Bullets rusted to the cases would come under the category of BAD steel bullets.

Over the years a couple of broomhandles passed through my posession, the gentleman who was running the business where I bought them and the ammo pointedly told me NOT to shoot anything in a broomhandle but 7.63 mauser. This was when they came in from China about 15 years ago, he said he was sending about five a month to a gunsmith for repair because of the 7.62 russian. I listened, never had a problem. But I did blow a nipple through the bill of my hat and bust the mainspring on a black powder rifle cause I wasn't paying attention and double charged it. Running my mouth, put it down to help a buddy with an ignition problem, picked it back up and put in another load. <img src="graemlins/c.gif" border="0" alt="[ouch]" />

RK

RK, that reminds me of the time about 1964 or so when I went out shooting with a coworker that had bought a really nice .30 carbine. He did his own reloading and one round he fired did a 'pfffssst' sound, no powder, just primer. I said don't pull the trigger again at the same time that he pulled the trigger, luckily the top of the chamber went straight up and didn't kill one of us. Reloading can definitely be hazardous if one is not really careful. Of course firing a full load into a plugged chamber is not a good idea either.

Hey guys, how about weighing each loaded round and any of them weighing less by 1 gr (assumed an underload) or more than 1 gr (assumed an overload) from the average would be thrown away. If the offending ammo is double loaded it would be easy to detect by weight. I guess the other possiblity would be the wrong (faster) powder was used, but if that were the case would all the rounds in a box be overpressure?

Thor, you are thinking western production and manufacturing sequences. For all we know they produce the rounds by the 500,000, dump them in a hopper, then and pay old ladies and kids $1.50 a day to box them by hand. The way the Wolf .223 is packaged wrapped in brown paper and stapled has to be by hand. I'm pretty sure they aren't using the same methods we do.

RK

Guys,

I shot my S&W 3914 today that had the questionable (overpressure??) Silver Bear problem that started this thread. It worked fine digesting Walmart ammo perfectly and some other misc. rounds. I guess there was no permanent damage--I am happy about that.

I then shot up the last of my .45 LC ammo--I'm getting ready to migrate south in a few weeks. Good group, very satisfying.

Then I shot my 1936 Mauser Luger--wow. The sights are tiny and the trigger is heavy and gritty (compared to my good 1911s), but manageable after some tweaking based on a trigger article Hugh E-mailed me awhile back. The first 5 shot group (see the figure if John S. can figure how to post it) measured 1.5 inches, perfectly centered. Love that Walmart ammo. Eat your heart out Thor.


http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/EggersTarget01.jpg
(photo added to this post on 08-16-2002 - JS)

You bet Lugers are accurate if you can align the sights and squeeze the trigger carefully.

If the Russian ammo has a high number of defectives, weighing may or may not detect them. The first blowout we heard of sounded like it might be defective brass rather than overpressure.

Target photo added to Al Egger's (AGE) post on luger accuracy at his request. See above.

Good Shooting AL!!! Nice target!