So, how bad is OFV 7.62 NATO?

A local ammo outlet has OFV, which I know is Indian, for about $0.26 per round. I have heard "I would never use it!" and I have heard that is decent stuff ("the fury of the curry"). Some people claim certain vintages are ok, certain are not. This is 1970s stuff, on strippers, in bandos and canned.

So? Any good?

On the plus side, it is brass cased and boxer primed. On the down side...I'm pondering running it through a FAL. Or an FR8, if it is really bad.

Worth it?

Mike

Only if your desperate...:barf:

I'm not. I still have about 1k of Hirtenberger squirrelled away. Just seeing if it was worth it, especially because it is reloadable.

Mike

Well, it is technically reloadable, however, my actual experience from talking to the "gun shop guys" has not been very positive. From what I hear and understand, the brass is very inconsistant and the primer holes are often out of spec. Can it be reloaded? Yes. Is it worth the effort? Most likely not. I still have a 20rd package that I have had for over a year and am still hesitent to use it, since I stocked up on SA surplus.

Yick! thanks for the heads up.

I ran 500-600 OFV rounds, from 1994 (I think), through my Ishapore 2A1. No problems at all, and decently accurate. At the time I wasn't reloading .308 and I tossed the brass. Kicking myself now! I still have 100 rounds left that I'll happily use and reload. If I have any pocket or flash-hole problems...I'll fix them.

Maybe there's some decent OFV out there, but certainly not the stuff I made the mistake of buying. I had to cull out a full 5% of rounds for being grossly deformed. Split necks, crumpled necks, bullets seated both too long and way too shallow, you name it. I'll never touch the stuff again.

The OFV 92 and KF 92 that I have (about 1K) has ran good so far...I am now processing my first batch of it right now...decaped fine and every primer pocket and flash hole looks okay so far.

Mind you, this stuff was purchased not on strippers but in semi-sealed plastic baggies from AIM and the first thing I did was remove said ammo from baggies and placed in proper ammo can.


Mind you now, I did a visual inspection on 500 rounds and had to pull out 3 due to primers being damaged...just yanked the bullet and oiled down the primer and decapped...standard ball powder and typical BTFMJ with the exposed lead base. All the rest was bueno. Shot decently enough out of my FAL ( was just harvesting brass...easier to do this than pull and dump....) and was able to produce the crappiest group ever out of my mauser (6" at 100)...but it went bang...in the correct way. :)

D

The 70's stuff is good enough. I got mine at 6 cents a round shipped though. I wouldn't be nearly so keen on paying 4 times that much...

The indian ofv ammo is very inconsistantly loaded, (under charge, over charged). It is also sealed with TAR, YES TAR!!! which in turn really gums up semi auto actions and really plays hell with fluted chambers such as the hk line and cetme. It also is very hard to clean out of bolt actions because the tar hardens after the rifle cools down. I personally will not shoot this crap through anything i own.:barf:

I was given about 3000 of it from a guy who was scared away after buying. Mine was also in the 10 round plastic sleeves. I discarded 4 due to visibly misaligned bullets and 1 due to a primer mounted backwards. No splits in mine.

I chronographed a bunch through a CETME and a Rem 700. Average velocity for 20 rounds was the same as Portuguese and 20 fps slower than SA. Extreme spread for the Indian was 110 fps, 65 for the Port and 44 for the SA. Accuracy was about 2" from the 700 at 100m and about 3.5" from the CETME.

It was filthy. I put a bunch through the CETME (800 rounds) and I would say it's about 3 times as dirty as the Port. The inside of the receiver was coated with soot/dirt/whatever it was. But it did function 100% without cleaning the whole time.

Lately, I've put a bit through a Enfield 2A and it seems to shoot nicely. I haven't chronographed or put it on paper yet, but I would say about 2-2.5" at 100m if I had to guess.

Summary? It's rather inconsistent on velocity and absolutely filthy, but functional. Just inspect each round prior to loading (we should do this anyway.) I can't yet comment on reloading, haven't gotten there yet.

I bought 4 of the 10 round plastic sleeves a few months ago because it was all that was for sale in the shop I was at (I was really there for .45, but my FAL was with me) I discarded 3 because the brass looked really sketchy (they looked like bites had been taken out of the mouth). With the 37 remaining rounds I could not find a gas setting that would reliably cycle.

Later, I came across a link to a thread on some other forum dedicated to pictures and stories of guns that blew up while firing Indian 7.62, including a full auto 1919.

avoid the indian ammo.

at best it will suck.
http://www.gunboards.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=18416&SearchTerms=indian,ammo

at worst its a serious risk to safety and your guns.and undoublty youve seen this
http://www.cetmerifles.com/forum/vb/showthread.php?t=11183

That second link is the one I was talking about.

I tried some in a Indian Enfield .308, and accuracy was horrible(not the rifle: changed to SA and Portugeuse ammo & shot very well), so I took ten rounds(came in 10-round plastic bags) from several bags, pulled the bullets and weighed the charges.

Difference in powder weight from low to high among those ten rounds was just over two grains. Which is bloody awful.

