7.62x54 handload question.

[capflyboy05]

You guessed it.
I'm getting a Mosin Nagant tomorrow.
Although I dont want to be paying full price for the bullets.
I will at first. But what am I looking at cost wise per round?

[TXGunNut]

Sounds like fun. Should be able to keep it between 40-50 cents a round, maybe less if you're a good shopper.

[capflyboy05]

Sweetness! Thanks, I appreciate it!

[Crankylove]

My Mosin will shoot .308, .310, .311, and .312 diameter bullets with the same accuracy (3-4" at 100 yds with irons), so I load .308 diameter to increase bullet selection, and usually there is much more in stock for .308 diameter than the others (and sometimes there is quite a difference in price as well).

Be a good idea to slug your bore to see which bullet diameter will best fit your rifle..........bore diameters can vary quite a bit in the Mosin's.

[Fullthrottle]

You will likely be paying more to reload 7.62x54r than you can get good surplus ammo! That said, I too reload some 7.62x54r just to gain some accuracy!
It is not feasable to reload this ammo for cost savings, however, you can gain a more accurate bullet if you work at it.

I suggest you slug the barrel to find out what your rifle likes as far as projectile. That will help in your search for a proper bullet. Not all Mosin Nagant barrels are the same diameter.

[troy_mclure]

you can get a spam can(440 rounds) for $100. $.22 each. cant reload much cheaper than that.

[climber008]

I reload this caliber for accuracy. My bore slugged around .313-.314 so I use hornady interlock 150 grain SP bullets that are .312 in diameter. I found that they produced much better accuracy without the "flyers" I was getting from some of the cheap ammo. I will be using this load for hunting this year.

[cornbush]

I have a 7.7 jap that will shoot .308, .310, .311, .312 with very little accuracy difference.
Usually its around 1.5 to 2 inches at 100 yards shooting irons.
As Crankylove has said his Mosin will do the same, try a few different bullets and you may be pleasantly surprised.
My only issue is I have to shoot longer bullets to get them to feed right, shouldn't be an issue out your russky though.

[chris in va]

Good luck finding reloadable brass for 54R. You're better off getting spam can surplus.

[Crankylove]

Good luck finding reloadable brass for 54R.

http://www.midwayusa.com/browse/Brow...*670***9013***

Its even Norma.........very nice if ya can stand the price.

The 7.62x 54R brass I reload came from a local GS, who usually has a couple bags of primed Winchester brass (made by PPU). It is about the same price as the .270 Win, or .30-06'. It is a little more scarce than some cartridges, but by no means impossible to come by.

There are also a several brands of loaded ammo that is fine for reloading (just watch for the berdan primed stuff some brands who usually do boxer will sell every once in a while).

[Dr. Pepper]

Winchester brass (made by PPU)

I keep hearing this, but all of the Winchester brass that I have is quite different than PPU brass. My Winchester brass has shallow and extremely tight primer pockets, so tight that I have a hard time priming. PPU brass on the other hand, has deep primer pockets and the primers seat with normal effort.

The Winchester brass was bought all at once (as loaded ammo), while the PPU was bought over a period of time. Maybe a bad lot of Winchester?

Oh, yeah, I shoot cast bullets out of my 91/30. The accuracy is the same as jacketed bullets and it's a lot easier on the shoulder.

[FrankenMauser]

The Winchester brass was bought all at once (as loaded ammo), while the PPU was bought over a period of time. Maybe a bad lot of Winchester?

That could be.

The brass that Crankylove and I use is from the same lot of "Winchester" stamped PPU brass. We also have a couple hundred pieces of "Winchester" stamped S&B brass. The S&B stuff has tighter primer pockets. Perhaps that may be what you ended up with... I've had bad experiences with S&B brass in the past (off-center flash holes, poor consistency, tight primer pockets), so that could explain things.

From what I've been able to determine, Winchester has never drawn their own brass for 7.62x54R. Everything is drawn by foreign manufacturers, but stamped for Winchester.

[warningshot]

Can't recall where I heard this: Circulating, (esp. comblock stuff), 7.62X54R ammo has as many as 4 different primer pocket sizes! You heard this from your man at the gun show so you know it's correct, right?

You would think NORMA would give you a straight answer on USA LR primers fit with their brass.

I came across some yugo 1970s brass cased 7.62x54R cartridges, I was thinking about pulling the bullet & dumping the powder, neck re-size and going to town with a better bullet. I will have to watch my lot identifications and keep a close eye on a positive ignitions record before I do any dismanteling. After all, it is a lot of work for me to open up a spam can of Russkie ammo and go blasting with the MNs for a day or two.

[Maxem0815]

If you are going to shoot the spam can ammo, which is good accurate stuff, clean your gun with a patch of hot soapy water then use nitro solvent. The corrosive salts will not be dissolved in any thing but a water based solvent. I shoot nothing but the surplus stuff. I reload only for my Dragunov Tiger I use for hunting and dam good accuracy.
Best price is PPU ammo and its reloadable.
Mace

Happiness is a belt fed weapon and lots of ammo

[sc928porsche]

Once you get your rifle, you will want to "slug" your barrel to find out what size bullet you should use. Most of them do well with .311 or .312 diameter bullets.

