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BAD AMMO????

5K views 53 replies 15 participants last post by  soundguy 
#1 ·
I took my new Ruger Mini 30 to the range and suffered about 30% misfires. All but one fired on the second or third pass through the gun. All had good hard hits by the firing pin and the bolt was fully closed and locked. 40 shots on the target at 50 yd covered an 8 inch circle. The gun was being shot with a 9X scope! There is a possibility it is the gun’s barrel but I think it is the ammo. I put a fresh crown on the new barrel and it is pristine.

The ammo was 7.62 x 39 Wolf 112 gr FMJ 20 steel cased cartridges to the paper box that I purchased maybe 5 or more years ago. I am convinced it is not the gun but bad ammo. I intended to shoot up this stuff I had and then start load development for my own reloads. In fact, I am totally set up and only need to pull the handle of the press to start.

Now, the question is what to do with the remaining 240 rounds of the ammo?

Do I try to sell it and risk an angry buyer when he finds it has a problem?

Do I give it away? But I do not want to ship it anywhere…It would have to be local.

I have no interest in tearing it down as none of the components have any value to me.

How do I dispose of it without risk to anyone? I certainly can’t dump it into the trash or into the campfire.

Anyone got any ideas on proper disposal?

LDBennett
 
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#2 ·
Take it to your local LEO office. If they ask, just tell them that it's bad ammo, and you have no use for it.
 
#5 ·
It's up to you. Sell it as long as the buyer is aware of the potential problem you're good to go. If you're uncomfortable with that then take it to the closest police station to the address on your drivers license. I dropped off some old corroded ammo once. Thought I could go anywhere but was asked to take it to a station in the city listed on my license. I did and it was absolutely no big deal.
One last thought. If you know someone with a rifle that will shoot the same ammo try running it through their gun. You may find out the ammo is just fine.
 
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#8 ·
LD - sometimes you may have a prize and not realize it. You may think right now that this ammo is worthless -and you don't want to be bothered with it. Let me ask you to consider this: you have in that ammo powder and projectiles.

Might seem like a PITA, but why not pull the powder and bullets - weigh about 10 or 20 of the charges to get an average. Pick up some new or once fired reloadable cases, process them and use those components to produce a little stash of plinker or SHTF ammo.

I've done this with some 8X57 Mauser ammo. J&G Sales in Arizona had a huge sale of 1935/1936 German ball ammo in sealed cases, so I scarfed up 6 or 7 cases. This ammo was shiny and looked great, but those old German primers were all hang-fires. I bought about 200 Winchester new cases, processed them and loaded them with the powder/bullets as above. They now shoot very accurately and perform amazingly well in my old 98K. I'll never have to buy bullets or powder for my 8X57 as long as I live.

Just a thought.
 
#10 ·
Hmm. I shoot iron sites on ruskie SKS using tula, norinco and milsurp ammo. Target is a 1` triangle. At that range and iron sights they aaren't grouped hits, just hits.. what's the bore diameter, twist ? May bee its a combo problem, and not solely ammo? Do you have anything like the tula brass max Italian ammo, PpC or winchester white box to test against?
 
#12 ·
:D:eek:
 
#11 ·
I don't normally buy commercial ammo but reload everything I shoot. This was the exception and it was to use in a SKS M59/66 ( I think that is the model number...it had a grenade launcher on it and was unissued about 7 years ago when I bought it). I just sold it. It too did not shoot this ammo very accurately.

My "gun" is a brand new Ruger Mini 30. Ruger now only makes it in the correct diameter for real 7.62 x 39 ammo ( 0.310). The Wolf ammo is 0.310 but........in taking one apart the crimp was done so hard that it is less than 0.308 in the area of the crimp. The bullets are junk, the powder is of some unknown variety, the cases are steel, and the primers are Berdan. I would bet the problem is the ammo and not the gun. It took about a hundred blows with the kinetic bullet puller to get this one cartridge apart. I certainly am not of the mind to do that again for 260 rounds! These cartridges are not jewels but turds, in my opinion. But one man's turd is another man's jewel, I suppose.

I intend to start load development with new RWS boxer primed brass, Hornady polymer tipped bullets, Winchester primers, and Hodgdon H335 powder. I expect a considerable improvement in accuracy.

Now, if anyone is local to me (Hesperia CA) PM me and I'll GIVE you the remaining 260 rounds (less the one I just pulled apart). PM me for contact details.

LDBennett
 
#13 ·
Well I wasn't going to say anything but since Soundguy brought it up.... I was considering a Mini 30 but after some research I didn't find a lot of positive things said about the rifle. Hopefully LD it's just some stinky ammo. Good Luck
 
#17 ·
soundguy:

The Wolf box only says "Made in Russia". The are two icons(??) on the box. one is a TV tube face with "PC inside and the other is "r N c" where the his actually backwards. The crimp was done so hard as to unevenly distort the bullet at the crimp. That can not be good for accuracy.

I have many semi-auto military style rifles in several calibers. The SKS shooting this Wolf ammo was not accurate at all . Was it the ammo or the gun? I'll never know as the gun is gone.

My accurate guns in this class are a varmintized AR 15, a CMP Special M1 Garand, a PTR-91 (H&K 91 clone), and a FN-FAL. The SKS was not accurate at all with the Wolf ammo. All the above guns are very accurate.

