Another run on ammo- maybe; maybe not

[montana]

I just got word that because of strained international relations Russia has suspended all exports of ammo to the U.S. See:

http://www.silverdoctors.com/breaking-am...more-39649

Is this true? I don't know. I don't have the means to confirm it or not.

However, those who have depended on a steady supply of Russian-manufactured ammunition could be disappointed. If this information is true, this development will put additional stress on the already-stressed ammo supply situation in the U.S.

[Kikn]

So this is bad for getting wolf grendel ammo??

[pinzgauer]

Let's not start a run! Wolf Gold, Monarch, etc is made by PPU, which is in Serbia. Technically should be out of Russia's control.

But right now it's not much cheaper than Hornady, so I've not been buying much.

Some of the steel cased 7.62x39 and 5.56 (Tula, etc) ammo could very well be made in Russian factories. (Barnul?)

[LRRPF52]

The Russian black market is a thing of imaginative wonder. Price go up, da?

[Dogue]

Damn, just when the Wolf Steel Cased Grendel ammo was about to come out.

[wheelguner]

Maybe I'm looking at it wrong but how does this Hurt Obama......he doesn't want us to have ANY ammo. It would piss Obama off if Putin flooded the market with ammo and doing so would put tons of dollars in his pocket. This makes more sense to me but I am not a politician.

[Dogue]

Not sure where anyone said this would hurt Obama??? It's a thread about Russia halting imports of steel cased ammo and it's impact on our current ammo stocks, and of course the 'pending' Grendel steel cased ammo.

[Variable]

Let's see.... Silverdocters.com... SDBullion.com.... "Ammo is now Lead Bullion" from SDBullion.com.... Sounds like they want to sell me their "lead bullion" Right Now! I have to hurry and buy all they have because they are privy to a secret shared with them:

"The largest wholesale gun & ammo distributors in the US have informed us in private conversation today that a massive scramble is on for all 7.62 as Russia has reportedly halted all exports to the US of Russian made ammunition."

I'm sure the "largest wholesale gun & ammo distributors in the US" called them up and swore them to secrecy.LOL!

The current fracas very well could lead to something, but their advertisement (that's thinly veiled as news) pegs my BS detector something fierce!

FWIW: Wideners and other places still have ammo. SD sounds like an outfit of panic pimps to me. My .02¢ says they are hoping for a self fulfilling prophecy. Unfortnately they may be successful.

[LRRPF52]

Yeah, look at how quickly all the 7.62x39 dried up...ku huh

http://www.gunbot.net/ammo/rifle/762x39/

Not a sign of it anywhere! Pimps of panic for sure...

[maverick5582]

I have plenty of 7.62 steel cased ammo for my Finnish and Romanian weapons. Been stocking up for the last 5 years. It is my SHTF supply. Strained relations with the Russians has been a fact-of-life for the last 65 years. The sub force says it best: 16 x 44 = Russian parking lot paved with molten glass in 15 minutes.

[LRRPF52]

I have plenty of 7.62 steel cased ammo for my Finnish and Romanian weapons. Been stocking up for the last 5 years. It is my SHTF supply. Strained relations with the Russians has been a fact-of-life for the last 65 years. The sub force says it best: 16 x 44 = Russian parking lot paved with molten glass in 15 minutes.

You shoot steel case through Finnish weapons...?

What Finnish blasters do you have? Valmet Rk76 by any chance? The Finnish Army shoots SAKO brass-cased 7.62x39 ammunition through theirs, from Finnish-designed polymer waffle magazines that they tested for years and refined until they were right. I have yet to experience a malfunction with any of the Rk62, Rk76, Rk92, and Rk95's that I have shot. They are extremely well-built, but quite boat anchorish.

The Russian submariners have some pretty funny songs about turning the US into a desert, and the radioactive consequences manifesting as our dogs mutated into kangaroos in the aftermath. In a drunken stupor, my good friend coerced me (the sober one) to get into an exchange of military cadences and songs we used to sing about each other during the Cold War.