[Clark]

I use Lapua 7.62x53R brass, that is at $140/100 right now.

That is not cheap.

[kraigwy]

You can buy Winchester loaded rounds for about 10 bucks per 20 round box cheaper then Normal brass only.

It's good re-loadable brass. If you don't load hot, and use the brass in one gun, it will last a long time.

I don't like the surplus stuff, For cheap practice I use cast bullets.

I shoot (and practice for) in CMP Vintage Military Rifle Games, you only shoot 100 or 200 yards, You don't need a lot of velocity to get to 200 yards, mild loads are easy on the gun, you, and the pocket book.

[Fullthrottle]

"You can buy Winchester loaded rounds for about 10 bucks per 20 round box cheaper then Normal brass only.

It's good re-loadable brass. If you don't load hot, and use the brass in one gun, it will last a long time."

This is how I obtained my brass for 7.62x54r, it works fine. I have some loaded 5 times now. I do not load to max so that may be why. I have no reason to load to max.

[Rangefinder]

you can get a spam can(440 rounds) for $100. $.22 each. cant reload much cheaper than that.

You can if you cast...

Lead alloy---$0 (for me--I have over 2K pounds)
gas check---$0.03 (soon to be less with my check maker die)
Powder (plinker is 10gr Red Dot)---$0.03
Primer---$0.02

That comes out to about $0.08 per shot on my target loads. $0.12 on my more serious loads with a different powder and higher charge. Plus, I don't fuss with trying to stock up on .311 bullets when the local stores don't carry them when I can cast all the bullets I could ever want to shoot for the price of a little propane and a quiet afternooon--even though I have about 800 FMJ's waiting for their turn down the pipe from a bulk buy. I think I paid a total of $40 for the thousand--so I'm up to $0.16 a shot for top quality reloads--considerably better than the junk-surp corrosive crap you'll get from a spam can.

Just my 2-cents.

[FrankenMauser]

You can buy Winchester loaded rounds for about 10 bucks per 20 round box cheaper then Normal brass only.

Current Winchester 7.62x54R is using S&B brass. It's lower quality than the older PPU production (in my opinion).

[keebo52]

Can't recall where I heard this: Circulating, (esp. comblock stuff), 7.62X54R ammo has as many as 4 different primer pocket sizes! You heard this from your man at the gun show so you know it's correct, right?

The primer pocket variations are in berdan primed "brass". All the boxer primed (reloadable) 7.62x54R brass I've seen uses standard large rifle primers.

[Ivan]

Where can you get .310 bullets in about the 160-180 grain range?

- Ivan.

[Fullthrottle]

This was my first search http://www.midwayusa.com/browse/Brow...9785***9016***
I have purchased bullets from here many times! There are other options too!

[Osage]

Hate to bring up an old thread but I was searching doing a search on reloading for the MN and came across this.

Hope someone can help me with this.
I have two mosins and have had decent accuracy with them using russian milsurp and good accuracy with factory PRVI. I bought the PRVI to start reloading. I slugged the bores of both and came out at .311 on both of them. I bought some 303 caliber speer 150 gr bullets and loaded 5 each at 47, 47.5, 48, 48.5 and 49. Both hodgdon and the Lee manual have the min load at 47 and the max at 50.5 for varget. the 47.5 load was bad and it got worse from there. the poi got lower with each 1/2 grain increase until I was hitting a foot low at 50 yards with 49 grain. I was left scratching my head looking at what had been accurate rifles. Not to waste the day, my son and I began shooting water filled milk jugs at 200 yards with the PRVI ammo I had left. Still though, the guns were shooting low which they had not done before. It was about 98 degrees. Could the temp have that much an impact?

Anyway, I'm thinking of trying 308 bullets and maybe using lighter loads but that would be below the recommended starting point. Something was just off.

[Clark]

I have a lot of Mosin Nagants taken apart and getting worked on right now, and lot of Mosin Nagants on the rack ready do go.

There are lots of guy talking about collecting Mosin Nagants, but most guys want to shoot the rifles.

Shooting surplus ammo does not always result in sewer pipe bores, like robbing banks does not always result in getting caught.

Mosin Nagants are not easy to rebarrel, not easy like a Mauser.

So when the bore gets rotten, that rifle is not worth much.
That is how I get so many for $35.

I just put a VZ59 machine gun barrel in a 1937 Izhevsk receiver I got for $5.

Why so cheap?
It had a rotten barrel attached, and took 600 foot pounds of toque, Kroil, and a 20 pound hammer to get it off.

When I test fire that rifle next week, when the wind dies down, it will be with IMR4895 powder, Lapua brass, and Sierra bullets.