When will it blow up?

[tark]

Greetings Broomhandle Mauser lovers. I just finished off another tin of 7.62X25 ammo. Fired in my re-sprung Broomhandle Mauser. I have reached the 2,500 round plateau so I will ask again, when is this thing gonna blow up? I have heard such dire warnings of what will happen to your Mauser if you fire Tokarev ammo in it I was just wondering ....ahhhhh...exactly WHEN and HOW MANY rounds it is supposed to take??? Eh??

Of course I am being sarcastic. The truth is that when the Russians stole the Mauser round and renamed it they changed nothing, least of all the loading. When I mix 7.63 Mauser ammo and Tokarev ammo in the magazine there is no difference in muzzle blast, recoil or how far the pistol throws the empties.

I KNOW,That isn't much of a scientific comparison!!! OK fine. But consider this: When the Tokarev round first came out it had 1390 FPS with an 85 gr bullet out of a 4 1/2 " Tokarev barrel. The 7.63 Mauser was listed at 1410 out of the Mauser's 5 1/2 " barrel. Look at any old Cartridges of the World.

That doesn't look to me like the Tok is loaded any hotter, it looks like they were the same load and the difference was due to the one inch longer barrel on the Mauser.

The Mauser is a stronger design that the Tokarev anyway. The latter is a loose copy of a 1911, which was a fantastic place to start, but the Russians scaled it down to the point where they lost that inherent safety margin present in a 1911. I have three Tokarevs and in my experience they do not hold up well to extensive firing. My Russian Tok has a soft frame. The slide has beat and peened the frame so badly that it sticks and barely cycles. My Chinese gun has a soft slide at the rear of the spring tunnel and the same thing has happened to it. My Zastava has you to break, but I havent fired it that much.

My Broomhandle, on the other hand, has has God knows how many thousands of rounds put through it. ( 2500 Tokarev rounds that I know of for certain) And let us not forget that Broomhandles were chambered for a round that made the 38 Super look puny.. The 9X25 Mauser 128 gr @ 1360. The had no trouble handling that round. Broomhandles are complicated and intricate and expensive to make and on and on...but they are a very strong design.

And they can fire Tokarev ammo all day long without any trouble...

 

[PA41]

I understand the main issue with the C96 shooting Tok rounds is the bolt block or the slide area around it giving up. Your 'respringing' probably is important as that would reduce the chance of the bolt bottoming out on the bolt stop. Most of the Broomies I've owned or shot had such worn barrels they would not build enough pressure to see any difference in the rounds, and I've used the more available Tok round in them. I've got a pre war commercial that makes a 'whoosh' more than a Boom and soft recoil with fresh springs that shoots toks fine. I do have a C96 with a near new barrel that builds good pressure, but am concerned the Toks would bottom the bolt out. I'll revisit the ballistics and consider it, as the 763s are a little expensive. Good to see these old girls still shooting..

 

[tark]

If you look at the Bolt stop and the supporting area on the barrel extension you will see high grade steel (for the time) properly heat treated and well designed to absorb the shock of the bolt slamming against the bolt stop. THAT'S is its JOB! I have examined the bolt stop and surrounding area on my gun many times and it shows absolutely no sign of unusual or excessive wear. There is none! My gun has a bore that can be described as good, with light pitting but sharp rifling. I shoot the yellow box Norinco ammo in it, 85 grain, sixty to a box.

The notion that a bolt on a Broomhandle can recoil backward fast enough to shear the bolt stop is just ridiculous. I have never seen this, or any pictures of this happening. I defy anyone to post a picture of a Broomhandle with a sheared bolt stop from firing Tokarev ammo.

If a too hot load can shear the bolt stop....how did the gun ever pass proof?

Think I'll go open another box and shoot some more.

 

[Ian]

The problem wouldn't be the locking lugs shearing off, it would be them being slowly and progressively peened down, increasing your headspace over time. Do enough of that, and eventually the headspace becomes excessive enough that it will start to burst cases.

If I were you, I would check the headspace to make sure it's still acceptable, just for peace of mind (and to silence critics). Not all 7.62 Tok is created equal - some is made to Mauser spec and some is really hot SMG ammo.

 

[Onmilo]

The hottest 7.62 Tokarev was made by the Czechs for the roller locked CZ52 pistol and a submachine gun, the model of which I can't remember right off the bat, M63 I think.
The loading is basically a duplicate of the German 7.63 black case 1896 Mauser Carbine load.
Early Mauser metallurgy wasn't the same as that used by 1930 and early guns won't stand a steady diet of hot loads and seriously, why would anyone shoot hot ammo out of a collector grade firearm?
Chinese metallurgy is plain atrocious compared to the Germans and a lot of the sheared lugs and such comes from people over shooting the copies.

If you shoot a lot of Tokarev, especially over a chronograph, you will notice the Chinese stuff is a bit milder than Eastern European and Russian Tokarev/PPsh/PP43 ammo.
Yep, lots of Chinese Tokarev has been fired through thousands of Chinese and German made C96 pistols in China.
The Chinese 7.62 Tokarev is loaded mild to keep from destroying the lesser quality Chinese made Mauser copies.
Taku Dock 26 guns are considered the best of the Chinese copies and even these can get beat up pretty good with hot ammo.
And yes, the subgun ammo is exactly the same as the handgun ammo be it Chinese, Russian, or east European EXCEPT for those cooker Czech loads AND those standard European and Russian loads, for all practical purposes, duplicate the standard 7.63 Mauser loading and ballistics.
I have never seen Chinese made 7.63 Mauser ammunition, surely they produced it though it must have all been shot up in country.
I do know they imported millions of 7.63 Mauser ammunition direct from Germany while the guns were at maximum issue and use and Chinese ammunition manufacture wasn't exactly at peak production and surely they would have made 7.63 Mauser special for the C96 guns if the Tokarev was a different cartridge,,,right?

 

[tark]

Yes, the Czech ammo is very hot, but it is not Tokarev Ammo, it is Czech Cz52 ammo! I do not fire any ammo through my Mauser that I am unsure of. Mine is by no means a collector grade gun, although all numbers do match. My OTHER broomhandle is a 99% gun with matching wooden holster. It is still gooped with cosmoline and I doubt it was ever fired after proof testing. It never will be fired again.

Ian, Finally, someone who makes sense! You are absolutely correct about how and why a Broomhandle Mauser would fail if you fed it too much hot ammo. I have watched headspace closely on my gun. I do not have a 'GO" gauge for 7.63, but I do have a "no go" and that is the one that counts. My headspace has not increased at all.

And why should it? Read my original post. Broomhandles were chambered for the hottest 9mm round in existence, at least until recently. And some of the 9x19 ammo the Red Nines used wasn't exactly loaded light either. Broomhandles had no trouble handling either.

I stand by my original claim, standard Tokarev ammo is no hotter than Mauser ammo. If you Broomhandle is mechanically sound, with new springs, you can shoot Tokarev ammo in it till the cows come home. You won't hurt it.

 

[Tomq]

New user, first post. To answer the question... When will it blow up? For me the answer was yesterday. Shooting a new (to me) 9mm conversion that's been reblued and looks great... So not the Tokarev ammo at all, but factory 9mm. Bolt stop failed and it hit me in the cheek. Not injured at all, but spooked? Oh yeah.
I gather the combination of the mainspring and the recoil spring slowed it down enough.

Foolishly I'd not inspected the stop beforehand so have no idea of its condition (live/learn). I've ordered a spring kit (springs weak and feeding trouble) and a newly manufactured stop to try again. Maybe. It's a beautiful gun and for the first dozen rounds was a joy to shoot (feed problems aside).

 

[Jim K]

"Tokarev ammo will blow up Mausers."

"Czech ammo will blow up Mausers and Tokarevs."

First, the question I have asked before and never gotten a good answer, only the same old "somebody says". The USSR had Mausers and Tokarevs in service at the same time. Why would they issue ammunition that would blow up their own service pistols? They were Communists; they weren't idiots.

I will revise the question a bit. Since the USSR controlled all the military weapons requirements and interchangeability standards for the Warsaw Pact countries, why would they allow a WP member to issue ammunition that would blow up guns issued by Russia or other WP nations?

So how many Tokarevs have been blown up by Czech ammo? How many Mausers have been blown up by Tokarev ammo? I know: "Somebody said ..."

(Tomq's Mauser didn't "blow up". The bolt stop failed, as has happened before with other ammo. It is very likely that any 9mm Mauser is an old Chinese gun, converted from 7.63, most of which were badly worn and often rusted out before being worked over by U.S. importers. Not, IMHO, trustworthy guns; I just hope that a broken bolt stop is the only thing wrong.)

Jim

 

[commygun]

Well, I've had a bolt stop shear while using S&B 7.63 Mauser. Fortunately it was while doing some one-handed point shooting and the bolt sailed over my shoulder. Memorable, nonetheless. I think the problem is that they're a wide variety of Broomie bolt stops out there, many of unknown provenance and uncertain heat treating. That was just my experience. Clearly, tark's has been better.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

On the C96: I would watch for peening where the bolt stop impacts its slot in the barrel extension. I would recommend new main (hammer) spring AND new recoil (bolt) spring in any C96 before use with modern ammunition. Just my opinion for what it is worth, but: the hammer spring absorbs more recoil force than the bolt spring, and you can have a C96 with a weak hammer spring that will reliably pop primers ever time but not really slow down the recoil of the bolt enough to prevent battering.

