7.62 x 54 who shoots this?

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theotherwaldo said:
My Finn M39 COULD be fired with that cheap stuff, but I like and respect the gun too much.

-And this is a case where ten rounds is just right!
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Good grief, what is the problem with shooting corrosive ammo? If corrosive ammo is the evil so many make it out to be, after over 100 years of use, there would not be a single Russian or Eastern Bloc firearm with anything even resembling a rifled bore left.

Shooting ammo with corrosive primers does no more damage that the most expensive non-corrosive ammo. It is the residual salts left after firing that can do harm, not the actual firing.

It is the lazy and ignorant shooter's who give corrosive ammo a bad name. Too lazy, or ignorant, to realize all they have to do is clean the damn thing.

It only takers a couple patches saturated with H2o (AKA plain water) and a few passes, followed by regular cleaning to negate the problem resulting from said corrosive ammo.
 
I agree with the Vepr suggestion. Being a semiauto with added weight and barrel length, it will be a good match for the medium-heavy cartridge.
 
When I gave the boy an M39 a year or so ago, I really would have preferred to see the ammo budget spent on reloading materials, but when the Romanian surplus we found shot so well, and cost less than $400 for 1500 or so rounds at the time, I opted to teach him effective corrosive ammo clean-up (an admirable lesson If I say so myself) instead.
 
BCRider said:
The surplus ammo might be cheap but that's about its only virtue. It's not the most consistent ammo by a long shot. And when you have a lack of consistency you end up with poor accuracy.

Because the surplus ammo uses a copper washed mild steel jacket it also seems to copper foul the bore rather quickly. At least I know that on my Mosins the bore needs frequent cleaning with a copper solvent and that it becomes very fouled after even a few shots once clean.

If you simply want to reduce your shooting cost then forget about the cheap military surplus ammo. Instead get yourself into reloading your own ammo. With a little practice and care you'll soon be able to reload match grade accracy ammo for only a few pennys per round more than what it costs to buy the cheap milsurp stuff.
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The surplus 7.62x54r is of course, desired for its cheaper price. It has been fairly consistant in my experience and my 91/30 does not suffer from accuracy problems.

While you can reload 54r for cheaper than non corrosive, chances are you won't get close to reloading them for .27 cents a piece like surplus.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2
 
Ian said:
It's good for some belt fed guns - I run 7.62x54R in my Vickers. Way, WAY cheaper than .303. I have a big stash of Czech surplus, which was corrosive but high quality.
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+1 on the Czech silver tip, laquered case, ammo. Not so much the copper washed stuff. One of them blew up my PSL.

I shot about 150 of these through my SVT 40 yesterday, and what a magnificent day of fun. Plenty accurate for plinking from 70 to 300 yards. This is just a fantastic cartridge and an elegant rifle to shoot it in.
 
I shoot the corrosive surplus stuff all the time out of a 91/30. Everyone complains about corrosive ammo being so bad but it really is no big deal. Had my mosin for 4 years now and the bore looks like new. Soak it with windex then clean as you normally would. I can hit a soda can at 100 yards all day long with the mil surplus.
 
There are a LOT of different kinds of 54R surplus around. Some is nasty stuff like the Albanian. Some is very nice like the Polish. Most folks don't know the difference so the prices tend to be the same.
 
I shoot exclusively surplus 7.62x54 and I have no problems just clean after. As far as reloading I might in the future but I already reload a lot of pistol because that's what I mosly take to the range. The corrosive is getting higher and-higher round here so might be a good idea in the future.
 
I don't shoot surplus ammo. Most of the surplus ammo on the market is under 150 gr. The 91/30 is rifled to shoot 200 gr ammo. I do shoot modern Russian ammo. 203 gr Brown Bear ammo shoots the best in my tests. Prvi Partisan is the most accurate but they don't manufacture soft point ammo. The 7.62 x 54r with 203 gr soft point ammo hits like a shotgun slug, it puts deer down on the spot. After the first couple days of hunting here in NC deer seldom venture far from dense, impenetrable cover. If the deer even runs 50 yards or so your chances of recovering the deer drop dramatically.
 
IMHO, even though there are other platforms avaialble, the Mosin is the best gun to use for cheap 7.62x54R. I was always happier hitting targets at 300-450 yards with my $100 gun and $0.13/round ammo (this was a few years ago, obviously) than I was with cleaning a more expensive gun and not getting better results.
 
Deer_Freak said:
I don't shoot surplus ammo. Most of the surplus ammo on the market is under 150 gr. The 91/30 is rifled to shoot 200 gr ammo. I do shoot modern Russian ammo. 203 gr Brown Bear ammo shoots the best in my tests. Prvi Partisan is the most accurate but they don't manufacture soft point ammo. The 7.62 x 54r with 203 gr soft point ammo hits like a shotgun slug, it puts deer down on the spot. After the first couple days of hunting here in NC deer seldom venture far from dense, impenetrable cover. If the deer even runs 50 yards or so your chances of recovering the deer drop dramatically.
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Agreed.

203 gr. is the better weight for sure. It kills deer deader than Caesar.
 
762x54r

I also see no problem in shooting the corrosive Commie-Bloc ammo. My 1st high powered rifle was an 03A3 back when the WW2 surplus ball was the cheapest ammo available.I learned early on that hot soapy water was all that was needed to keep the old war horse happy. I am all set up to hand-load the Ruskie 762X54R lacking only re-loadable brass & proper projectiles to make it profitable. Until the time comes that I get sufficient components to hand-load this fine caliber,I will continue to shoot from my "Spam can" stock.:)
 
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BCRider: True, I misread the info. That looks like a nice value.

Even before the panic began in the US, it was very difficult, if at all, to locate cheap bullets for my Enfields or .308 for the FR8s with no pull marks, consisting of s lateral slice, or cut.

How often do normal Russian MN 91/30s shoot 5" groups or less from 100 yards, with no tweaking of the stock etc?
 
The ammo situation is getting CRAZY. Sportsman's Guide just bumped my backorder for Russian mil surplus back FOUR MONTHS to 8-15-2013. Gotta see who has it locally.
 
the mosin nagant and all it's derivatives...
the Dragonuv and all it's derivatives...
the SVT40 and all it's derivatives...

the only nation to ever make rifles chambered in this round was russia... rimless cartridges lend themselves to smooth functioning better than rimmed cartridges and it's easier to design around an easier cartridge.
 
Others did on Russian tooling.

Hungary, Poland, China, Romania, all made 7.62X54R rifles in their own countries, usually with Russian tooling.

Finland did a lot of variations on this round, and probably made their own tooling.

Westinghouse and Remington made 7.62X54R Mosin rifles, but not in Russia. This was before the Czar was unable to take delivery, it might have broke the companies if the U.S. government did not make good on the deal. These sold for as low as four dollars to those in the markmanship program, and they were used for deer hunting even before WWII.
 
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