Surplus ammo and safe shooting

I received these notes from retired Army Sargeant and Armourer John F. Fortys several months after my first article about some dangerous Bulgarian surplus 7.62x25 ammunition. The discussion began about that ammo in specific, but touches on the issue of surplus ammunition use in general.

There's good food for thought here. Eat Hearty!!!

Sgt. Fortys wrote;

All east-block countries had auto weapons, and the weapons poor Bulgarians had Bolshevik cast off war material from soviet Russia, AK's from their communist mentor/masters would cost them too much in trade credits, so- better to be slightly lower in firearms capabilities than in debt to the devil !!

The Bulgarian Ministry of Defence decided to adopt the Russian PPSH series of sub- machineguns as an A-standard issue weapon, a weapon chambered in 7.62 x 25 Tokarev !

Bulgarians not being slouches in the area of simple improvements with minimal economic hardship simply improved the capabilities of the firearms ammunition. This ammo is ex- tremely "hot" and was never intended for use in any pistol, just in PPSH's. At ranges to 300 meters it was an adequete substitute for the diminutive 7,62 x 39 AK standard ammunition. (Look up bullet weights and velocities in any re-loading handbook).

Standard Tokarev ammo used in a sub-gun gives pitiful performance, ask any well dressed korean winter war veteran, many remember shaking such bullets out of their longjohns as they admired the blunt trauma injury, weals and bruises on their skin. (Cold weather, heavy padded winter clothing, and a not so impressive resulting transferred energy of the diminutive bullet accounts for this.)

In turn we have seen old C-96 Mauser pistols and now the more commonly availible CZ-52's crack, break and even dis-assemble ever since this ammo came in country mis-represented as simple pistol ammo.

Sometimes the packaging gives a clue; 72 rounds in the box for the 72 round PPSH drum magazine, 32 rounds for the "stick" magazine. Otherwise you'd better learn to read the country of origins language for your own safety.

Post 1957 Russian ammo is generally TT-33 pistol and PPSH safe, though it is best to query the ammo sales types about just what they've got on the shelf, they are well informed ! Other nations used the PPSH and continued to do so until 1999 so beware !

For total safety use only properly identified TT-33 Tokerov pistol ammo, original Czech Sellior & Bellot (S&B) ammo, or 7,63 x 25 MAUSER ammo, all good food for the 7.62 x 25 Tokarev chambered pistols on the market.

If shooting an old C-96 7,63 x 25 Mauser broomhandle pistol use only 7,63 Mauser ammo exclusively as 7.62 x 25 Tokerov will destroy this pistol from overpressure just as hot bulgarian PPSH ammo will destroy a TT-33 Tok. or a CZ-52 pistol.

Remember the old Sgt.'s words, "InterCHANGEability does not mean InterUSEability!!!!".

Take care and happy shooting.

John F Fortys; Sgt. U.S.R.A. Ret.; U.S.MI Corps; 98g2Lgm, Linguist; 76y2L, Armourer; 1979-94

P.F.N.T.-(Possibly for next time, though I hope not !) 7.62 x 51 NATO cartridges and .308 Winchester also have a variance of approximately 4000 to 8000 pounds per square inch, and nobody tells anyone about that one either, even though one cartridge will fit in the others chambered firearms with ease !!!

In a second note, John continued:

If you care to utilize my letter to get people thinking pro-actively in the safe pursuit of their hobby, with no reservation, please do so.

From my first U.S. Army assignment at the 359th ASA until my last at the 58th Army Aviation Brigade a continuous function of mine was as a company/troop level armorer and a battalion/squadron U.S. and OPFOR weapons instructor. There are a lot of us out there, and since we travel in different circles you do not see more of us commenting on such subjects which are day-in and day-out to us. Most of us have had enough of the business end of it and no longer care to engage in old work as a pastime for leisure.

As a firearms enthusiast before I entered service, I enjoined work and passion and became an armourer, then a firearms competition team member, an Opposing Forces small arms weapons qualified soldier-instructor-trainer, and finally receive my sniper schooling.

The want to be able to guide the uninitiated onto the road to being informed and educated without making an ego clash and having endless diatribe over opinion while disregarding essential factual data is the motivation of my letter/comment on the subject. My signature block on the first was to show you without fanfare my credentials, the illuminated backgrounding in the previous paragraph to put meat onto my 76Y2L Armourer designation-, I'm not here to blow my horn for some sort of narcissist/egotriptical self-serving deal, just to pass the word on what I know to be rock hard historical fact from the time when "them folks" were planning our demise, and me and a whole lot of others were sitting on the inter-europeon east-west border, corpses on vacation until the whistle blew.

Oops, sorry-not trying to get heavy on you ! Hopefully the comment from an older Military Intelligence Corps- (I know that's a contradiction in terms, trust me!!) -member will be of aid to the up and coming aficionados of the surplus arms market.

Take care and happy shooting,

John F Fortys; Sgt. U.S.R.A. ret.

Many thanks, John. Most of us in the hobby understand the concept of utmost safety in firearm handling but may not even consider the safety of the such-a-deal surplus ammuntion that we feed our prized machines. Further yet, we may not consider our own well-being when we load that first magazine of brand new nickle-a-pop ammo!

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