looking at ammo for the mosin

[Rider1k]

thinking about a crate of surplus ammo from SG. Not sure bout the stuff from the 60's and 70's. Is it safe to shoot?

[Vlad 11]

Don't worry about it.

Even the stuff from the 40's looks factory fresh and fires great.

[ClarenceBoddicker]

Hard to have trouble with ammo in a bolt action rifle. Just make sure every round leaves the barrel before you load & fire another. You don't want to ruin the barrel by trying to shoot out a squib round. That will cause a barrel bulge or ring. Some old ammo will require a second try to ignite it. Just make sure you wait at least 30 seconds before unlocking the bolt to recock or eject & toss the unfired round. Assume all surplus ammo is corrosive, so clean the bore & bolt face properly. Check that your ammo is not steel core. IMO steel core ammo should not be wasted, as it's pretty close to armor piercing. Save it or sell it & blast the lead core stuff. You can check with a pair of wire cutters. If you can cut the bullet in half it's lead core. If you can't, it's probably steel core.

[watt79]

I like shooting the 70s surplus. I had some 1947 surplus ammo on stripper clips that gave me some issues. No problems shooting it, but they were a pain to extract. Had no problems with my Factory 188 and Factory 10 surplus from the mid 70s.

[DennisCA]

I haven't found any ammo that any of my mosin's didn't like!

[kouye]

I'm with DennisCA, I have shot through several spam cans from 40's to 70's Russian and Bulgarian, heavy ball, light ball, steel core, or lead core, and I have only had one fail to fire. No squibs, no fail to eject.

One note though, the stuff that comes in a spam can (rounded corners and requires an opener) vs. the soldered cans (square corners, lid soldered on) have been in better condition for me. The soldered cans have had minor leaks and the shell cases were dirty. Although, they all shot well. I just liked the cleaner looking rounds.

[jthesby]

Agreed, the green rounded corner spam cans are great, hell, they are truly SEALED. You could hear the air whoosh when I opened mine. I've only gone through about 100rds of the stuff, but fired great. As mentioned it is corrosive primer, so clean accordingly.

I bought mine at the Vallejo gun show a couple months back, believe it was in the neighborhood of $160 for a crate plus tax?

[Lucky Scott]

I prefer the russian surplus from the 70's. Great stuff!