

[NORTEXED]

My wifes Dufus cousin was hunting on the same property as me (notice I DID NOT SAY WITH ME)one time and complained of his grandads gun splitting cases. I checked them out and they were grossly split, so I ask him for the box, and sure enough, 300 H&H Magnums just can't quite fill the chamber of a .300 Weatherby Mag on firing. He had gone to a gunshop and ask for .300 Mags, and amazingly enough, that's what they sold him.:what:

[kungfuhippie]

complained of his grandads gun splitting cases

yeah, cause it was the gun's fault:rolleyes: