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I purchased 2 boxes (144rds) of surplus 7.62x25 ammo from SOG to feed my Tokarev and CZ52. When it arrived I found that only 54 rounds ( 37.5% ) did not have split case necks in various degrees. Is this normal? I've never used anything but new ammo for the CZ and Tok so I'm assuming the rounds with split case necks should NOT be fired? Headstamp is 22 over 85. Hardly worth the freight to return these 2 boxes of ammo. Advice anyone? Thanks, Bob B.
Sounds like you got some Romanian or Polish surplus. Pretty common for them to have cracks. Comes from the way they were crimped (stab crimp) I don't like them, but most people say they don't hurt anything and will fire ok.
Permafrost
Thanks for the reply, I guess my worry is the split cases haven't caused any catastrophic failures that anyone knows of?
Bob B.
In steel cases it doesn't matter but brass you can't reload so that hurts. No, no catastrophic failures.
Jim,
Thanks, that's what I needed to know, didn't want things blowing up on me. I'm not a reloader so that's not an issue.
Regards,
Bob B.
They shoot just fine.
Polish made in the early 1950s. Age stress cracks in the neck are common with this ammo and it's fine to shoot. Just remember to clean your firearm well as it's all corrosive primed.
Thanks all for the replies and advice!
Regards, Bob B.
If you're not a handloader, this is where to start! It's not a difficult cartridge to load, everybody and his dog makes dies nowadays and brass it free if you're desperate or cheap.
I started with a Hungarian Tok about 30 years ago, when I was living in Newfoundland. There was NO brass at that time and factory 7.63 Mauser ammo (which works fine) was a fading memory. I was able to get EIGHT rounds of 7.63 and that was it. A friend who was an Air Traffic Controller at Gander Airport had had his pickup truck burdened (accidentally, of course) with a couple of big boxes that fell off a C-130. As he was awash with milspec .223 brass. he gave me a hatful and suggested I try to fabricate brass from that. So I made 50 into 9mm Steyr and the ther 50 into 7.63 Mauser and ran that in the Tok.... and it worked fine.
Now, of course, you can get good brass from Starline, Lee makes a double-cavity mould so you can cast slugs from wheelweights for free.... and everybody is making dies. Hornady even makes bullets! It's a fun cartridge to shoot and almost as much fun to handload.
And you can't even buy surplus ammo for a nickel a shot.... but you can make it for that.
.
Had the same cracked neck experience with SOG Polish TOK ammo. 35 out of 630. Read numerous posts on this and went to range and shot it all. No problems. Cleaned the Toks and all's well. Then the surplus dried up almost overnight. The gal at SOG set aside my order and when I went the next day to pick it up I thought I might get a couple extra packages. She said a guy came in that morning and bought all they had. GLUTTON!!!
After awhile I got interested in redoing .223 hulls for both the Toks and Nagants. Got Tok dies and molds from Lee and had at it. Redoing for the Toks is not hard. Cut the hulls to about 1 inch in length. I use a small miter saw I bought at Harbor Freight for $25. Trim outer edge of cut off , lube and run through resizing die. (I remove deprimer tool for this stage and deprime by hand.) Trim to proper length (I use a Lyman trimmer) and resize a second time. Now procede as normal, prime, load powder, and seat bullet. I run the finished bullet through the full length resizer again to insure the projectile is firmly held in the case neck and is of the correct diameter. Sorry, got a little long-winded. I any event redoing .223 may take a bit of effort but it is definity cost effective.