RIP 7.62x54mmR

[Model12Win]

I never thought I'd see the day.

Not in my life time at least. They said it would never happen. They said 7.62x54mmR ammunition would always be cheaper than .308 Winchester.

It seems now though, that those day are over.

HERE is a link to ammoseek.com showing the least expensive options for sale of 7.62x54mmR ammunition available on the internet. HERE is a link to the same but for .308 Winchester.

Not counting the cheap plastic German training ammo in .308, you will see that the cheapest .308 FMJ ammo (Tulammo) is now notably cheaper than the cheapest 7.62x54mmR option which is made by Wolf. That's right, as of this writing, you would be hard pressed to find ANY 7.62x54mmR surplus ammunition for sale anywhere on the internet not counting the auction sites.

Time are a changing boys and girls. :uhoh:

Now you may wonder why this is, and how it can be happening. I have been monitoring the steady rise in price and drop in availability of x54R ammo for a few months now. After noting the trend, I decided to personally contact some of the largest surplus ammo importers regarding this. One importer told me that the current conflict in the Ukraine was the cause. They simply aren't exporting it, and supposedly, have no more plans to export it.

Ever.

So there you have it. .308 Winchester is now less expensive than 7.62x54mmR. I and probably many of you bough Mosin Nagant and other more modern rifles chambered in this round due to the cheap ammunition. Well, I hope you stocked up because it isn't cheap anymore... at least not compared to .308.

I just thought I should bring some attention to this. I believe the rather gradual nature of this situation has been missed by many. Thanks guys... it was fun while it lasted.

Goodbye 7.62x54mmR.

[brasscollector]

I can't tell if it's berdan or boxer but you can find brass cased 308 for less than the steel cased 54R

[steveNChunter]

I've noticed it too, and today I made one of the last decent deals on a mosin w/ammo that I'll get a chance at.

I got a nice 1938 Tula 91/30 (Rguns refurb) with all the standard accessories, 440 round spam can, a box of Prvi brass ammo, and a Plano rifle case all for $240.

I think I did pretty well considering the times.

You never know, we may see it get better than it is now but I'm afraid the glory days of 7.62x54R are indeed long gone

[James K]

That cheap surplus 7.62x54R ammo was not going to be around forever was a foregone conclusion years ago. It has lasted this long only because there was so darned much of it made in so many countries. But no one in his right mind is going to adopt it for an army today, or manufacture a sporting rifle for it. One of the old design rounds based on a large caliber black powder round necked down (like the 8mm Lebel), it never was a very good round for rifles, let alone for automatic weapons. It served for so long because the perennially bankrupt Russian state simply could not afford to replace all its infantry weapons with something more modern, even had not the continuing war threats precluded it doing so. (The British faced the same problem with the .303 and had a world wide empire to boot.)

Sure, American and some foreign makers will turn out the cartridge for many years to come, but it will be in the same cost category as .308, .30-'06 and .303 British. In other words, expensive.

Jim

[highpower3006]

It really isn't the end of the world. I have started reloading it for my PSL and I can get a far more precision round than the cheap surplus stuff that was flooding the market. I figure it is costing me about 35 cents a round, which is about what I can load .308 for.

[kcub]

I still prefer 8mm to the whole lot including 30-06 for terminal performance.

[FrankenMauser]

If you live your life chasing the latest, greatest "surplus" cartridge for cheap blasting, you'll always be transitioning into something new.

It can't last forever.
Even if that concept was hard to understand, there are many historical examples to look at. .45-70, .30-03, .30-06, 7.62x39mm, 8x57mm, .30 Luger, and 8x51R Lebel immediately come to mind...



I have a way around the "end" though...
I have never fired surplus or cheap import ammo in my Mosin. It has seen a small number of decent factory loads (less than 20 rounds), but everything else has been handloaded.
...Because I'm not a believer in 'blasting' or trying to get low grade import ammo to shoot well.
I bought the rifle because I liked the cartridge. I didn't buy it under some delusional idea of being able to shoot for pennies, forever; or thinking I could buy the cheapest ammo on the market and use it to become an instant force to be reckoned with in competition.


