Thread: reliability of surplus WW2 era 303 ammo

I have used old PMP south african stuff just fine, sadly they were berdan primed.

HXP gets shot if it passes the shake test and doesn't look outrageous. I occasionally get a case split but nothing as pictured.

I have shot ww2 canadian stuff just fine.

however none of these were visibly corroded.

if you have had failures like these then i would buy once fired HXP off TM. and use the projectiles. if you crush the case you get 5 bucks a kg at the scrap dealers

Originally Posted by grandpamac

One thing with WW2 ammo is that the primers are corrosive and the barrel needs to be cleaned with boiling water the day that the rifle is fired. Every generation seems to need to learn this the hard way. I won't use it.

Ive heard a ton from both sides of the argument, spoke to a few who still only shoot old surplus ammo thats berdan primed.
From what im hearing, its perfectly OK to simply pour boiling water down the barrel, dry and oil afterwards, apparently this is what the army would do, albeit less likely in a combat situation.
I do this straight after using the rifle the same day as recommended, i go further and use brake cleaner, bore cleaning solvent with a few patches, then again with the oil.

I guess thats all these rifles ever used back in their day, and this thing is over 100 years old with a really good barrel, needless to say, that with its age and the likely use of this ammo over the years and still giving 1 inch groupings, it demonstrates to me that if looked after, the barrel will be fine.
OTOH, i hear alot of people get real scientific about it and talk about micro cracks where the corrosive salts can get into causing more damage, so I dont know who to trust 100%, but what I do know is that a couple of my mates are experienced enough, one being from a military background having served in the army, and both are serious collectors of these rifles and still use the corrosive ammo.
I get the feeling that the cordite is probably more damaging, given that it burns hotter.

Anyway, I will check the barrel regularly and clean well after use, i do tend however to prefer using the boxer primed ammo with nitrocellulose powder for obvious reasons, but thought I may as well give this stuff a go given that ive got a good amount, but definitely want to do some reloads regardless.

I should point out that not all WW2 ammo is corrosive, and some of the Canadian stuff is non corrosive boxer primed and has nitrocelluose powder.
I will keep my eye out for more of this going forward and will be more selective with the cheap CAC stuff, but will buy it for reloads instead.

Originally Posted by Russian 22.

I have used old PMP south african stuff just fine, sadly they were berdan primed.

HXP gets shot if it passes the shake test and doesn't look outrageous. I occasionally get a case split but nothing as pictured.

I have shot ww2 canadian stuff just fine.

however none of these were visibly corroded.

if you have had failures like these then i would buy once fired HXP off TM. and use the projectiles. if you crush the case you get 5 bucks a kg at the scrap dealers

Ive had one HXP not fire, i pulled the head and the bottom half of the powder had gotten wet.
Had the odd case split from the neck down and never bothered keeping any of the brass, since this looked like it was fairly oxidized and appeared to have been put through a tumbler and yet still look greenish, i took the brass into gun city and they said it wasnt even worth anything, but i should take to the scrap metal next time, i dont know how good this greek brass is to reload in this condition.
I should grab a photo of the rest of my ammo that ive got and see what you think, personally i feel that its safe enough, i just never realized the extent of this corrosion of this stuff i got and deliberately was trying to pick off the crappy stuff ive got first, but now I will put anything like this aside and pull the heads off.

I think it would be a good idea to post a pic of the ammo before you fire it.

I bet it looks pretty grotty , and would be best dumped down a disused well , or burnt in a big bonfire......

Old mate who was a teenager in Denmark during ww2 , after the war he had 44gl drums full of 8x57 ammo and plenty of rifles to shoot with it , thing was it was
machine gun ammo and wore out the barrels very fast , not a problem just grab another one off the pile .

Originally Posted by fawkes

I think it would be a good idea to post a pic of the ammo before you fire it.

I bet it looks pretty grotty , and would be best dumped down a disused well , or burnt in a big bonfire......

Here is some photos, just been going through it this evening, generally the majority of it is OK with the odd onen with a little corrosion and one or two that appear to be sweating with a little patch of green near the primer.
It's probably best to keep it all in a sealed ammo box with a moisture absorber.




These should be mint


This was the condition of the ones I shot, only 4 failed in about 25 rounds and roughly half hangfired.



Most in here look ok but the odd corroded one present.

These look fairly ok, but not sure if I should shoot the nickel jacketed bullets was told they are harder on the barrel compared to copper.

I got a bit distracted and took another look at the rifle to check the barrel, don't see any rust, but thought I would go over with some hoppes no9, I can never get this thing clean, I thought I had the patches coming clean the other night, but this time they are coming out green after another scrub with the brush, it must be fouled with copper, but I guess any buildup will somewhat protect the barrel from any corrosive salts.
This was none of my doing, the barrel was like this when I got it, I almost give up trying to clean it, lost count on how many patches I've put through it, far more than the amount of ammo I've ever shot lol.

If your only pulling a few, and ok with a few scratches you can pull them with these if you have a press.


https://www.bunnings.com.au/supatool...inals_p6010367

Originally Posted by Oldbloke

If your only pulling a few, and ok with a few scratches you can pull them with these if you have a press.


https://www.bunnings.com.au/supatool...inals_p6010367

Ive got one of those, so should give it a go.
What do I do with these nickel jacketed rounds, are these OK to shoot or should i only keep copper jacket?

https://youtu.be/uwW_QKucY-c?feature=shared

That looks simple enough.
Just gone through 40 rounds of HXP this morning trying to sight my rifle in, so have a bit of brass available for reloads.
Now all I need is the correct set of RCBS dies and a powder measure.

Performance wise, I feel this HXP is fairly well on par with the CAC as far as accuracy goes, but I'm questioning whether my scope is going out with each shot.
Our club is having a shoot this weekend so will see how it goes with the HXP for now.