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Old May 25, 2014, 05:07 PM   #1
Doc Hoy
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Tokarev fun

Took out a Tokarev with some surplus ammunition.

That is a hot pistol. Consistently above 1400 FPS and very noisy. Pretty blinkin accurate though. Nice sight picture. This pistol would be easy to get used to.

It sure isn't a handloader friendly pistol. Of fifty rounds I only found three spent cases. The rest landed in a different zip code. I lay tarps around my shooting bench to catch the spent cases and they are all twelve foot tarps.

I can catch most of my .45 ACP, but that Tokarev throws the brass a long way.

I might say as well that of the three I found, two of them were split at the mouth.

All in all a fun day.
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Old May 25, 2014, 07:49 PM   #2
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They are fun pistols to shoot. I wish the cheap Romanian ammo was still around. I have 3 TT-33 types, a CZ-52 and a PPS-43C. I can go through a lot of ammo. I thought I had enough to last for many years until I purchased the PPS-43C. I had to dial back on shooting that one.

The Polish, Bulgarian and Yugo all had neck splits. I find that the brass travels somewhere between 15 and 20 feet.

TK
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Old May 26, 2014, 06:06 AM   #3
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TK

Thanks for the wink back....

I am going to put up some screen around the shooting bench to stop the stuff from going into low earth orbit.

I had reloaded some cut down .223 cases for the pistol but they did not pass the plunk test. The case works but the case and bullet does not. I think the shape of the bullet I am using is interfering. May just try seating it lower. Back to the drawing board on those.

Another problem would be that I am casting the bullets and I am afraid my hardest bullet metal isn't enough for the speeds this pistol gets.

It won't kill me if I don't shoot this pistol much. I like to experience the shooting of each of the firearms I have. But once I see how they shoot, I can hang them up an just admire them. (reluctantly).
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Old May 26, 2014, 02:43 PM   #4
James K
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If you are using cut down .223 or similar brass, make sure the case necks are trimmed/reamed to be of normal thickness for a pistol case. If they are too thick, the round won't chamber and if it does the pressure can go pretty high because the neck can't expand to release the bullet. (This issue is usually addressed in terms of rifles, particularly in regard to firing 8x57js in an unaltered 8x57j chamber, but the same is true in a pistol.)

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Old May 26, 2014, 07:43 PM   #5
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Good info James....

I reamed the cases but I have no idea that the neck thickness is right, only that it is much less than the original thickness of the .223 case.

I have some more work to do on these reloads.

Just between us girls, I probly will do the work to get them shooting right, just so I can say I did it. Then I'll hang it up and just look at it.

It is a darned impressive pistol though. Smooth action. User friendly. Pretty accurate. Fun to shoot from an emotional standpoint.
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Old May 26, 2014, 11:00 PM   #6
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aren't they an absolute blast ? definitely a MUST have for any gun enthusiast.
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Old May 27, 2014, 06:53 AM   #7
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I was at the range with someone and had one with me. We were shooting at the pistol line. I had a rifle set on a bench right next to the pistol line. At the 100 yard line, I had a piece of 5"x8" tablet paper taped up. Nobody else was there, so I stepped over and cranked off 3 rounds. ALL three were on the paper. It is definitely a hot round. A .45 would probably have been in the dirt. I had used very little holdover with the .30 caliber. I had one years back and could not get ammo for it. I used to fire 7.63 Mauser ammo in it. If you have a loose chamber, you will get away with it. Once and a while I would get one that would not lock in, but not often. The neck on the Mauser ammo is straight and the neck on the Russian is tapered, so if you have a tight chamber, it may jam a lot. Anyway, the Mauser ammo is loaded way under what the Russian ammo is.

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Old May 27, 2014, 01:26 PM   #8
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Doc Hoy said
Quote:
I reamed the cases but I have no idea that the neck thickness is right, only that it is much less than the original thickness of the .223 case.
This http://www.midwayusa.com/product/410...ProductFinding

And this http://www.midwayusa.com/product/412...vc=sugv1412883
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Old May 27, 2014, 02:41 PM   #9
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Last week Star Line brass sent me an e-mail that 7.62x25 brass was going into production soon.
I ordered 2,000 rounds of brass.
I Still have 2 full crates of ammo and one unopened tin plus a 50cal ammo can full but as much as I love to shoot my Toks that's not a lot of ammo.
5.56 brass is a premium for me as I load that round as well so I hate to cut them down to make pistol ammo.
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Old May 27, 2014, 03:29 PM   #10
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Thanks guys...

It is nice to learn that folks agree with me on the quality of this pistol.

