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Rating Combloc 7.62x54R surplus.....
There is a lot of it still around. I'm going to offer my analysis of it, by source. Feel free to add, or to disagree. I've not shot all of it, by a stretch, because there are a whole lot of producers out there.
#1. Clearly, the Russian stuff. I've not fired anything that produces a "Pumpkin Ball" fireball out of an M44 the way that stuff does. And it's reasonably accurate on top of everything else.
#2. The grey cased East German. It's perhaps even slightly more accurate than the Russian. A bit slower, though, by my Chrono work with it. It's still top-of-the-line ammo.
#3. Polish, if you can find any. I had some once. I may still have some, somewhere, but I wish I'd gotten more. Purt' Near as good as the EG.
#4. Romanian. There's still a lot of that going around, and it's not all that bad. To my experience, it's not as accurate or repeatable as the EG or Russian, but it still goes "BANG" pretty well, and will land in the area you are aiming it at. It works.
#5. Bulgarian. This stuff can go from pretty good to pretty terrible, from can to can. Their QC and their storage both are suspect. It generally shoots, but holds about two minutes of Berm on a bad day, from a bad can. Slightly iffy.
#6. Albanian. Outch. Run and hide your money if anyone is planning to sell you any of this stuff. Most of it will feed into my M44's, but only "Most", unless you like using a chunk of 2x4 on your bolt. Getting it back out is interesting. Don't buy this stuff if you can avoid it, because it's not worth it, unless you like having to sit on the back porch and cycle it all through an M44 to see if it will feed or not, so you don't have so many issues at the range. Bad.
#7. I've run onto some Egyptian and Paki 54R. I got lucky, and never bought more than a hundred rounds or so of either. Half of it went off, and that's out of the half that would actually feed into the rifles. Just don't.
#1. Clearly, the Russian stuff. I've not fired anything that produces a "Pumpkin Ball" fireball out of an M44 the way that stuff does. And it's reasonably accurate on top of everything else.
#2. The grey cased East German. It's perhaps even slightly more accurate than the Russian. A bit slower, though, by my Chrono work with it. It's still top-of-the-line ammo.
#3. Polish, if you can find any. I had some once. I may still have some, somewhere, but I wish I'd gotten more. Purt' Near as good as the EG.
#4. Romanian. There's still a lot of that going around, and it's not all that bad. To my experience, it's not as accurate or repeatable as the EG or Russian, but it still goes "BANG" pretty well, and will land in the area you are aiming it at. It works.
#5. Bulgarian. This stuff can go from pretty good to pretty terrible, from can to can. Their QC and their storage both are suspect. It generally shoots, but holds about two minutes of Berm on a bad day, from a bad can. Slightly iffy.
#6. Albanian. Outch. Run and hide your money if anyone is planning to sell you any of this stuff. Most of it will feed into my M44's, but only "Most", unless you like using a chunk of 2x4 on your bolt. Getting it back out is interesting. Don't buy this stuff if you can avoid it, because it's not worth it, unless you like having to sit on the back porch and cycle it all through an M44 to see if it will feed or not, so you don't have so many issues at the range. Bad.
#7. I've run onto some Egyptian and Paki 54R. I got lucky, and never bought more than a hundred rounds or so of either. Half of it went off, and that's out of the half that would actually feed into the rifles. Just don't.
). I'd rate it about the same as the Czech, with the added bonus that even though it's lacquered, it seems less sticky than the Czech. For whatever reason, the gray is better than the green.
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