It's really pretty predictable.
Surplus ammo runs out quickly. Then you get fairly decent new manufacture commercial import ammo. Then quality starts to slide, and the 'decent' import ammo turns to crap ammo. Over time, a few higher quality alternatives hit the market, but they're far from cheap. And then, eventually, something happens in the country of manufacture (or in congress), and even the crappy import ammo dries up.
It's the cycle of surplus. We've seen it dozens of times.

[stubbicatt]

I dunno. I enjoyed the 7 cents a round ammo while it was available. Some of it was quite respectable. Earlier in 2015 I sold my milsurps and started buying old Winchesters. It has been a happy choice. $250 SVT 40 and $60 Mosin Nagants sold quickly and for quite a bit more than I paid for them.

[emcon5]

Get it quick:

870rd crate $289.50: http://www.sgammo.com/product/surplu...s-case-non-mag

330rd pack $114.95: http://www.sgammo.com/product/surplu...-non-magnetic-

Yugo heavy ball is one of the best surplus 7.62X54 there is.

On edit: Never mind, sold out.

[A pause for the COZ]

Happy to report that I am not affected in any way by availability or price of any ammo.
I shoot what I want when I want.

[tobnpr]

I know this is what the common wisdom is, even according to the importers that are in the know.

But, I can't help but wonder (and hope) that at least part of this is political, as well as due to the current situation in Ukraine.

I'll posit that, popular though this round has become- largely in just the last couple of years, the number of rounds used by us for "pleasure" here in the U.S. likely pales to that being used in the Middle East and Africa in conflicts.
Still plenty of PKM's, PK's and their ilk- not to mention the Mosin burning though tens of thousands of rounds every day over there.

It's a round still being produced by Novo, it's not a "defunct" round by any means- and I can hope that there's still armories in Ukraine and other regions currently "inaccessible" that will provide additional supply.

And while the "cheap" cheap is in short supply, there is still 182 grain Match ammo available at .$50 round. Brass case, Berdan primed. Good stuff- and who can gripe about that price for any battle-rifle size caliber?

[FrankenMauser]

And while the "cheap" cheap is in short supply, there is still 182 grain Match ammo available at .$50 round. Brass case, Berdan primed. Good stuff- and who can gripe about that price for any battle-rifle size caliber?

I guess, if you only care about punching paper, that'll work.

I prefer loads that can actually put meat on the table.
Hornady 174 RN, Lapua brass, WLR primer, AA4350: $0.43 / round at current prices. ($0.37 actual cost.)

When I shove 122 gr revolver bullets in there (fits the paper-punching requirement), instead of commercial jacketed bullets, you can drop that to $0.20 / round. (Using a heavier cast bullet, actually intended for rifle use, would only add 1.7 cents per round over the revolver bullet.)

[James K]

Any third world country or terrorist group still using M-N rifles has to be pretty far down the food chain. The AK-47 and its clones has been the weapon of choice just about everywhere except NATO and U.S. allies for some 60 years.

And the era of cheap surplus is about over, too. Modern military weaponry is selective fire and (barring an unlikely change to U.S. law) cannot be imported even if it were made surplus.

Another factor is that the day of massive numbers of weapons to supply huge armies is gone and not likely to come back unless we have World War III; even then, there will probably not be the masses of troops, mostly draftees, that we saw charging across plains or wading ashore from landing craft in WWI and WWII. Technology in war, as in other fields, has made manpower almost obsolete. WWIII might well be over before Wolf Blitzer even gets a chance to tell us it is on.

Jim

[Erno86]

I've seen recent videos of Iraqi Kurd militias using Romanian PSL's in 7.62x54R, against the Daesh --- So I figure that kind of ammo is still being used up frequently over there and in high demand.

