south african battle packs 308 and brown bear 308.

South African is good to go. No clue on the Brown Bear. FWIW, brass cased 7.62 is running about 50 cents per round these days.

The South African has been flawless in most of my rifles, I bought quite a bit of it back in the good old days when it was $99/1000. Wish I would have bought a lot more.

I have heard of people having trouble with that ammo but I believe it was in a PTR-91. But, I've shot it in my PTR and it's been fine.

Now all that said, DPMS puts this on their website:

South African produced surplus
We have used this ammunition in the past for testing purposes and found the brass is extremely soft and can "flow" into microscopic pores and grooves in the chamber creating "sticky" extraction. This has been reported in many types of rifles, but is more prevalent in semi-automatic weapons.

Click to expand...

Alot of the russian/chinese 308 ammo, works well, but contains alot of charcoal. Silver bear ammo is a classic example. To reduce muzzle flash in weapons with simple design flash suppressors, such as the ak series. The russian/chinese ammo manufacturers add charcoal, this is a cheap filler, and suppresant. The down side is the fouling. Plan on spending time cleaning gas ports, barrels, etc. Due to the lose tolerances of ak style weapons, fouling isnt nearly the problem it is with higher tolerance american/european weapons. It shoots fine, hits hard, its cheap, just nasty.

I have had pretty decent luck with brown bear in my Ishy enfield. It is reliable and accurate in the 3-4moa range at 100 yards. $ for $ it's not bad ammo.

When I used to have a PTR-91, Brown Bear worked fine in it. I'm not inclined to use it in anything nicer, but that's just my own personal bias, not based on any real issue or facts.

I've used some 1964 (!) South African surplus that had an occasional misfire. 1970's and later production I've used has been just fine.

+1 on Brown Bear

I have never had experience with Brown Bear, but my Fal's will eat south african all day. Not as accurate as DAG or Port, but just as reliable in my experience.