The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

Here is the one of the reasons commercial shooting ranges don't want steel core ammo:

Here is where I shoot. The owner is a swell guy, lets me shoot any time I want, lets me shoot any ammo I like. This was taken from about 120 yards from the berm. The guard cat keeps an eye on the place.

Nice firing lane. Hal is cool too.

Blueliner wrote:Happily I know of one outdoor range that does not care about steel core and an private indoor range I am a member of that does not like steel core but doesn't mind non-brass cases. This morning I was exploring gun-deals (awesome btw) and noticed some Russian lead core surplus from the 40s-50s that seems to fit the bill and is very cheap to buy. Not being an ammo expert I do have a question for those that are.

How reliable should ammo that is approaching 75 years old be? My wife wants to be able to run a lot of rounds through the Mosins but I don't want her to have to put up with a lot failed rounds. Any commentary is welcome. Thanks in advance.

Yeah age of ammo isn't neccesarily a factor in how it'll perfrom. Most of my surplus is 30 to 60+ years old. Most including this ammo is sealed in tins though the newer 54R is in a better version of sealed tin. I have 12 crates of various kinds of this this ammo (40s-50s strippered, non strippered, and 174gr heavy ball) I got from SGAmmo. The main problem I've found is not failed rounds, though I had one which was mostly a missing anvil in the cartridge, but they tend to be a bit hard on extraction. I've been told by a friend that collects older ammo and fires a lot of it that this might be cured by wiping the ammo down because of either some kind of protective coating the rounds have on them or simply a build up on the rounds from so many years of storage. I haven't done this yet but it may be true. I know I've heard from a few different people who bought it that they experienced the same issue. It's not a sticky chamber issue with my rifle anyway because I fired 5 rounds of this ammo and once I experienced the hard extraction I switched to newer (1985 factory 60/Lugansk surplus) it went away. I haven't shot any of the 174gr heavy ball or the non strippered 40s-50s (same ammo as the strippered) so I don't know if they'll have the same issue.

WeldonHunter wrote:
Yeah age of ammo isn't neccesarily a factor in how it'll perfrom. Most of my surplus is 30 to 60+ years old. Most including this ammo is sealed in tins though the newer 54R is in a better version of sealed tin. I have 12 crates of various kinds of this this ammo (40s-50s strippered, non strippered, and 174gr heavy ball) I got from SGAmmo. The main problem I've found is not failed rounds, though I had one which was mostly a missing anvil in the cartridge, but they tend to be a bit hard on extraction. I've been told by a friend that collects older ammo and fires a lot of it that this might be cured by wiping the ammo down because of either some kind of protective coating the rounds have on them or simply a build up on the rounds from so many years of storage. I haven't done this yet but it may be true. I know I've heard from a few different people who bought it that they experienced the same issue. It's not a sticky chamber issue with my rifle anyway because I fired 5 rounds of this ammo and once I experienced the hard extraction I switched to newer (1985 factory 60/Lugansk surplus) it went away. I haven't shot any of the 174gr heavy ball or the non strippered 40s-50s (same ammo as the strippered) so I don't know if they'll have the same issue.

That makes sense that over the years "something" has built up them, ages gets to all of us... I'll run a few through the M44 and see how they extract before I hand some to my wife. Wipe them off if need be. She isn't built quite as sturdy as I am and has trouble with sticky bolts, nasty slide springs, etc. Had to takeover custodianship of a P64 from her for that reason. Ya'know now that i think about it, I can probably get quite a few additions to the collection through that method. But I digress.

Thanks for the opinion. I am starting to keep records on ammo and firearms so that I can give answers like that as well. Off to order some cans

i was about to ask a question about the same topic as the op cause of the ranges here not letting people use fmj type ammo thanks for all the information!