I owe it to one of you for getting the surplus brass to me.
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Old May 28, 2014, 03:52 PM   #11
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Those are fun pistols to shoot.
My empties initially landed behind me about 20 feet; sometimes they bounced after that and who knows where they ended up.
I think that when fired a lot of the surplus ammo casings crack where the bullet is crimped.
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Old May 30, 2014, 02:12 PM   #12
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Quote:
I might say as well that of the three I found, two of them were split at the mouth.
Some of the Polish have a different type of crimp to hold the bullet, sort of like they are staked with a punch. These tend to split at the location the bullet is staked in the case.
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Old May 30, 2014, 02:13 PM   #13
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What's everyone using for reloading dies, Lee?
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Old May 30, 2014, 02:49 PM   #14
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BL....

I am using Lee.
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Old May 30, 2014, 07:47 PM   #15
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Some of the Polish have a different type of crimp to hold the bullet, sort of like they are staked with a punch. These tend to split at the location the bullet is staked in the case.
Yeah, those pin pricks were a really dumb idea. Could not have possibly helped accuracy, and this old, brittle brass loves to propagate cracks from the holes to the neck (enormous stress riser right there). It does seem to be fairly reliably though, at least in the case of my spam-can (quite foul/dirty, of course).

Every time I shoot the stuff through my CZ52, I think of the poor, oppressed shmuck who had to tie all those little strings around the 16-round packages all day.

TCB
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Old May 31, 2014, 08:14 AM   #16
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Yeah, those pin pricks were a really dumb idea. Could not have possibly helped accuracy
Actually I don't see any difference in accuracy from commercial vs the stab crimped surplus stuff. I don't find the surplus to be much dirtier than the Sellier & Bellot stuff either. I treat it all as though it's corrosive, even if the commercial stuff says it isn't.
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Old June 6, 2014, 01:24 AM   #17
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In 1996 Century would put cases of Polish Tokarev ammo on my doorstep for 7 cents a shot, the cheapest center fire ammo out there.
Until 1994 the Chinese 7.62x39mm ammo had been cheap like that, but by 96 the Tokarev was the route for cheapskates.
And the ammo stayed cheap for a long time.
I have some of the 9mm Tokarev barrels, and that is a little cheaper now during the shortage.

I have Tokarevs from 4 countries, but if you get a copy of Remling's book on Tokarevs:
1984
81 pages

Contents:
Introduction ...1
Feodor Vasilevitch Tokarev..3
Russian Tokarevs ..9
..specifications ..35
..exploded view..36
..field stripping ..37
..design comparison with M1911A1..41
..performance comparison with the M1911A1..49
..inspector's marks..51
Polish Tokarevs..57
Hungarian Tokarevs..59
Chinese Tokarevs..65
Yugoslav Tokarevs..75
Selected references..79


I have Chinese, Russian, Polish, and Romanian Tokarevs.
The book mentions Korean, Egyptian, and even 22LR Tokarevs, but Romanian does not show up in the book.
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Old June 6, 2014, 06:11 AM   #18
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Mine is Yugo

I like it.
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Old June 6, 2014, 08:47 AM   #19
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"I reamed the cases but I have no idea that the neck thickness is right, only that it is much less than the original thickness of the .223 case."

Doc, it's pretty easy to figure out if you've reamed the proper amount.

All loading manuals should give a maximum neck diameter with a bullet seated.

If you're over that, you didn't ream enough.

If you ream too much, however, you can run into issues getting enough neck tension hold the bullet.
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Old June 6, 2014, 08:50 AM   #20
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"Yeah, those pin pricks were a really dumb idea."

Actually, they're a pretty good idea.

They're effective, and believe it or not they have virtually no effect on accuracy because the are of the bullet that is affected is so tiny.

The cases cracking at the point of the crimp is something the original consumer didn't care about. They were going to be fired and not reloaded.
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Old June 6, 2014, 09:59 AM   #21
Doc Hoy
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I came up with some new ammunition

It sure is pretty.
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Old June 6, 2014, 10:28 AM   #22
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Quote:
I can catch most of my .45 ACP, but that Tokarev throws the brass a long way.
Simple solution: Hang the tarp vertically in the flight path, and they'll drop right in front of it. Put an angle in it (tied off closer to you on the ends, further away in the middle) and you may get them to drop right in a homer bucket.
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Old June 6, 2014, 10:38 AM   #23
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"they'll drop right in front of it."

Or, they will bounce off and end up whacking you in the ear and dropping down your shirt.


Ask me how I know.

I dare you.
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Old June 6, 2014, 10:47 AM   #24
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I was not suggesting he hang it 3 feet from him .....

If they are flying past the end of the 12foot tarp, 10 feet away would be good, I would think ..... I doubt they'd bounce back 10 feet from a loose tarp.
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Old June 6, 2014, 11:27 AM   #25
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"I was not suggesting he hang it 3 feet from him ....."

Now where's the fun in that?
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