I also suspect the 7.62x25 Czech M48 cartridge got higher velocity from the Sa 24 and Sa 26 submachineguns (adopted in 1951) and the CZ52 pistol (introduced 1952) by using a slower burning (not higher pressure) load that generates high velocity compared to usual 7.62x25. The M48 round was usually distributed in 8 shot stripper clips and the Sa 24 and Sa 26 have a magazine filler built in the forearm, used to strip rounds into the 32 shot detachable box magazine from stripper clips.

The German ammo for "7,63 Mauser" produced in WWII for new wartime production Mauser broomhandles was hot stuff if the figures from the 1966 "Small Arms of the World" are accurate. Individual batches of 7.62x25mm Tokarev are all over the scale.

(Starline advises that brass for 7,63 Mauser is a fraction longer than 7.62mm Tokarev brass and should be trimmed before it is used to load 7.62x25 Tokarev rounds.)

ADDED: I have been shooting a C96 Mauser since 2002 and a CZ52 since 2004.
Jim K is skeptical about the scuttlebutt that:
"Tokarev ammo will blow up Mausers."
"Czech ammo will blow up Mausers and Tokarevs."

I will go out on a limb and say:
"Some Tokarev ammo will batter Mausers into early retirement as wall hangers."
"Czech ammo will kick like a mule in Mausers and Tokarevs."

 

[Jim K]

No need to crawl on limbs, Carl, but do you know of any pictures of battered or blown up Mausers or Tokarevs or any recoil figures for the Czech ammo vs German or Russian?

Jim

 

[jonnyc]

"Not all 7.62 Tok is created equal - some is made to Mauser spec and some is really hot SMG ammo."

No such animal.


"The loading is basically a duplicate of the German 7.63 black case 1896 Mauser Carbine load.

Again, no such animal in 7.63 Mauser. The blackened case "Carbine" load was in 7.65 Luger, not 7.63 Mauser.

 

[R.W.Dale]

The "hot" Czech ammo is a red herring

The ammo isn't so much intentionally hot as it was simply really really crappy it will and has blown up the demonstrably weaker cz52 just as verily as it will a Tok or broomhandle

 

[jonnyc]

Please post any info/pics/proof of a TT Tokarev pistol that has ever "blown up" from any factory ammo.

 

[R.W.Dale]

Please post any info/pics/proof of a TT Tokarev pistol that has ever "blown up" from any factory ammo.

That took about 15 seconds

http://www.akfiles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=213413


http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?375410-Polish-Tokarev-major-malfunction

 

[Jim K]

As far as I can tell, neither blowup was due to "submachinegun" ammo or to "VZ-52 military ammo". I have no idea what problems S&B might have or have had, but I doubt they load or ever loaded military ammo of any kind in commercial boxes.

Jim

 

[R.W.Dale]

As far as I can tell, neither blowup was due to "submachinegun" ammo or to "VZ-52 military ammo". I have no idea what problems S&B might have or have had, but I doubt they load or ever loaded military ammo of any kind in commercial boxes.



Jim

That's not what you asked for.

You specifically said "any factory ammo"

The Czech vz-52 isn't even chambered for 7.62x25

 

[jhb]

Pretty sure if that s&b ammo had been shot in a cz52 it would have kaboomed it also. That super thin chamber where the rollers are makes it far weaker than the tokarev barrel. This has been tested and the tokarev is the stronger pistol. Far too many myths on these pistols floating around....

Although this is a broom handle thread not a cz52 vs. All else thread. The cz52 is the weaker design when shooting 7.62x25mm....not the tokarev. This has been proven time and time again. Imagine what the firearm would look like if it had been a cz52? Missing digits on the shooters hand maybe?

 

[Carl N. Brown]

No need to crawl on limbs, Carl, but do you know of any pictures of battered or blown up Mausers or Tokarevs or any recoil figures for the Czech ammo vs German or Russian?

Unfortunately I am too old for that sorta thing, but in our boyhood my brother Jeff and our friends climbed trees alot.

Quick search on C96 extension failure shows a battered Mauser:
http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?352511-Broken-Broomhandle-part-1
The failure there appears to be the fault of a weak hammerspring. I think the Mauser bolt stop is the weak point in the design. The Mauser bolt is considerably lighter than the CZ 52 or T33 slide and if the hammer and bolt return springs are weak, the Mauser bolt can become a projectile.

