You should have warned me to put on my hip waders before reading that article! The BS is so thick, you could slice it with a Soviet-issue bayonet (if it didn't "deteriorate" over time, even if it was in an airtight can.
) Where to start. Ok:
1.) Author says most milsurp ammo is not dated. Survey says! BUZZZZZZ!!!! Wrong! Most of it IS. In fact, ALL milsurp ammo I have seen IS dated. It's called a "headstamp". The author could use a headflush to clear his head of bearing false witness to sell his product. If he has to LIE to sell his wares, what kind of scruples does HE have? I have never sen any Soviet or Warsaw Pact military ammo that did not have a date stamp. I am sitting here looking at a crate of Hungarian 7.62x54 milsurp and the crate has the date, the two spam cans inside have the date, and the headstamps have the date. And, gee, what do ya know? They all match! I have seen U.S. milsurp. Dated. I have seen Albanian milsurp. Dated. Gee, here's a box of Czech milsurp 7.62x25. Box is dated and headstamp shows date. The new, commercial ammo this guy is talking about is NOT dated. New Wolf ammo is not dated. Almost no commercial ammo is dated. And the milsurp he probably sells for much more than AIM has the same stamps as the stuff everyone else is selling. Just no one needs to tell lies to sell their products. Gee, Sir Galahad, why is military ammo dated on the case? Well, son, that's because they need to know when the ammo was made and the identifying stamp of the arsenal tells them where so if it is too hot and blows up guns, they know where to start shooting saboteurs. The ID stamp is not in a "language" everyone can read. I nearly fell off my seat laughing when I read that. The date is the last two digits of the year. But the arsenal ID maybe numbers, as in the case of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. In fact, one of the Mosin Nagant sites has a page that tells you what numbers belong to what arsenal. So much for THAT mystery! Of course Russians can't "read" the arsenal code---it's none of their frickin' business! It's military business and the business of people smart enough to know where to find the information. Now, U.S. arsenal codes are usually initials, such as "FA", which would stand for "Frankford Arsenal". The author would say, "See! No American knows what "fa" means! There is no word "fa" except in a certain Christmas carol about decking the halls with boughs of holly!" Well, the author is either lying or he has been decking his mind with buds of marijuana.
2.) Ammo in sealed cans generally does not deteriorate as the author claims. I just opened a sealed can of Hungarian 7.62x54 milsurp and it "whooshes" just like a can of coffee being opened. Oxygen and moisture are the two biggest enemies of ammo long term storage. How does water and air get into an airtight, sealed container? Good question. Well, to be honest, it doesn't. Ammo so sealed will be good for many, many years. Decades, in fact. An interesting thing about true black powder, by the way, is that in an airtight container, it will be just as potent in 100 years as it was the day it was made. This is why Civil War muskets left loaded in an attic back in 1865 are just as deadly as the day they were loaded if the the cap was well-sealed over the nipple. In some cases, primers can begin to deteriorate. But you will be long beyond caring when that begins to happen with ammo in a sealed, airtight container. I have fired Third Reich-made 8mm Mauser, British milsurp .303, and probably at least a few hundred pounds, not rounds, POUNDS of 7.62x54 milsurp from Soviet-made to Albanian to Hungarian and never had a problem. I have fired South African milsurp and it is great. Gee, here's a dated headstamp on that South African---go figure!
3.) The author claims dubious quality for Russian made ammo. Well, I guess all those AKs fired all over the world are just firing squibs that never kill anyone. Will someone please tell all those dead people to get up and quit decomposing, because they're not really dead!
Having fired a few thousand rounds of Russian out of my AK with never a problem with quality or consistancy (or accuracy, for that matter), I dub the author Sir Lies-A-Lot. Notice how he says HIS ammo isn't poor quality. No! Really? I mean, he wouldn't LIE to sell his product to MAKE MONEY now, would he? People don't ever LIE to make money, do they? Back when you could get Chinese made 7.62x39, it was some of the best ammo in that caliber you could find. The brown-laquered case steel core was primo. The current Russian made Silver Bear is nice stuff. The Russian made stuff is made in the same plants that made ammo for the former Soviet Army and still make ammo for the Russian Army. They know how to crank this stuff out because they've been on a war footing since 1941. They were only able to stop pumping it out so fast after the collapse of the Soviet Union made that unnecessary. But then the U.S. plinker market makes them able to ramp up a bit to make as much as they can sell. And U.S. shooters enjoy cheap but reliable ammo and buy it by the case. So, the Russians make as much as they can to never run out of product to sell. Used to be, you bought a couple boxes of 20 if you didn't reload. Now, you buy a couple cases of 500. If it was poor, people wouldn't buy it. The author is probably steamed because he can't get a sweet deal from his distributor. So, instead, he makes up BS to scare ou into buying his product.
In closing, be very wary of geeks bearing grift...