hypothetical: AK-74, no more surplus ammo, what do you do?

[jason41987]

just wondering the answer to this question. say you have an AK-74, 5.45x39mm of which there are no commercial sources of ammunition and im unaware of any brass casings or bullets made for it.. so what do you do if for some reason the importation of the ammunition were to suddenly stop?.. lets say in import ban or some other bullcrap like that?.. and lets say you really liked your AK-74 and wanted to keep feeding it.. what do you do?

one option i can think of would be to convert the rifle to 5.56/223, which would require either having a custom barrel made or turning down the 23mm 5.56mm AK barrels you can find, new feed ramp which is riveted in, probably need a saiga 223 bolt head, and some kind of a magazine conversion, possibly galil, but ive seen magwells installed on galils and 223 AKs before that allowed AR15 magazines.. after converting, just use 223/5.56 as normal

benefit of this is ammunition will be easier to find commercially, more reloading components, brass, bullets, tons of load data, and a performance boost over 5.45 (1000ft/lbs muzzle energy up to closer to 1400) which means more power and range as the other option i can thing of would eliminate the tumbling effect of military 5.45mm ammo

downside is theres a lot more work and cost involved

__

option 2 i can think of after reading other forums is to resize .222 brass, probably anneal it afterwards to reduce the chances of splitting the cases, and then swaging or sizing .223/.224 diameter bullets down to .221, then reload as normal

benefit of this is it would probably be the quickest and cheapest way to go, .222 brass and .224 bullets arent expensive at all

downside would be that you will ALWAYS have to make your own ammo, and 5.45 is pretty weak, especially when you take out that tumbling effect designed into the bullets of the military 5.45 ammo

what would you do, and why?

 

[Inebriated]

I'd not shoot the ammo I have, set both in a cache somewhere, buy a .223 AK or AR, and wait until I need it, or until some US manufacturers get in on it.

 

[back40]

i'd sell it. sure you might like it, but there are too many others that do the same thing and are way easier to feed.

 

[Adam123]

Switch calibers.

 

[ColtPythonElite]

Throw it in the closet and move on.

 

[nathan]

Stock up now . Its highly unlikely it will go away. Too many of these are now accepted by the American market. No way it will go away . Its too good of a caliber . In fact its my go to go in case of a social unrest . I love the ligth recoil and acccuracy . It will make a big mess on human flesh as it yaws on impact.

 

[back40]

now accepted by the American market. No way it will go away

obviously not accepted enough to warrant factory commercial ammo or reloading components.

 

[Warp]

Something to keep in mind is that in a crap hitting it situation where importation of ammunition stopped, ALL ammunition would become ridiculously expensive and nearly impossible to find. Think last February, but worse.

The United States imports a lot of ammunition in virtually every cartridge. Getting rid of that would royally screw up supply, and that's to make no mention of the unprecedented spike in demand that we would surely see.

I think the real issue here is..."If ammunition become unobtanium, would have enough of it"? (reloading components would cease to be available as well)

Which cartridge/caliber you have, specifically, wouldn't matter very much.

 

[barnbwt]

"obviously not accepted enough to warrant factory commercial ammo or reloading components."
Give it time; when it gets expensive enough for milsurp, they'll bring production online.

TCB

 

[Ken70]

"obviously not accepted enough to warrant factory commercial ammo or reloading components."
Give it time; when it gets expensive enough for milsurp, they'll bring production online.

TCB

Yep, no way could you make new ammo for anywhere near what the surplus is selling for. Figure it's 40 years since it was adopted by the Warsaw Pact countries, there are billions of rounds in those countries that will be sold as they adopt 5.56. Import ban in this country is the biggest threat....It will be the rare group that will be able to shoot it out Mad Max style, most people aren't going to make it. For them, the barter value of the ammo is where you want to have it.

 

[Jackal]

I dont understand. Commercial, current production ammo IS available.... Your not limited to only surplus.

 

[justice06rr]

Give it time; when it gets expensive enough for milsurp, they'll bring production online.

Would that be after they catch up with 22lr production???? I won't hold my breath lol.

Its a good cartridge, but when 223/5.56NATO and 7.62x39 are more readily available it makes more sense to switch to those calibers if the supply somehow gets cut off.

 

[nathan]

5.56 was very expensive when SandyHook happened. ITs the same thing. Stocking up is the answer to all future shortage, or your pocket gets burned when the next crisis shows up again.

