Break Down and Reload Surplus Ammo

I have recently accurized my M-44 and the testing indicates that it deserves a much more consistent diet. It has a very smooth 2.5 pound trigger with a clean break. The barrel has some minor pitting in the grooves, but is clean and in very good condition. The crown is perfect and the barrel is not counter-bored.

I have been feeding it some Bulgarian surplus and discovered that is has charges that vary as much as 10 grains which results in shooting large patterns and not groups. Overall, I will say it is the worst shooting ammo that I have ever used.

If I select a few rounds that weight the same, I can get 3 MOA results.

This still leaves a few variables that may be tightened up if I break down a batch of them, balance the charges and re-seat the bullets making sure to sort them by weight, first.

I was wondering if anyone has tried this with surplus 7.62x54R and what kind of issues were encountered. I do not yet have dies for this caliber.

My thinking is that doing some small batches with different charges and OALs re-using the surplus components will help me develop the most accurate round for my rifle, and cost half as much as purchasing quality ammo.

An investment of the time to improve results is worth it, since I need to fill lots of time this Winter, anyway.

There's no reason to think it wouldn't work. My gut feeling is that bullet seating is going to be the biggest challenge - you'll need to lube it really well, slightly bell the mouth of the neck with a universal expander, and then crimp it after seating the bullet.

This should help quite a bit. If your batch of ammo is anything like what I have, the bullet seating depths are visibly different. Stand a bunch on their heads and look down the row. No wonder accuracy is mediocre. I never checked charge weights, but it wouldn't surprise me to hear that they're also inconsistent.

I can’t remember if I sold my 7.62x54R dies, but I’m thinking 75% likelihood I did. I’ll check when I get home later today.

No. Gone. I don't have 7.62x54R dies. Sorry

Get dies. Take ONE LOT of ammo and pull bullets. Collect powder.

Weigh powder, divide by the number of rounds, that is your new charge weight. Weigh bullets, group by weight.

You will need to resize the neck after pulling the bullets to get the proper neck tension.

Load.

If you search, there is an online article about someone doing this. And they got very good results.

For even better, swap for a high quality bullet.

I traded some Nagant ammo for pulled Surplus bullets years ago. These are all boat tail so if yours are the same, you really don't need to flair/bell the neck in my opinion.
My opinion is that the neck won't expand out when pulling bullets like it does when shooting so sizing needs won't be much.
7.62x54r was my first round to reload. I reloaded into brass cased PPU and only neck sized. I used a brit 303 neck sizer as there was no 7.62x54r neck sizer. I did read after the face how people used the regular sizing die and just did not turn it all the way down and you could get it to neck size most of the neck. Depending on where you end up, a Lee Factory Crimp die may work out.

I have alot of Iranian Mauser 8mm that is known for "duds" or delay fires. (its really a primer hardness issue). I pull those, used a powder load I took from averaging 20 rounds and put that into used PPU cases.

I have loaded unfired, pulled Lake City.

And you DO need to size the necks. You are not sizing much, but if you don't, the bullets will not be tight enough.

I pulled one of the bullets last night and examined the components. Everything appears to be in good shape with no corrosion or break down of the powder. The charge was 5.2 grains light in the lightest round. With the variance in weight being just over 10 grains in this ammo, some of them must be over charged, too.

The plan is to get a set of Lee dies, a .303 neck sizer(just in case), and a quick case trimmer and die to insure uniform length. Hoping to have the required items early next week. An RCBS neck sizing die may be on the list in the future, too.

I appreciate all of the input, gents.

GuitarmanNick said:

I pulled one of the bullets last night and examined the components. Everything appears to be in good shape with no corrosion or break down of the powder. The charge was 5.2 grains light in the lightest round. With the variance in weight being just over 10 grains in this ammo, some of them must be over charged, too.

The plan is to get a set of Lee dies, a .303 neck sizer(just in case), and a quick case trimmer and die to insure uniform length. Hoping to have the required items early next week. An RCBS neck sizing die may be on the list in the future, too.

I appreciate all of the input, gents.

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I only reload shotgun but a 10 grain variance seems like a lot to me. In shotgun circles guys complain about a .5 grain variance!

I would also suggest getting a few boxes of the cheap TulAmmo 148 grain 7.62x54r and trying that in your rifle and see what it does. I've gotten pretty consistent 1-2" 5 shot groups at 100 yards with it out of my PU, its actually not bad stuff and shoots pretty good in my M38 too. Also you could try some prvi 182 grain match ammo to see what it can do its also relatively affordable.

But your plan is good and I hope you'll share the results when you get some done

Look up so-called " Mexican Match " ammo .