I think gun "blowups" are grossly exaggerated and that's what I called scuttlebutt: reports of blown up guns. I think most of these guns are more likely to be worn or battered by some of the ammunition rather than "blown up". The C96 can be battered until the barrel extension is peened, bowed out, or broken. "Blown up" Mausers, Tokarevs or CZ 52s using standard issue or commercial ammo with proper springs don't show up. But Mauser C96 pistols retired to wall-hanger due to barrel extension/bolt stop failure do show up.

On recoil, I'll go by velocity of the same weight bullet in proportion to weight of the gun.
W.H.B. Smith, "Small Arms of the World", Stackpole, 1966
7.62x25 Russian WWII issue, 1640 fps from 10.6 inch barrel (PPSh 41)
7.62x25 Russian WWII issue, 1378 fps from 4.6 inch barrel (TT33 Tokarev pistol)
7.62x25 Czech M48 ammo, 1800 fps from 11.2 inch barrel (M24 and M26 smgs)
7.62x25 Czech M48 ammo, 1600 fps from 4.7 inch barrel (Model 52 pistol)

Sellier&Bellot S&B Czech
7.62x25 85gr bullet 503 mps (1630 fps) from 120mm 4.8 inch barrel.

Czech Model 52, 2.31 pounds.
TT33 Tokarev, 1.88 pounds.


.30 Mauser, 7,63 Mauser, 7.63x25mm Mauser
W.H.B. Smith, "Small Arms of the World", Stackpole, 1966
7.63 Mauser WWII issue, 1575 fps from 5.5 inch barrel, Mauser 1932 (version of C96)
U.S. commercial .30 Mauser in the 1970 Gun Digest
7.63 Mauser US commercial, 1410 fps from C96 .
Prvi Partizan PPU Serbia
7.63x25 85gr bullet 460 mps (1495 fps) from 150mm 6 inch barrel.
Fiocchi commercial
7.63 Mauser 88 gr bullet, 1425 fps

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Off topic.

CZ is a factory.
vz is short for "model".
1952 CZ introduced a 7.62x25mm CZ vz 52 pistol and a 7.62x45mm CZ vz 52 rifle.
The rifles were imported here first and were popularly called "vz 52".
When the pistols were imported later, they were named for factory and year (my pistol imported by TG KNOX TN is marked "CZ-52"; I have seen "CZ52" and "CZ 52".

There was an edit war at Wikipedia whether the CZ vz 52 pistol article ought to be "CZ 52" or "vz. 52" and "CZ 52" won as article name with "vz. 52" as a redirect to "CZ 52" (the rifle article is "vz. 52 rifle" BTW).

Has nothing to to do with When will a C96 blow up with Tokarev ammo, tho.

 

[jonnyc]

Will have to read the AKFiles report when I'm home, but the Gunboards S&B report is an ammo problem, not the firearm.

 

[MachIVshooter]

The Czech vz-52 isn't even chambered for 7.62x25

Vz is an abbreviation for Vzor, which simply means model; the same abbreviation applies to both the 7.62x25mm pistol and the 7.62x45mm rifle.

It is only us over here in the US of A that decided to designate CZ-52 as the pistol and Vz-52 as the rifle.

 

[SHIPCHIEF]

Regarding the damaged Tokarev; it looks to me like the case bottom blew out. The action cycled. The extractor did not remove the entire case.
The next round being loaded couldn't go in the chamber, so the bullet was shoved back into the case. the bullet nose has a dent, possibly from shiny spot on the case fragment remaining in the back of the barrel.
I don't have my Tokarev in hand right now (to look at the back of the barrel), but the damaged gun possibly shows the remaining case not fully in the chamber, so a fire out of battery (cartridge discharged and blew out before the bolt locked) or partial extraction and case separation after the case ruptured in a normal firing event?
The AK file report of a similar accident indicated the unfired compressed cartridge had a faint primer dent, possibly inertia on pin from the bolt coming forward with extra vigor after a very hard opening???
I don't think this event condemns the Tokarev, in fact, the frame was strong enough to prevent injury to the shooter.
I have a post 1930 broomhandle that I had Cliff LaBounty rebarrel to 38 super. Have not shot it much.

 

[Richard Head]

Where's Clark when you need him?

 

[R.W.Dale]

Where's Clark when you need him?

I've wondered that myself. I haven't seen him post in years.

I don't feel the links above are blemishes on the tokarev. Quite the opposite, the same failure in a 52 would have blown it to bits.

But it does show there is no "legendary" strength here. What kills other pistols will do a tokarev in too