[emcon5]

These are still in production and use:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PK_machine_gun

[Gunplummer]

Tobnpr may have something there. I can remember back when I bought soft point brass boxer primed ammo made in Yugoslavia. This was before the big influx of soft point Russian/ Chinese ammo. One day I could not get it anymore, so I called the distributor. He said that they were too busy killing each other with it to export any surplus.
Anyway, it should make for interesting times for guys that re-barrel them to something else.

[barnbwt]

GP11 will be cheaper than 308 in about six months, just like it was in 2013...

[kilimanjaro]

The Ukraine issue couldn't put a dent in the hundreds of billions of rounds of 7.62x54 that were produced by the ComBloc. The round was superseded in the Warsaw Pact decades ago. Imports are on hold from Russia, the Ukraine would be stupid to export munitions right now, and the rest of the ComBloc factories were converted to making lipstick canisters or something else the people want.

Once again, the great American gun market has spoken.

Remember surplus .303 British, the Hertenburger .308, Greek M2 ball, Romanian 8mm, South African 5.56, and all those other milsurp cartridges that were imported by the shipload?

If you don't reload, it's time to think about it.

[sfwusc]

Www.gunbot.net

Still has ton of cheap ammo. PSA has cans for like 120 in the store. I live like 10 mins from the main store.

[johnwilliamson062]

GP11 will be cheaper than 308 in about six months

I'm getting my piggy bank out to empty change and ones into every night in anticipation!

[bricz75]

The Ukraine issue couldn't put a dent in the hundreds of billions of rounds of 7.62x54 that were produced by the ComBloc. The round was superseded in the Warsaw Pact decades ago. Imports are on hold from Russia, the Ukraine would be stupid to export munitions right now

Our guv halted ammo imports from Russia?

[44 AMP]

They said 7.62x54mmR ammunition would always be cheaper than .308 Winchester.

Whoever "they" are lied from the get go. Or perhaps they are just young and never knew what the situation was back before the fall of the Soviet Union.

There was a time when Combloc guns AND their ammo were scarce, rare collectors items, with prices to match. The VietNam bring back SKSs were virtual wall hangers, no supply of ammo existed in the free world, other than what was captured or smuggled out. Mosin Nagants were a bit better off, because there was a limited source for 7.62x54R.

It had been commercially loaded in the US before WWII, but from what I can find, Remington stopped loading it around 1950. You could get ammo from Norma, but that was about it, until the "fall of the wall" (Iron Curtain".

Norma ammo isn't (and never has been cheap). MORE expensive than US made .308 Win sporting ammo, and way more expensive than 7.62Nato surplus.

SO, basically, from the 50s to the 90s, 7.62x54R was more expensive than .308 Winchester. Now, the wheel has turned full circle.

It won't be RIP for the Russian round, but it likely is the end of it being a bargain.

[Gunplummer]

"Prices to match". Hardly. I bought my first deer rifle through the mail. It was an old long, hex receiver Russian. I was real happy I was getting rid of the 12 gage slug gun. Then I found out the only ammo (Norma) I could get cost as much a box as I paid for the gun. NOBODY collected them. Nobody wanted them. I used to see quite a few butchered examples at flea markets and auctions. There were plenty of them around, both from Korea and U.S. manufacture. People tried to make them into anything but a 7.62x54. The same with the auto pistols. The hock shops were full of them. If you don't believe that, look for some old gun parts catalogs. There is all kinds of stuff to convert and scope military guns to deer rifles, except the 7.62x54. Even the Carcano was more popular to sporterize.

[kcub]

Here's the thing.

The term "surplus ammo" is an oxymoron.

[amd6547]

Well, I guess I'll stop shooting the coffee cans full of 7.62x54r I've accumulated, and save it for my retirement fund.
As for GP11, if a bunch does come in, I'm buying.