.30 Luger and 7.62x25, Simularities?

Are you asking for info other than that found on google or would you like us to google it for you?

I see daniel craig's point, but Speedo66 has 6,000+ posts here, so I figure he just felt he could get better information here faster than by Googling around and separating the wheat from the chaff. I will answer with what I understand to be the case:

30 Luger, aka 7.65x21 and 7.62x25, aka 30 Mauser and also 30 Tokarev, are NOT interchangeable. It is like .308 and .30-06 - the difference in overall length is too great. (The difference in bullet diameter may be purely nominal. That is something else to Google!)

In fact, 30 Mauser and 30 Tokarev, despite being the same size, are not considered interchangeable, because 30 Tokarev is considered to be more powerful.

daniel craig said:

Are you asking for info other than that found on google or would you like us to google it for you?

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Right? Because, why wouldn’t he trust Google, which is never wrong, instead of coming to a dedicated gun forum for help...

SHOOT1SAM said:

Right? Because, why wouldn’t he trust Google, which is never wrong, instead of coming to a dedicated gun forum for help...

Click to expand...

The German .30 Luger pistol round (7.65x21mm) was developed from the 7.65 Borchardt (7.65x25mm) cartridge by shortening the case by about 3mm.Case head diameter and body taper are identical. 7.65 Borchardt developed into the 7.63 Mauser or .30 Mauser pistol round (7.63x25mm).
Russia used the C96 Mauser pistol a lot and liked it. The Soviets developed the Mauser round into the 7.62 Tokarev (7.62x25mm) basically a copy of the Mauser round to use in the T33 Tokarev pistol, a simplified Brownong style pistol.

In the military matches at the rod and gun club I shoot a 7.62x25 CZ 52 pistol and the guy usually to my right shoots a Finnish .30 Luger pistol.

My 7.62x25mm cartridges will not fit his 7.65 Luger pistol. His 7.65x21mm will chamber in my C96 Mauser. But on firing the shoulder of the cartridge would expand a bit more than 3mm and end up all shoulder and no neck: looking like a .308 Wincheser (7.62x51mm) fired in a .30-06 Springfield 7.62x63mm chamber.

While we're at the scuttlebutt:

US and Italian 7.63 Mauser ammo is held at about 1400 fps velocity out of respect for the number of antique C96 pistols with weak springs. battered bolt stops and worn locking blocks.
Standard World War II German Military 7.63 Mauser ammo and Soviet 7.62 Tokarev ammunition made for use in new pistols were roughly equal at 1500 to 1550 fps velocity.
According to WHB Smith "Small Arms of the World" 1966 Czech 7.62x25 ammo clocks in at 1600 fps which is also the listed velocity for Czech S&B connercial 7.62x25.


For 7.65 Borchardt, 7.65 Luger, 7.63 Mauser and 7.62 Tokarev, the x mm case length was retrofitted using NATO nomenclature adding case length to cartridge specfications. From the beginning Mauser used case length in a lot rifle cartridge specs (7x57mm Mauser etc); caliberXcaselength is now NATO standard naming. As a kid in the late 50s early 60s, I saw US boxes of .30 Mauser and .30 Luger pistol ammo, and foreign import 7.63 Mauser and 7.65 Luger ammo labels. The 7.65x21mm, 7.63x25mm and 7.62x25mm are actually new to me, becoming common only in the last 30 years or so.

daniel craig said:

Are you asking for info other than that found on google or would you like us to google it for you?

Click to expand...

Many people don't want knowledge, they want answers.

Several early gunmakers used the 7.62x25 case, in loadings suitable to their guns. Borchardt, Mauser, Mannlicher, and Schwartzlose that I know of.
The Borchardt has its action spring in the ungainly looking "bustle" and the Schwartzlose has a bolt spring; nothing in the butt but the magazine. Mauser and Mannlicher have magazines ahead of the trigger guard.
When Herr Luger came up with a more compact design with the recoil spring down the back of the grip frame, he had DWM shorten the cartridge, presumably so the grip would not be too wide.
Seen today in cries for 1911s to shoot iron curtain surplus .30 Tokarev. (The Tokarev pistol itself has "package lockwork" with all the bits up high in the rear of the receiver, above the grip.)

jonnyc said:

Myth.