 

[jason41987]

though it may unlikely a ban on imported surplus ammo would happen, its not impossible.. afterall we have to deal with 922r bullcrap for absolutely no logical reason what so ever.. i serioously doubt theres any difference between a bulgarian made gas piston and the US made one youd have to buy for compliance.. so the governments not above making idiotic laws at some pathetic attempt to annoy us, i wouldnt put restrictions on imported ammunition above them..

so the hypothetic is, what if they banned surplus ammo, and you were forced to buy new factory ammunition.. obviously this is something the lobby of ammunition manufacturers might "support" and by that i mean buy such laws to force us to buy less surplus and more of their product

i have an AK-74, and i always like to be prepared in some way for what the future could deal me.. ive thought of converting mine to 5.56 not so much that it would be easier to stock up on in an ammo shortage, but easier to find should there be any kind of civil unrest for example, and generally youre going to find it in any store when there isnt some kind of shortage..

but the other way of looking at it is if it stayed in 5.45, would it not be easier to find .222 brass still available as opposed to .223 brass or ammunition?.. with all the AKs, SKS, mini-30s out there, 7.62x39 would be just as difficult to find, and has gotten to be pretty expensive lately compared to when surplus was still widely available, so unlike 223 and 7.62x39, at this point is still able to be stockpiled as much of eastern europe still uses this cartridge and always seem to have tons to sell (though it seems many of them are switching to 5.56, so surplus could start drying up even without a ban

but none of that matters in this hypothetical.. if tomorrow all 5.45 surplus was gone and you still wanted to use your AK-74, would you convert it, or start buying .222 brass, .224 bullets and a set of dies to begin making your own 5.45, knowing it wont have the tumbling effect the military stuff has?

you have to admit its a good hypothetical though as any restriction in surplus ammo will probably hit the 5.45 users the hardest, since surplus is all we have... besides sizing .222 brass and swaging .224" bullets

 

[Jackal]

of which there are no commercial sources of ammunition

Yes, there are. Wolf, Silver Bear, Golden Tiger and Hornady all make current, commercial ammo for 5.45x39. Or are you saying hypothetically that all those dont exist? So, if surplus ammo AND commercial ammo dont exist, reloading companies would step up after the round entered obscurity (same as every other deceased factory offering).

 

[plmitch]

Yes, there are. Wolf, Silver Bear, Golden Tiger and Hornady all make current, commercial ammo for 5.45x39. Or are you saying hypothetically that all those dont exist?

Very well said.

 

[FIVETWOSEVEN]

*coughwolfammocough*

 

[jason41987]

if youre using wolf ammo you might as well use surplus, i cant stand wolf ammo, but that said, an attack on surplus ammo would probably be included in a bigger attack on imported ammunition in general which would include wolf

 

[Sam1911]

It already exists, domestically -- and that's WHILE there is plenty of surplus ammo around that's the cheapest centerfire ammo available. (So, the toughest to compete against.)

If the surplus ammo was to magically dry up, the manufacturers would step up making it just like they would any other very popular cartridge.

(Yes, most ammo has been hard to find THIS YEAR. That comes and goes. Don't worry too much about temporary shortages.)

When there are 8 bazillion 5.54x39 rifles in this country, one of the most popular styles of firearm right now, the manufacturers would be suicidal not to make it by the warehouse-load should their foreign competition be artificially cut off.

 

[jason41987]

surplus on the 7.62x39 basically dried up. but there was a long stretch between then and when enough manufacturers were able to produce enough to bring costs to tolerable levels.. what are hornady 5.45?.. about 50 cents a round.. if it suddenly dried up tomorrow and those were your ONLY sources of ammo, well supply and demand would send the prices of that stuff through the roof and it could be years before you see it inexpensive enough again.. so thered still be that period of time in between where you may have to either start making it yourself or convert to another caliber if you didnt want to pay a ton for an otherwise underpowered cartridge.. and i dont think itll ever be as cheap as .223 (under normal, non-panic prices) so theres still a big incentive to either convert it, or learn how to reload your own

 

[lobo9er]

IF there was no ammo for a particular gun I had and it wasn't
worth anything and had no personal value to me. wall Hanger or sell it.

 

[Sam1911]

Sure. Short term view is make due with something else.

Fortunately, there are tons of ARs out there that do pretty much the same thing as an AK-74, so if it gets painful to buy ammo for the one, switch to the other. In the big picture, the ammo costs add up pretty fast to way more than the gun is worth, so it doesn't take long to justify the expense for another weapon.

(Or converting your AK, but that's less optimal. Two guns that can be shot interchangeably as ammo situations fluctuate are better than one gun you're paying to convert to a cartridge it wasn't designed to shoot.)

 

[HexHead]

obviously not accepted enough to warrant factory commercial ammo or reloading components.

Hornady makes 5.45x39 ammo.

 

[jason41987]

im not an AR fan... built an AK-74 from parts as an alternative to getting an AR.. think is, surplus ammo is where the rifle really shines.. the designed tumbling bullets make up for its incredibly under-powered nature.. should surplus dry up, not only will it become really expensive, really fast, but factory ammo will likely used conventional bullets, and greatly neuter what the cartridge is capable of.. giving you something with no more muzzle energy than a .30 carbine

seems in the end these rifles are little more useful than for plinking

 

[ilbob]

any gun you buy will have expensive ammo for the foreseeable future.

have you considered taking up reloading? not a perfect answer as components are not cheap these days either, nor are they all that easy to come by in many cases.