Interesting Mixture of Head Stamps in 7.62x54r Can.

[HexEx]

Greetings everyone,

I recently bought several cans of what I thought was 80s Hungarian light ball surplus. However, once I opened the can, I noticed that all the packs were wax paper wrapped late 1940s and early 1950s ammo with a mixture of head stamps. There were 5 different country codes in one pack! I can't figure out why there would be such a mixture in an 80s dated can. Any ideas? Also, can someone help ID the country code "23"? I've looked at several reference sites and can not find it. Other country codes I found were 17, 21, 22, 25 and 60. Dates range from 1948 to 1954. Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Here is a pic of the can:

[millman]

I've never heard of such. Sounds like someone monkeyed with the can.

[WeldonHunter]

I just did a Google search and came up with a few other threads about the same thing. Seems you aren't the only one to see this. http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread. ... n-7-62x54R
http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/show ... p?t=720832

Why they did this would be speculation on my part but I would guess they did some house cleaning and boxed up whatever they had on hand when they did. 17 is Podolsk, 21 is either Polish (Copper Washed) or Hungarian (Grey colored laquer coated), 22 Is Hungarian or even Romanian, 23 and 25 could be Russian and 60 is Lugansk. Keep in mind you might be misreading them. Sometimes the headstamps are really hard to make out and a 22 might look like a 23. Just a thought. Also there's overlap for some numbers between countries so even if the same number might be ammo from different countries how it's made and the year helps to narrow it down. This si where I looked to check this. http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinAmmoIDII.htm here's another headstamp resource. http://cartridgecollectors.org/?page=headstampcodes and http://www.mosinnagant.net/i3tro4.asp

[HexEx]

Thanks for the info! I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who thought it was unusual enough to post on a group, lol.

[Junk Yard Dog]

This is how the commies do things. You have a big pile of loose ammo left over from various arms shipments sent from all over the place, and you have production quotas to meet. You take the old ammo and stuff it into the new cans, the commissar isn't going to look inside them .

[Pip6214]

The bought several of the 15rd round boxes of Yugo 54r (thought it was 7.62x39 m67). It threw me for a loop seeing multiple head stamps with various years of manufacture. Not sure if its resourcefulness, laziness or penny pinching...probably all three.

[bunkysdad]

All they planned to do with it is arm the troops so they could shoot bad guys. I guess the pertinents were not that important.

[Judi and her Mosins]

Sounds and looks likea nice surprise, enjoy. Judi and her Mosin's

[john_the_plinker]

Sounds a lot like the Yugo M908 repacked stuff from several years ago with all the mixed headstamps, except the Yugo was in 15 round boxes just like their M30 ammo. Interesting too that this was in a galvanized square can, most all I've ever seen from the 80s was in the round corner spam cans.
Are the bullets and primers the same in all the rounds? If so, I would wonder if maybe these are reused cases from ammo that had been broken down for some reason then reloaded.