Ash
Member
The .303 is not produced in the quantities that will ensure its availability as a surplus round in the future, regardless of what the Canadians do (except for that truly fine and dandy Pakastani ammo).
The 7.62x54R, apart from still being a sniper's round (and in that role alone, is produced in vastly more quantities than the Canadians do for their rangers), is a general purpose machine gun round, and will be until they invent ray guns as it is acutally a superior belt-fed round over the .308. At present, there is no sign of its use decreasing. As such, there is no sign that continued production of 7.62x54R ammo will slow. The production of 7.62x54R in even the last 30 years is greater than the sum production of the .303 British in its entire run. Now we are seeing the 1950's and 60's era ammo hitting our shores, with some 70's and 80's. Ten years from now, that 70's and 80's and 90's stuff will start showing up (got my case of 97 Russian 7n1 sniper ammo). At $35 per tin plus shipping, a man can get a life-time supply of ammo for not so much money. When 7.5 French and Swiss have long dried up, along with surplus .303, the surplus 7.62x54R will still be coming in.
And, already comercial 7.62x54R is more available than .303 British at a cheaper price.
The re-chambering from .303 to 7.62 article was written years ago and is a good, reasoned concept for a rifle that has been fired with a lot of cordite (which every British rifle fired in WWI and WWII). Heck, a bunch of the POF .303 stuff you can get today is loaded with cordite spaghetti. Anyway, the re-chambering came out at a time when the Finnish stuff was drying up and the re-finished Russian stuff was still unknown. At the time, all that was coming in was shot-out M91's from Albania and some pretty good M44 carbines out of Romania. In any case, the concept was and is to make a poorly-shooting Enfield shoot good again. Is it a good idea and worth the money? Not for me, especially with all the mosins out there (and the relative scarcity and price of Enfields which don't deserve the Bubba treatement). But the concept, in of itself, is not a bad one at all.
Ash
The 7.62x54R, apart from still being a sniper's round (and in that role alone, is produced in vastly more quantities than the Canadians do for their rangers), is a general purpose machine gun round, and will be until they invent ray guns as it is acutally a superior belt-fed round over the .308. At present, there is no sign of its use decreasing. As such, there is no sign that continued production of 7.62x54R ammo will slow. The production of 7.62x54R in even the last 30 years is greater than the sum production of the .303 British in its entire run. Now we are seeing the 1950's and 60's era ammo hitting our shores, with some 70's and 80's. Ten years from now, that 70's and 80's and 90's stuff will start showing up (got my case of 97 Russian 7n1 sniper ammo). At $35 per tin plus shipping, a man can get a life-time supply of ammo for not so much money. When 7.5 French and Swiss have long dried up, along with surplus .303, the surplus 7.62x54R will still be coming in.
And, already comercial 7.62x54R is more available than .303 British at a cheaper price.
The re-chambering from .303 to 7.62 article was written years ago and is a good, reasoned concept for a rifle that has been fired with a lot of cordite (which every British rifle fired in WWI and WWII). Heck, a bunch of the POF .303 stuff you can get today is loaded with cordite spaghetti. Anyway, the re-chambering came out at a time when the Finnish stuff was drying up and the re-finished Russian stuff was still unknown. At the time, all that was coming in was shot-out M91's from Albania and some pretty good M44 carbines out of Romania. In any case, the concept was and is to make a poorly-shooting Enfield shoot good again. Is it a good idea and worth the money? Not for me, especially with all the mosins out there (and the relative scarcity and price of Enfields which don't deserve the Bubba treatement). But the concept, in of itself, is not a bad one at all.
Ash
