Accurizing surplus ammo?

[Shrinkmd]

I have been studying the Midway catalog for tools and accessories, and I had a thought. Would it be possible, safe, and effective, to disassemble surplus 7.62x54r or 8mm Mauser ammo, measure your rifle's leade, reseat the bullets to the optimal distance from the rifling (1/32" or so I have read) and then also decrease the powder charge accordingly, to avoid overpressure. I also saw Hornady's new Ammo concentricity tool to eliminate bullet runout.

Has anyone ever heard of or attempted this type of operation? It would be wonderful to keep shooting the surplus up, but at least customize it for one's own rifle and maximize it's performance.

Any thoughts?

 

[bullseye308]

That has been done in the past, as well as pulling the bullet and replacing it with a better bullet of the same weight. Called mexican match or something. Someone will be along with more info, but search for mexican match.

 

[HJ857]

You can take it another step and replace the powder with a better powder and test what's the best charge weight.

Depending on the rifle, it's likely that you won't be able to get the bullet seated far enough out for an optimum jump, but it's certainly worth testing.

Get a collet style bullet puller, not a kinetic. This will save you a serious amount of effort.

You can also get a neck sizing die, cut off the decapping pin and size the neck without damaging the primer.

You're probably going to find that bullet weight, seating tension and charge weights will be very inconsistent.

Tweaking rounds in this fashion seems like a lot of work, but really it's a lot less work than fully handloading cartridges because you never have to mess with the brass. Whether it's worth it in the long run is something you'll determine pretty fast.

 

[Jim Watson]

I doubt you will be able to get close to the lands in an 8mm, they are known for a long tapered leade. But you can at least true things up. While you are at it, sort the bullets by weight. You might check the ogives to see if they are the same and resort if necessary; because if you set your "jump" off of a bullet from a different swaging die than what you are shooting, a lot of your "optimization" will be negated.

I don't know how much effect it will have with typical surplus ammo in typical surplus guns, but it is a cheap project to work on.

 

[USSR]

If you are going to go to all that trouble, then by all means replace the bullet with a better commercially made bullet.

Don

 

[TimRB]

"You can take it another step and replace the powder with a better powder and test what's the best charge weight."

Why stop there? As USSR points out, probably there are better bullets, too. While you're at it, the brass and primer may not be optimum, either, so maybe... Nahhh.

Tim

 

[mkl]

I did that on some berdan primed 7.62 X 54R cartridges.

Pulled the FMJ bullet and replaced it with a .311 Hornady soft point that was three grains heavier (147 gr military vs 150 gr Hornady).

Reduced the factory powder charge by one grain.

Seated the Hornady and used a Lee Factory Crimp Die to compensate for uneven neck tensions.

Purpose of the exercise was to produce a deer hunting round for my mosin-nagant. New 7.62 X 54R cases are a dollar each, and I had a "tuna can" of the Russian military surplus.

Remember that the original primer may be corrosive, so clean appropriately after shooting.

 

[Shrinkmd]

I was thinking about putting better bullets in as well, but the point of the exercise was to see if remanufacturing the surplus ammo could actually make a difference. I already know that the Yugo 8mm "sniper" easily shoots an inch or two smaller at 100 yds than the 50's surplus, so I know that gun should be capable of 2 inches or better if the ammo (and the shooter) does their part.

Also, for 7.62x54R which brand of dies is best? I remember reading somewhere that you need a .312 expander button and not the .308 if you are going to be putting in that size bullet (for a Russian 91/30, and not a Finn). Which die set do people use?

Thanks!

 

[Walkalong]

The biggest performance improvement you can make is replacing the bullets with premium projectiles.

 

[IndianaBoy]

Or you could save yourself all the time and effort of polishing a turd, and just buy good quality ammo or components.



I understand the appeal of cheap ammunition. I shoot milsurp. I shoot 22lr though a conversion kit in my AR.



What do you do for a living? The amount of time it would take to disassmble, and reassemble the ammo is prohibitive. You could just buy components and handload like normal. A few extra hours of overtime could cover any difference and you will be starting with better components. It takes a long time to pull bullets, dump powder, reweigh powder, and reseat the bullets.

If my only source of components were milsup, I would be on board.

 

[Shrinkmd]

Its not the money so much, its the hobby and the challenge of it. That and I do have some surplus ammo, and now that I am becoming a better shot I'm starting to appreciate that better ammo can be more fun than just making noise and scattered groups on the paper. I also put a 2.5 Leupold scout scope on my 91/30, so that adds to the fun a bit.

I plan on working up some loads with Norma brass, good bullets, etc, but I thought that it would be interesting to see if the milsurp ammo could be persuaded to perform better. As it is, the Hungarian silver tip can shoot 3 inches if I do my part right. Not bad for steel case junk and a 76 year old rifle.

 

[tube_ee]

I think

Jamie at surplusrifles.com did this.

Pulled bullets, dumped powder, reloaded powder to the average of 10 rounds, seated bullet to consistent depth, factory crimp.

IIRC, group sizes were cut in half or so. Not up to a premium handload, but way, way better than frsh from the tuna can.

Try it... it's only time, and hobby time at that, so it's free if you've already got the tools. (Unless you're spending time reloading that you would otherwise spend working, your time has no dollar value)

--Shannon

 

[panrobercik]

I've done it with 8mm Yugo surplus. I reduced the charges and got me a touching groups at 50 yards with some flyers. I suspect flyers coming from bad primers. My next experiment will be using the same load with boxer brass and new primers.