I saw some dusty cans of this stuff at a local shop last night. Fifteen bucks a bandolier, or a hundred a can out the door. Had to pass on that one.

-jagd

Would only buy it for my enemies.:D

Can anyone say for sure if the 7.62x51 Indian OFV (1975 ) is corrosive-primed or not?

Many thanks.

I know of no "Western" country that ever made corrosive 7.62 NATO ammo.

I bought 600 rounds of the stuff made in 1985. After inspecting each round individually, I now have about 450 round of ammo that I really am sketchy about using. Now what do I do with it? Here is the thing, Some people say, "Just sell it off, everyone is looking for surplus 7.62x51". But the little voice on the right shoulder asks me the question "How ethical is it to sell someone ammunition that you know is potentially dangerous?"

Bought 20 rounds a while back for no reason other than it was cheap (I've never owned a rifle chambered in .308).

They eventually got tossed into a nearby creek to avoid the possibility of use. :uhoh:

The pre-90's stuff is supposed to be much better. I'm going to order some soon, we'll see.

if you buy it be careful with it as it stinks real bad. Im not talking about quality im talking about nose punishment. It just plain stinks dont even need to fire it to get the smell its just the ammo itself. nasty stuff.

I still have about 1k of Hirtenberger squirrelled away.

H is nice stuff. Got some great groups out of it.

Going from H to OFV is like going from a Volvo to a Yugo. Like a Yugo, the
OFV will at least function....unlike my ADCOM 5.56!!!!:fire:

I just got done cleaning and *carefully* examining 100 rounds of this ammo.

My lots marked "OVF 75" and "7.62 M80" - please no jokes about it blowing up like an M-80.

I'm just not seeing anything wrong with it. The bullet's seating at the cannelure is perfectly consistent. The cases seem fine- a few light dings at the shoulder. A few specks of the tar-like primer seating substance on some cases, and this scrubs off.

Reject rate: 1, and it's a maybe. Bullet seated below cannelure line. Slight smear of tar; enough of a warning flag for me. If it was American-made, I'd shoot this one too.

No deformed case mouths. Maybe the later date of 1975 has something to do with it. This has to be the ammo that was meant to go with the recent wave of Ishapore 2A's, I think.

The cloth bandoliers it came in: unimpressive, to be tossed. The strippers are interesting: seem to be made of pot metal and are older than this ammo. Examine them if you got' em. Some have no marks, some are marked "18M 18A" with a circle shield, a sunburst with an "E/L", then the date of 1967.

Another: 18V 18A, 1966

Another: 18V 18A, P.C.I. 1966

Wish someone could say for sure if its corrosive; I bet not.

Summary: I'm not crazy about it, but it doesn't seem as bad as you hear repeated.

66912, if you don't want to shoot it, pull the bullets and save them for reloading. Just spread the powder over the yard and water; it's what I did. Which brings up another thing, some of the bullets had a plug of something like tar on the base. Not all, just some.

Just for the hell of it I reloaded some of the cases with cast bullets I use for practice, same as I do my other .308 cases, and the damn things wouldn't chamber completely. Can't figure out why, went through the same die as the others, but it won't.

Firehand,

found that some complained of the case bases being thicker than normal...perhaps this is the issue?


What were you shooting these cb loads out of? what powder bullet combo?


D

i have been shooting some through my savage .308 for a couple days now. its kinda inconsistant. i can get an average of 4" group at 100 yards. and then it will through a flyer about 2-3" of the group. its good blasting ammo. i am going to check it out and maybe reload it. i just have to find some load info for nato brass so's i dont blow"s myself up!!

Very good reloading brass, don't dump it.

The 1970's ammo was made by Radway Green of England to set up India. They turned over the equipment shortly thereafter and quality control went to ****. I don't know about specific batches but most of the complaints center around post 70's and the plastic packaging. I have shot a bunch of the 75' OHV and not had any problems, OK ammo, not great but OK. I picked up a few bandoleers from Cheaper than Dirt of the 75' OHV just to have. Still not worth .40 cents a round but one has to to what one has to do these days.

I bought some long ago as well.

I had to go through and toss some that were damaged or just badly made, probably 1 percent were trash.

Beyond that it went "bang" when I pulled the trigger but it wasn't very accurate.

Frankly these days at 26 cents a round I'd probably buy more.

OFV 75 M-80 isn't terrifically accurate, but I bought tons of it in the bandos in cans, and all of it worked just fine in my FAL and MAS-49/56. It was ashy, but nothing else to complain about. Went bang, punched holes.

And hell, at 26 cents a shot, you can't really complain.

I fired 1,000 rounds of it in my FAL and HK91 without any problems. They came it 10round plastic bags and looked a little tarnished, but every one worked and was reasonably accurate. If it was American ammo I would be disappointed in the accuracy, but seeing how it's 1/4 the price I can live with it. Besides you cannot expect Match ammo quality from cheap overseas surplus, just use it for plinking or in a full auto gun.

+1 on wcwhitely

the 70's stuff I've shot goes "bang" reliably, but don't pay too much for it.

based on what I've heard the after-70's stuff is no good