Best ammo for a mosin? Surplus and new

[wacki]

My dad just bought his first rifle... a mosin. Now he needs to feed it.

He's read a lot of bad things about surplus 7.62x54R ammo (like 4 out of 5 have cracked casings). He's also read that the lacquer on the Wolf's are bad for the rifles. Thoughts on this?

Also, how corrosive is corrosive ammo vs. non corrosive? I've never had a problem with surplus but I've only shot NATO surplus.

 

[andcam]

I bought some albanian surplus and it works pretty good. (147gr. FMJ Boat Tail) It is corrosive, as is most 7.62x54R. But it's not a problem if you clean soon after firing.

 

[rangerruck]

it's all good, really. the lacquer? you won't heat it up hot enough, or fast enough, to worry about. Unless you still have Cosmo in the bolt/chamber area, and then you could get sticky bolt syndrome.
Corrosive ammo; just clean out as regular, or run some hot water down the tube, that will fix that. There is plenty of new stuff out there as well... wolf, barnaul, t/c , brown bear , silver bear, olympic, and others. usually the heavier stuff will be more accurate, with the 200 or 205's , could be really accurate for you, but their point of impact will be significantly lower at 100 yds, even from 150's to 180 grainers. For a very happy medium, I like the silver bear, in 180's, very accurate, with little diff in drop from the 150's.

 

[WardenWolf]

I think most Czech is non-corrosive.

 

[oregonhunter]

with a rifle as cheap as a mosin, feed it whatever you can find.

 

[wnycollector]

My fav 7.62x54 ammo is Hungarian light ball (silver case and silver tip). This stuff is super clean and VERY accurate. It is kind of hard to find but, there is usually some on GB.

My second choice is bulgarian light ball http://www.sportsmansguide.com/net/cb/cb.aspx?a=465896

 

[stubbicatt]

Corrosive ammo is no big deal, our grandfathers shot the stuff in two world wars and Korea.

Just clean your rifle.

Even less of a big deal in the Mosin, as there are no gas system parts to worry about. Clean the chamber and bore, and disassemble the bolt to be sure to clean the firing pin. Reassemble, grease, and go.

Any of the commercial offerings will likely give your father satisfactory groupings. The milsurp will work, some better than others. Find one that works well for you, and then stock up on it and shoot often.

 

[nathan]

Nice thing about the Mosin, been in Russian arsenal for a very long time up to ww2. Rugged, simple and takes on any 54 R produced. The design is not finicky at all except for a few lockups sticky bolts. The very reason the Soviets chosen it until the AK came about.

 

[aka108]

I bought Chinese 54R when it was available. Brass cased and copper jacket. Shot extremely well and very clean. Far better than the Russian ammo.

 

[benEzra]

Corrosive ammo is no big deal, our grandfathers shot the stuff in two world wars and Korea.

Just clean your rifle.

They also wore out a lot of barrels before their time. Prompt cleaning can mitigate the damage, but it is still harder on the barrel (and the action) than noncorrosive. My rifles are a Finn M39 and a Polish M44 and perhaps I am a bit overprotective of them.

I personally like plain Wolf 148-gr noncorrosive. For the amount of 7.62x54R I shoot, there's not much price difference between that and milsurp corrosive stuff, and it makes cleaning much less of a chore.

 

[Red Tornado]

Agree with benEzra, I wouldn't feed surplus to a Finn either. However, I've got a plain 91/30 and all it gets is corrosive. And it likes it!

I've never heard the 4/5 cases cracked. I don't recall ever seeing a cracked case, but all I've used is Czech; silvertip, copper washed, and short range.

Seriously, just add water when you're done shooting and you won't have problems. There are probably hundreds of threads on cleaning a Mosin. Do a search and you'll find it's almost universally considered not that big a deal.
RT

 

[offthepaper]

Treat all commie surplus ammo as corrosive. Not a big deal though. I've shot thousands of rounds of it, just run a couple of patches soaked with windex down the tube BEFORE you leave the range, wipe the bolt face down as well. When you get home, clean as normal, and as said, break down the bolt and wipe it down with the windex as well. I've never had a single problem following this procedure.
As far as the 4 out of 5 cracked cases goes, I've never had that type of ammo problem. I've opend a couple of cases and found a few in a can that were cracked, but never anywhere near that ratio. Be advised that some surplus 54R was produced with a bit more quality than others. Start out and buy small amounts of different ammo until you find the one that shoots best in YOUR rifle. The diffence can be very surprising.

 

[GD]

Actually, all Czech 7.62x54 is corrosive. It is also great ammo.

 

[wacki]

Thanks for the responses.


ok so what makes corrosive corrosive? Anyone know what the gunpowder type is? What is the corrosive residue? etc....

 

[_JT_]

i bought some Silver Bear ammo, its non corrosive, and very powerful at 203grain. Doing target shooting i shredded a tree limb that was 8 inches thick, ended up cutting a channel roughly an inch deep from about 40 yards

 

[GD]

What makes the ammo corrosive is the primer. Firing the ammo places a salt residue on the rifle parts which when in contact with moisture will cause pitting. Washing the parts with ordinary water will carry the salt away. You then clean the rifle as you would with noncorrosive ammo. Corrosive ammo is no big deal -it just takes 1 minute longer to wash with water. In 15 years of shooting corrosive ammo, I have never had problems.