The "radioactive kangaroo" song was in response to the "Airborne Ranger HALOing into the Kremlin, red body bags" cadence. I was a bit uncomfortable, being on their turf under such circumstances, with the drunken friend translating from English to Russian, and Russian to English, as he simulated running to the cadence, totally trashed out of his mind. Good times.

[maverick5582]

You shoot steel case through Finnish weapons...?

What Finnish blasters do you have? Valmet Rk76 by any chance? The Finnish Army shoots SAKO brass-cased 7.62x39 ammunition through theirs, from Finnish-designed polymer waffle magazines that they tested for years and refined until they were right. I have yet to experience a malfunction with any of the Rk62, Rk76, Rk92, and Rk95's that I have shot. They are extremely well-built, but quite boat anchorish.

The Russian submariners have some pretty funny songs about turning the US into a desert, and the radioactive consequences manifesting as our dogs mutated into kangaroos in the aftermath. In a drunken stupor, my good friend coerced me (the sober one) to get into an exchange of military cadences and songs we used to sing about each other during the Cold War.

The "radioactive kangaroo" song was in response to the "Airborne Ranger HALOing into the Kremlin, red body bags" cadence. I was a bit uncomfortable, being on their turf under such circumstances, with the drunken friend translating from English to Russian, and Russian to English, as he simulated running to the cadence, totally trashed out of his mind. Good times.

I only shoot steel cased 7.62x54 in the Romanian PSL. It is rough on the PP brass. The M-39 Finns are antiquated, but will shoot sub-moa @ 200 yards with 174 grain SMKs and 53.5 grains of IMR-4350. The M-39 is what I cut my teeth on, sort of a Russian 30-06.

The Ruskies have always been crazy. The have radiated more of their own sub crews that anyone else. They then put them out to pasture to die. It is amazing how much of that Russian crap we have had to clean up and there is still a mountain of it rusting in their harbors.

I have been close enough to the Ruskie subs to have taken a shot at them, but we were always "super quiet" trying to stay undetected. I cannot imagine being close enough to them to drink a beer with. Times have changed though. I have a buddy at Bragg who came back from Serbia with a Russian fur cap with the Red Star on it. He traded a Ruskie a pair of cold weather boots for it. Which just goes to show that we are all just people at heart.

[LRRPF52]

I'm somewhat familiar with the M-39 development. They had very high accuracy standards for the barrels in that era. My mom's dad fought in the Winter War and Continuation War against the Russians, and I've shot some of my friends' M-39's over the years there.

[maverick5582]

I'm somewhat familiar with the M-39 development. They had very high accuracy standards for the barrels in that era. My mom's dad fought in the Winter War and Continuation War against the Russians, and I've shot some of my friends' M-39's over the years there.

You have something to be proud of there. Your grandfather was a brave man indeed to have fought in those campaigns. I have studied those battles and the Finns inflicted many casualties on the Russians.

I have never been a big fan of the 7.62x39 weapons. The PSL turn me against any weapon made with rivets in them. Too hard to take them apart and put them back together again. Changing barrels is a major undertaking. I changed the barrel in my PSL to a heavy barrel and I will never do that again. Too much work.

Due to my fascination with the 6.5mm bullet and its capabilities is what led me to the 6.5 Grendel. I would have never owned an AR 15 if it had not been for the Grendel. Then I would have never known what fun an AR 15 is. I have never liked the 5.56" round. If my draft number in 1970 had been lower than could have turned out different as well. I had never shot an AR 15 till I built this one. Even my 6.5 x 284 has taken a back seat to the Grendel.

LRRPF52 thanks for sharing about the M-39 and your family.

[LRRPF52]

Interesting that the Grendel got you into the AR15. Yeah, I've only had issues with riveted weapons:

* M60 (hunk-o-garbage)
* AK (especially in extreme cold weather)

Rivets in guns serves one purpose: mass production with no skill.

