Most accurate 7.62x54 ammo

[jmoore]

S&B did a run of Boxer primed, brass cased, 174gr Sierra Matchking bulleted ammo some time back, but it may have been 8-10 years ago. Haven't seen any (for sale) in a while!

[Darkwolfe]

One thing you really want to do with any M/N 91/30 or any variant thereof is slug the barrel. Reason being is that there is a huge amount of variability in the land diameters in the barrels. I have two 91/30s myself. One has a land height of .307 and a groove of .314. The other has a land height of .309 with the same .314 groove. Obviously, one of the two rifles will accurately fire .308s and the other one will not!

So, my cast bullets are thrown at .312 and sized at .311. I use a Lee 2 chamber 150gr mold and (currently) a 10 pound smelter. The lead is a Linotype/reclaimed mix that gets about an 18 Brinell (sp?) hardness. Even so, it still gets a gas check so I can get up above 2200fps without leading the barrel.

Now, for a real zippy load, try this- .310 diameter 123gr Hornady jacketed SP (usually used for 7.62x39) with 50gr of IMR 4895. I love the results I've gotten out of that load! Don't have any pictures for proof so I'm not going to go bragging right now, but it works very well. Recoil is slightly higher than the Serbian PRVI Partisan commercial load, but still very manageable.

I haven't tried sabot loads yet, but those should be quite entertaining.

Off the shelf, the PRVI wins for me. Not in the least because I can reload the brass. It seems to stay consistent around 2700fps and the brass comes out needing only very little resizing at the neck.

I keep some of the Bulgarian silver tips around just for argument's sake. Also have some unmarked surplus rounds that are still in the old paper battle packs. Figure if I ever need those, things must have gotten bad in a hurry

[tower06]

One thing you really want to do with any M/N 91/30 or any variant thereof is slug the barrel. Reason being is that there is a huge amount of variability in the land diameters in the barrels. I have two 91/30s myself. One has a land height of .307 and a groove of .314. The other has a land height of .309 with the same .314 groove. Obviously, one of the two rifles will accurately fire .308s and the other one will not!

So, my cast bullets are thrown at .312 and sized at .311. I use a Lee 2 chamber 150gr mold and (currently) a 10 pound smelter. The lead is a Linotype/reclaimed mix that gets about an 18 Brinell (sp?) hardness. Even so, it still gets a gas check so I can get up above 2200fps without leading the barrel.

Now, for a real zippy load, try this- .310 diameter 123gr Hornady jacketed SP (usually used for 7.62x39) with 50gr of IMR 4895. I love the results I've gotten out of that load! Don't have any pictures for proof so I'm not going to go bragging right now, but it works very well. Recoil is slightly higher than the Serbian PRVI Partisan commercial load, but still very manageable.

I haven't tried sabot loads yet, but those should be quite entertaining.

Off the shelf, the PRVI wins for me. Not in the least because I can reload the brass. It seems to stay consistent around 2700fps and the brass comes out needing only very little resizing at the neck.

I keep some of the Bulgarian silver tips around just for argument's sake. Also have some unmarked surplus rounds that are still in the old paper battle packs. Figure if I ever need those, things must have gotten bad in a hurry

Will keep it in mind. Thanks

[Darkwolfe]

And I found something last night that I needed to add. Be sure to inspect the case necks on the Winchester brass carefully. I had one from a once-fired batch that showed a massive amount of micro-pitting in the brass and in fact had a 1/8 inch split at the case mouth. I get the feeling that particular piece of brass was not formed under the correct conditions. So be aware that there are a few iffy cases wandering around that initially look fine.

[jmoore]

S&B did a run of Boxer primed, brass cased, 174gr Sierra Matchking bulleted ammo some time back, but it may have been 8-10 years ago. Haven't seen any (for sale) in a while!

Found a box:




It used these fine projectiles:

[Josh Smith]

Hello,

Can you find any Czech silver-tipped light ball?

7n1 is awesome stuff as well, but I've only seen it once -- and it was very expensive. Supposedly none got to the West, but I did see that one box.

Most of the ammo has bullet and powder weights all over the place. If you were to purchase a scale and single-stage press, you could "Mexican load" the surplus into something approaching 7n1 quality by sorting bullet weights and standardizing powder charges.

Josh

[Darkwolfe]

Ammotogo.com had some of the Czech silver tipped last year and I scooped up a couple hundred rounds for the stash. They might still have some. I'd go look, but I can't reach the website from the work PC.