Firpo:

Through the years Ruger has provided several different barrels on the Min 30. Initially they were in 308 caliber. Many decades ago they changed to a regular 7.62 x 39 barrel in 0.310" bore diameter. More recently they have been using a heavier barrel. The barrel is massive under the hand guard and slowly tapers forward of the hand guard to about a standard hunting weight barrel. I suspect a lot of the accuracy problems were with the two older barrels. That is my hope as some recent buyers have not complained about the accuracy. But if all anyone shot was this Wolf crap ammo they might indeed say the guns were inaccurate. But my reloading load development will tell the story. More to come!

LDBennett
 
#18 ·
LD,

I'll be watching for your report. I was disappointed at the press I was reading as I was really wanting a good 7.63X39. The ammo is still cheap enough and I see it everywhere. I've always liked the Mini 14 and it just made sense. Can't say how old the information I was reading was but with the three changes made to the barrel I'm guessing there was some truth to it all. Please keep us posted.
 
#20 ·
Firpo:

And if the ammo on the market place is as bad as this Wolf ammo then NO 7.62m x 39 will shoot accurately. My reloads will tell the tale for my gun. I can not imagine any new gun shot at 50 yds with a scope on 9x and a new perfect crown (that I made!) would spread 40 shots around a target the size of a pie plate (8 inches in diameter). The shots were everywhere both vertically and horizontally. Damaged bullets would do that, I think and that is what I pulled out of one of the Wolf cartridges.

LDBennett
 
#21 ·
Just shoot it. You might just get some fun out of the experience if you arnt expecting perfecto. Sometimes, you get gratification just blasting away without expecting sterling results. I do that every time I go to the range.:)
 
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#22 ·
TheGunClinger:

Just shoot up the Wolf ammo I have?

It has about 30% failure to fire. That requires pulling the bolt open to eject the failed round and then giving it another cycle through the gun. Of the 60 I shot, about 20 failed to fire on the first pass through the gun even though there was a very prominent dent in the primer. Several took three passes through the gun and one never would fire.

Now how much fun is that at the range? Not much for me. The ammo has a problem...perhaps bad primers or primers not fully seated or ????? Why should I waste my range time fooling with balky ammo when I can reload my own that I know is reliable?

LDBennett
 
#39 ·
TheGunClinger:

Just shoot up the Wolf ammo I have?

It has about 30% failure to fire. That requires pulling the bolt open to eject the failed round and then giving it another cycle through the gun. Of the 60 I shot, about 20 failed to fire on the first pass through the gun even though there was a very prominent dent in the primer. Several took three passes through the gun and one never would fire.

Now how much fun is that at the range? Not much for me. The ammo has a problem...perhaps bad primers or primers not fully seated or ????? Why should I waste my range time fooling with balky ammo when I can reload my own that I know is reliable?

LDBennett
May not be fun but it beats the alternitive which is to toss it.
 
#23 ·
Find a collet bullet puller. Make fire starter kits with the powder. Sell them and dump the remaining parts. Preppers would go ape $hit over a fire starter kit made from gun powder. I'm thinking $6 each times 259 = some real good profit. All you need is drier lint, some wax, and small paper cups. Wax coat the cup, pour in powder, stuff lint, and then more wax
 
#24 ·
I just cleaned The Ruger Mini 30 and the new crown makes a perfect powder carbon star on the barrel muzzle. So the inaccuracy was not because of any crown problem. I also "adjusted" the trigger so that the first stage is less than 4 pounds and the second stage is an additional 2 pounds. I like that. There is some creep in the second stage but screwing with that may effect the secondary sear catching the hammer in recoil. The second stage creep is not enough to risk that.

So it is onward and upward with reloading my ammo for load development. I'll use the 123 gr bullet and H335 data from the Hodgdon Reloading Center with 0.5 gr increments from min to max.

LDBennett
 
#25 ·
I also use the Hornady 123 grain bullets, the ones I get from Midway are the SSTs. I have been using Vint N-120 powder and got great results, but that seems to be unavailable around here lately. I only have about 1/4 a can left so I bought a pound of IMR 4198 yesterday to try out.
 
#26 ·
I bought the Hornady bullets because the pricing was right. But get this...They are Zombie bullets: ZMax. I really wonder about all this Zombie stuff and why any responsible company would bother. But the price was right and they are the same as the Vmax except the polymer point is bright green instead of red. Maybe the color makes a difference?????

LDBennett
 
#27 ·
I used to find that the Z-max were a lot cheater than the V-max. I don't know if that is still the case or not since the last green tip ones I bought was about 3-4 years ago. I found the SST bullets at a reasonable price but if I found the green ones cheaper, I would jump on them!!
 
#35 ·
I got more data on the Failures to Fire (FTF) Wolf steel case ammo:

According to an article from Brownells, Wolf steel case ammo will have FTF if you do not use the extra power hammer spring from Wolff Springs. It seems the primers are extra hard and tough to set off with the original hammer spring. So maybe my 250+ rounds are not worthless after all and may work fine in any of the Russian military rifles like SKS's or AK's. When I used this same ammo in my SKS before I sold it I do not remember any FTF but just not stellar accuracy. "Minute of Deer" accuracy at 100 yards is what I remember.

Hard primers may also impact accuracy if ignition is incomplete in my gun. Maybe the accuracy problem in my gun is partially because of hard primers (??).

Selling it is really an option if the FTF in Ruger Min-30 is a known problem! 12 boxes (of 20 each) sell for about $7 each. If I could get half that (total of $40) I'd be happy but I can not ship them anywhere. They would have to be picked up in Hesperia CA.

LDBennett
 
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