Milsurp ammo in Victoria?

Hi all,

As many of you have no doubt worked out by now, I’m a massive history nerd. As such, I’d like to get milsurp ammo for each gun I’ve got. I’ve seen original Swedish Mauser ammo at gun shows but not 7.62x54R for the Type 53.
Have the infamous spam cans ever been available around here? If so, where should I look?
I know Rebel Gun Works in QLD is an option but local would help me avoid the shipping.

Cheers.

Spam cans fairly rare now days. They come up for sale occasionally but not often. A wanted ad on the popular gun sales sites would probably yield results. Otherwise just keep an eye out on popular dealer sites and sales sites etc.
I don’t recall ever seeing one at a gun show. The ones I have seen are hardly what you would call economical.
For local retail, in the western suburbs, Centreway Firearms stocks a good supply of various Milsurp ammo.

John has mainly commercial ammo for the military calibers, for actual issue ammo, cartridge collectors clubs or pot luck are your only options. the gun sows will have string bound paper packets of 7.62 Russian from various countries, but Chinese ammo is very uncommon (read that as rare, around $15 per cartridge), Cheers.

Wow. Did not think it would cost that much! Looks like it’s probably not really worth it. I’ll keep an eye out and see what I find.

Perhaps concentrate on chasing once fired or new cases. Then reload.

PPU will sort you out for most of your Milsurp needs. Looking around $25-$30 per box of 20.
Reload for about 60c
Less if you can get cheap projectiles.
Generally projectiles are $40-$60 per 100 for jacketed stuff.
There are cheaper options but $50 per 100 is a good baseline.

Yep. Reloading is the plan for 90% of my plinking. Would just be nice to have some original ammo to go along with all the other stuff I collect like bayonets and webbing etc.

And cast your own 308 bullets. If you ignore your time about 2 cents each. Lol. Just got to source the lead.

I have to take a look through my stuff. I can certainly spare a paper wrapped bundle of something. But I’m not sure it’ll be Chinese.

Re spam can pretty rare these days and go for 600’ish which is absolutely a rip-off.

P. S. As for factory, just buy PPU and reload that brass.

Where does one source said lead? I’ve seen a heap of YouTube videos about casting but I’ve never really understood where to get it.

I’d be happy to buy some off you if you have some you’d be willing to part with. Chinese would be preferable but I’m not that fussed.

Some metal scrap dealers will sell it.

If you can get them wheel weights are very good an a 50/50 alloy with pure lead. Ask at the local tyre place. Do a deal for 6 pack. Lol

If you know a roofing plumber he can help.

Most of mine has been gathered opportunistically. (spelling) I just put the word out.

Like reloading, its another extension of the sport. You can spend heaps or very little and cast good bullets.

Fairly certain it’s not Chinese. I’ll have a look when I am home.

All good. Much appreciated.

These guys - http://www.icmetals.com.au/ Always have a lot of lead, some scrapyards only have a few KG at any time. $4/Kg last time I bought from them.

For Mosin, personally I think casting is too much of a bother. You can get cast bullets reasonably priced from HRBC. And they will be powder coated. Hornady has a bunch too, but a lot more pricey (jacketed). Casting that stuff is too time consuming and requires lubing and you may want to gas check and lube-size, etc. If you are casting something obscure, definitely. But for something so common, I think, it’s just not worth the effort.

Regardless if something is lubed, powder coated and whatever else, you will get leading (a little or a lot, depends on load and coating and few other things). And it needs to be cleaned - lots of scrubbing. LOTS. Best way is to just blow it out, by shooting a few copper jacketed bullets through the bore after shooting lead.

You probably want to slug your bore, before investing in casting gear (which you should!) and buying bullets in specific diameter. But specifically for Mosin, something like .3105 or .3111 should be fine from HRBC, just make sure to slug it first.

$3 - $4 seems to be the going price.

Hmm anyone have any old POF ammo or even empty cases.

And that’s where my interest for older guns currently finishes

As in Pakistani 303?