[montana]

These were outstanding riveted firearms

: FN MAG machine gun

: Browning 1919 30 caliber machine gun

: MG 42

: M2 Browning 50 caliber machine gun

[NugginFutz]

Yeah, look at how quickly all the 7.62x39 dried up...ku huh

http://www.gunbot.net/ammo/rifle/762x39/

Not a sign of it anywhere! Pimps of panic for sure...

Classic and totally funny, LRRPF52!

[LRRPF52]

These were outstanding riveted firearms

: FN MAG machine gun

: Browning 1919 30 caliber machine gun

: MG 42

: M2 Browning 50 caliber machine gun

I have to agree with you there. They did quality riveting with those designs though, with very high-end rivet components that hold machined receiver halves together on the M1919, M2, and MAG58. The MG42 uses high quality sheet steel, quite thick, and a great recoil compensation mechanism. The rivet heads on it are very large.

The MAG58's feed tray cover is probably the best evolution of the MG42's feed tray mechanism. We somehow took good German designs and made them not work with the M60, which is a hybrid between the FG42 Paratroop Rifle and the MG42.

I know that M240's run like raped apes, having been a weapons squad leader, and comparing them to my experiences over the years with the M60. The MAG58 can really be attributed to much of the design work of John Moses Browning, especially looking at the M1918 BAR. The BAR receiver design is heavily influenced by lever gun receivers of the 1800's in the contouring, and his first gas-operated firearm was a converted lever gun with a pivoting trap that replaced the magazine tube band. It was very enlightening to see where the inspiration came from in his designs when my wife took my by surprise one Saturday up to the Browning Museum in Ogden. I highly recommend it for those who are big into firearms design history.

The SAW has a miniature MAG58 feed tray mechanism, but has welds on critical spots on the receiver. It's a piece of garbage in terms of reliability, and used an inverted AK operating mechanism.

I guess who does the riveting and who is behind the design are greater factors, but the riveted box design brings a lot of weight with it, which usually means a long-lasting self-loader. I should have exempted my experiences with the M240 and M2 from my statement really.

I have suspected that the AKM's biggest problem is the sheet steel, the holes for the rivets, and induced wear in those areas. Those were significant engineering challenges for the Russians when they went to mass-produce the AK, since the original prototypes were actually sheet steel, but they couldn't get the process right for production, so they went with a billet steel receiver on the Avtomat Kalashnikov, 7.62mm rifle, introduced in 1947.

They spent the next several years working on not only the sheet metal fabrication and heat treating, but the furniture, developing a laminate wood set for the Modernizirovanniy version of the AK. The rivet arrangement on the AK series does not give me a warm and fuzzy, and when you watch high speed camera of the AK firing, it looks like a rattle trap about to come apart. All that whip probably exacerbates the wear of the rivet holes, and excess tolerance stack, which would be expedited in extreme cold weather or high volume shooting.

The Russians don't make pretty things often, but they will work for a reasonable time period for their needs. Black market economy there has been a way of life for ages, and dollars still speak more than Euros, at least in 2008-2009 they did.

[montana]

John Browning saw the grass move when he was firing a a rifle when he decided to create an action to utilize the gas to cycle the action, and the rest as they would say was history. When you have an unlimited, expendable, conscript army who thinks its a new experience to wear shoes, an inexpensive, easy to produce and simple to use rifle makes more sense than what we in the west would consider acceptable. Design and function has to full fill the need of the nations requirements when fielding an army. The Finns and my ancestors "the Germans" had some of the most technological and advanced weapons of their time, yet were both defeated in the end by the Russians and their crude, reliable and easy to produce weapons. The MG 34 was a master piece of high level machining and skill yet the stamped and riveted MG 42 was a better general purpose machine gun because of its looser tolerances and ease of manufacture. But in the end the Russians payed a high price when confronting quality firearms and soldiers who were very skilled in their use.

[montana]

More on the ammo market


Note the caution about smokeless powder supplies here:
http://bearingarms.com/think-the-ammo-ma...ink-again/

And, about rimfire market conditions here:
http://gunssavelives.net/blog/an-open-le...d-seekers/