[iagbarrb]

Hy,
I have got some very old Russian ammunition built 1945 to 1952
It comes from the red army, it has a star at the bottom, with the manufacture month and year. I was very successfully firing this ammunition, but I do not know the weight and other details of the bullets. This ammo was purchased by the Bolivian army after the war against Paraguay. It is packed in very rustic cardboard, with some Russian inscriptions. I was not able to translate it over the Internet. It might be a name. just one word, machines was INTERNET translated. Some of you might know about this ammo. Please post comments about the bullets, and about firing old ammunition.

Andreas

 

[Stephen A. Camp]

Hello. I'm not a cartridge collector so I cannot help much, but if you fired this old ammo, I'd really clean my gun as it probably has corrosive primers.

Best.

 

[abninftr]

Assume any Com-block ammo made before 1995 to be corrosive.

Give a discription of any colour coding (bullet nose and primer) on the packaging or the cartridges as well as a photo of the packaging. There might be something there I can ID.

 

[jonnyc]

I know of no Soviet 9x19 ammunition produced until maybe the 1980s or 90s. Can you please post or e-mail pictures or drawings of the box and headstamp on the base of the case? My first thought is that your ammo is Yugoslavian or Bulgarian, both using the Cyrillic alphabet on their ammo labels. Perhaps you can type that one word using similar Latin letters.

 

[oldgranpa]

There are a bunch of sites on old ammo. Just go to google and type in antique ammuntion for links to all kinds of sites. Maybe one of those can indentify it for you.

and, BTW, like Stephen says you probably have to clean your bore. I fired some old 8mm Mauser corrosive ammo in my rifle last week and what a mess. I used hot water, Windex, WD-40, CLP with the brush several times and finally got the residue out. Just plain bore cleaner won't touch it.

og

 

[lelandray]

Could this be 9x18 Makarov ammo instead of 9x19 Parabellum?

 

[iagbarrb]

Hy, I am very happy having joined this discussion group. I am learning a lot from you. In this couple of days I have learned much more than in my military service. Maybe it is Makarov 9x18, but the bullets fit like normal parabellum ammo in the cartridge. I will take pictures from the ammo and the packages, so you can take a look. By the way, I have fired about 200 times with this ammo, I have cleaned my gun, but I do not see any signs of corrosive effects. How can I recognize corrosive effects from old ammo? :

 

[jonnyc]

If you fire corrosive ammo and do not clean your bore correctly you will get rust in a very short time.
If you are using that ammo in a pistol chambered for 9x19, 9x18 Makarov will not fit. You probably do have 9x19, and it might even have been sent by the Russians, but I do not think it was made in the USSR. I am very interested to see the pictures of the box and headstamp.

 

[iagbarrb]

You will have the pictures tomorrow.

 

[Josh Smith]

If you are using that ammo in a pistol chambered for 9x19, 9x18 Makarov will not fit.

I'm sorry Sir, but it will. I made the mistake of using it in my Taurus 92 before I knew the difference and the gunshop fella gave me the wrong ammo.

Most times it wouldn't cycle the action fully, but that was before I polished the chamber. I do not know now whether it would cycle, and I'm not inclined to find out.

While it's true that there's a difference in bullet size, I believe the lead core 9x18 bullet could compress enough to fit in a .355 bore.

Again, I don't recommend this practice but it does work, and I would do it in an emergency.

Josh <><

 

[oldgranpa]

Well, just checked ammoguide.com and got this..
9mm (9x19) case diam .391", case length .754", rim .394", bullet .356"
Mak 9x18 case diam .390", case length .709", rim .390", bullet .364"

So looks like a 9x18 Mak would slip into the chamber of a std. 9mm but the larger bullet might jam against the bore in some pistols and not fit. If it does fit, I would sure hate to try and fire it. What's the muzzle velocity going to look like after that "fat" bullet gets squeezed down to size?

Stephen has done a bunch of work comparing the Mak to other pistols. Maybe he can tell us if it would work or not. I don't have a Mak anymore and gave the ammo away too, so I can't even try putting a round of 9x18 in my 9mm.

And on the cleaning issue...try this...after you thing you've "cleaned" your bore, wait a few days then run a slightly oily (CLP is good) patch patch through again. If it comes out clean you're OK, otherwise, if it comes out looking kinda greenish or brownish, that's corrosion. And you need to do the hotwater and soap job.

Let us know more.

og

 

[iagbarrb]

Here es the picture from the pakage

 

[iagbarrb]

Here is the picture of the ammo

 

[iagbarrb]

Other ammo view

 

[iagbarrb]

Here I want to show you that the bullets from 1947 do not have the Red Army star.

 

[iagbarrb]

Other view of the ammo

 

[iagbarrb]

So, here are the pictures.
Waiting for your comments. This bullets can be fired very good with my Argentinian Browning. The ones that have tried with a glock, have many failures. The gun just clicks but does not fire in about 40% of the cases. We have discussed yesterday at our shooting club, and some of the most experienced members mean this is cause my Browning has a larger firing pin than the glock, or other 9 mm. It seems to be that just the Browning fire this ammo without problems.

 

[Josh Smith]

Iagbarrb,

The ignition problems you're experiencing has to do with the military nature of the ammo: hard primers.

The red stuff is laquer to waterproof it.

METAK means

metak - bullet
metak - pellet
metak - projectile
metak - missile
metak - charge
metak - shot
metak - cartridge

ref: http://www.metak.com/

Edited to add: It looks like, from net surfing, it's Yugoslavian. http://www.gatago.com/rec/guns/9370050.html

8mm stuff: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v512/UncleWilly/Guns/

Josh <><

 

[iagbarrb]

Hy Josh,
It is very interesting that the ignition problems are in new guns and not in my brand new very old model Argentinian Browning. Do you think this has to do with the firing pin? Will most new pistols have difficulties with old ammo?

Andreas

 

[Josh Smith]

Striker fired pistols generally have problems with hard primers, from what I've heard.

I've not owned any striker fired pistols as I really don't like the way they look nor do I trust them much. If I have to defend myself I want to be able to use whatever ammo is on hand.

Josh <><