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Maybe so, jonnyc. That is why I said "considered": Because some people think it is true, and I personally don't know if they are right or wrong. I would be very happy to see proof one way or the other.

Having some recent experience in this area, they are interchangeable, or at least the brass is. I use 7.62 x 25 Tokarev brass in my Mauser all of the time; it's easier to find and cheaper than .30 Mauser brass. I don't load it as hot as factory Tokarev ammo because my Mauser is over a century old, so I treat it gently. I use .30 Mauser reloading data, mainly from Sharp's 1937 manual. What I have encountered is if the dies are set up for .30 M they don't always crimp the .7.62 brass well. If they are set to work with Tok brass they tend to crush Mauser brass. The shoulder on the 7.62 brass is very slightly further back than on the Mauser brass, and the difference is just enough to cause the Mauser brass to crumple slightly. After firing the Tok brass fire-forms to the chamber, and is then identical to the PPU Mauser brass.

This may not be a general rule; the Mauser brass I am using is PPU, and the Tok brass is a different (but unknown) maker. It's range-recovered brass and I don't recognize the headstamp. It's possible that the Tok brass is slightly out of spec.

I've owned a TT-33 and a C96 in 7.63 Mauser since the 1980's. I've always held to what Mr. Pearce described for the same reasons: no 7.62X25mm Tokarev ammo in my C96, but I wouldn't have had any concerns firing 7.63 Mauser ammo in my TT-33 - if that was readily available & if the economics favored doing so but in my case they never did (PPU & S&B imported factory fresh ammo wasn't anything I ever saw on the shelves of the gun stores I frequented, it was all about milsurp).

However, if I was a USSR crunchie in the early 1940's and issued a C96 I doubt if any discussion on potential risk would have even been considered for the logistics supply train to equip me with 7.63 Mauser ammo before I could be considered in proper shape to engage in combat with the invader forces. It would in fact most likely been branded "defeatism" and I might well experience the effectiveness of a 7.62X25mm cartridge fired around the neighborhood of my medulla oblongota by an enterprising commisar as an instructional public lesson for any other comrades as to where inescapable risk lay vs the fortunes of war.

Brass length varies between 7.63 Mauser and 7.62 Tokarev following published spex.
The difference is practically within the manufacturing tolerances allowed for the two cartridges.
That said, I recommend that reloaders using brass for the two check overal length, and trim brass accordingly.

"Are you asking for info other than that found on google ..."
If you are not asking for info other than that found on Google, you really should be asking beyond Google.

According to various Google searches name + address:
_ I live alone
_ there are people I've never met currently living with me
_ my alias is Candace Nicole
None of it true.

When Soviet Russia invaded Finland before and during WWII, the Finns captured Soviet submachineguns in 7.62 Tokarev.
When Germany turned against Soviet Russia, the Germans supplied 7.63 Mauser ammo to the Finns and it worked fine in captured Soviet submachineguns. Finland also had bought a few Swiss MKMO submachineguns in 7.63 Mauser and apparently didn't mind using captured Russian ammo in them when they could get it.
I suspect manufacturer production run lots of wartime military 7.63 Mauser and 7.62 Tokarev overlapped in potency.

For reloaders, Starline Brass lists the .30 Mauser and 7.62x25 Tokarev as different products with notes on their 7.62x25mm Tokarev page that their brass casings are similar but .30 Mauser runs .980" to .985" while 7.62x25 runs .958" to .962". (25mm is literally .984 inch.)
The difference is due to the Tokarev case having a slightly shorter neck (the section that grips the bullet).
Starline warns that loading hotter 7.62 Tokarev loads in .30 Mauser casings may result in the neck sticking in the slightly shorter chamber neck of some 7.62x25mm pistol barrels and tearing the neck off some of the cases.