A cpl of sub variations . Simplist is start with GI ammo , pull bullet, replace with Match bullet of appropriate weight . The more involved method is break down in batches * of the same Lot * ,get total weight of powder, divide by number of rounds pulled down , and divide .

I've done this with ball 7.62x51. My idea was to replace the FMJ with a bullet I could hunt with but when I weighed the charge I found a fairly substantial discrepancy in the powder weight. I simply put all the powder in a container weighed it and divided by the number of rounds and put them back together. The bullets I used were BT and I didn't flare the necks. I didn't have the accuracy issues like the OP but the method posted above by Pinecone works

Aamdskeetshooter said:

I only reload shotgun but a 10 grain variance seems like a lot to me. In shotgun circles guys complain about a .5 grain variance!

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Agreed! Range results with this stuff was worse than with TulAmmo. I weighed every round and did the calculation three times to insure I had not made a mistake. Some of the difference may be in the bullets or the cases, but based on the stringing at the range, the charge is not at all consistent.

Aamdskeetshooter said:

I only reload shotgun but a 10 grain variance seems like a lot to me. In shotgun circles guys complain about a .5 grain variance!

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Its a heck of alot for rifle too. even .5 grain variance is way too much for rifle. These bulk ammo factories run volumetric loading for speed. I can get +/- .1 grain accuracy with my volumetric feeder when doing pistol and plinking Rifle.

GuitarmanNick said:

Agreed! Range results with this stuff was worse than with TulAmmo. I weighed every round and did the calculation three times to insure I had not made a mistake. Some of the difference may be in the bullets or the cases, but based on the stringing at the range, the charge is not at all consistent.

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Okay, now I understand. I thought the powder drops varied by 10 grains. The whole cartridge (case, bullet, primer, powder) varied by 10 grains.

Aamdskeetshooter said:

Okay, now I understand. I thought the powder drops varied by 10 grains. The whole cartridge (case, bullet, primer, powder) varied by 10 grains.

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Based on the powder pulled from the lightest load which was 5.2 grains lighter than the specified 48.5 grains normally found in this ammo, the powder may well account for the majority of weight variance.

I will report my findings next week after I get them all balanced.

IF this is ammo from the same production lot, 5.2gr ( 10% plus ) is huge . If 5.2gr variation in each direction from mean sounds more like industrial sabotage than just sloppy QC .

If different production lots , it would be plausible to have big difference between Lots .

Have you chrono'ed any of this ? If the first scenario , the ES and Std Dev would be extreme .

I do not have a chronograph so I have not speed tested it. It is supposed to be from the same spam can. I did not see the original can, but the wrappings were the same. The head stamps are identical. It is Bulgarian according to the head stamps with decent looking brass cases. Looks like it was stored properly and goes bang every time, just hits patterns instead of groups with too many that missed entirely.

Now, I admit that my eyes aren't as good as they used to be, but my shooting skills are better than most so I was perplexed and suspected the rifle had a bad bore.

I know that you may hit two rounds together on the target occasionally, but it is only a coincidence. Did some accurizing and still had problems although much less pronounced. Some would fly over the target and some would hit low. When shooting, in the past, I can remember sometimes feeling one a little more than the others or an occasional round not sounding quite as loud.

That is why I checked the ammo and found the 10 grain weight variance which would account for my results with this ammo. Based upon the spent cases in my possession and data available on the bullet weight, calculations indicate that some charges are almost almost 5 grains higher than normally found. If that ends up being the case, it explains why some rounds fly right over the target and others hit low at such a short distance.

I decided to select rounds as close in overall weight as possible for a 10 shot ladder test. The results: two 3 shot groups(two groups of 3 of the same overall weight) with slightly lighter rounds hitting lower than slightly heavier rounds, in a nearly vertical line in the center of the target @ 50 yards. Total variance in weight approximately equivalent to .46 grains of powder in this test. This test showed me that the rifle is ~3 MOA making it one I will want to shoot.

I have some TulAmmo due in next week along with the tools to work on this surplus. Now that I have the rifle shooting well, I am curious to compare it to this surplus after the charges are balanced. Likely the TulAmmo will be checked for variance, too. Maybe a good habit for me to develop when using comblock ammo. Since I can no longer hunt, my shooting will likely never exceed 200 yards with this rifle so I am not looking for match accuracy. I would just like to be reasonably sure that the POI will be where anticipated when I shoot.

Hello,

You need to weigh the bullets, too -- they vary in weight a lot. When I found myself with a bunch of pulled bullets, I grabbed a cheap digital scale and some containers, and started sorting them.

With decent ammo and a bore that's not too bad, you should be able to get at least 2.5moa from a Mosin. I personally find 1.5moa or better is generally the norm.

Regards,
Josh