Hi guys, thanks for tuning in another video on Forgotten weapons dot com I'm Ian McCollum
And today we're gonna take a look at some ammunition that's falling over. Today we're gonna take a look at some
scientific,
I think I'm justified in using that term for what we're doing today, some scientific testing of ammunition. Specifically we have surplus
Ethiopian
7.62 NATO ammo. Now, I have this because Century International
Arms
Has imported a bunch of it and they are starting to sell it and they approached me and asked if I would do a video
On it and I thought about this and decided. Yeah, we can do something that is interesting and useful
and take advantage of the fact that they're gonna give me some free ammo to do it with so
First off I should say I, well we'll talk about the history in a moment. We're gonna break this testing up into a couple of
Categories we're gonna take a look at the packaging. Like how does this stuff actually look on the outside?
then we're gonna go do some shooting and
record muzzle velocities or bullet velocities
and then we're going to bring it back pull down some cartridges weigh the bullets and
calculate
average, average bullet weight, average velocity, and standard deviation for both to get some idea of
How good is this ammo? What can you expect from it? So,
Hopefully we'll get some, you know
If there's anything weird going on with the shooting we will get that, we'll experience that when we're doing the chronographing
And I should say we're not doing accuracy testing because there are way too many factors that go into
accuracy testing, you know
the gun contributes a whole lot of factors
If I'm gonna be doing this on a bunch of different gun, a different- different cartridges, different calibers
I would in theory need to have a bunch of really good benchrest quality guns in all sorts of weird surplus
Calibers and that's not going to happen. So instead we're gonna use the velocity and the bullet weight as stand-ins for
Mathematically repeatable numbers that we can use to compare ammunition quality. So that's why there will be no accuracy testing
In fact beyond just the gun also the shooter
There hopefully is a bunch of ammunition out there that shoot better than I can shoot so
we're not going to get into trying to actually calculate groups size
For this. That's not scientific or repeatable in this context. So
Let's go ahead and start by taking a look at the packaging
Alright, this stuff is packaged in .30 caliber ammo cans. They are conveniently labeled in English on one side
280 cartridges, ball, 7.62 NATO, Etc., Etc., Etc. Lot number 1. Ok, cool
Manufactured '77 through '85. Now,
If we flip this ammo can over we have a marking in a rather distinctive Ethiopian script. This is not Arabic
This is definitely not English or any of the Latin languages. This is
Ethiopian script and the data here translates to kind of the same thing- 280 rounds, 7.62 by 51 millimeter,
20 rounds per box, "Return this box to M.E.D." which presumably is some sort of acronym for Ethiopian logistical
Supply centers. So yeah, don't throw the ammo can away out in the field. Bring it back
Inside there we have ammunition packaged in blank
20 round cardboard boxes a little bit of tape at the top
Slice that open
There you go, there are your 20 rounds
head stamp on these we have a 2 digit date code. These look like they're mostly
'79s.The- the other cartridges I've opened and used have been '78
But of course, as the can tells us, these were made from '77 through '85
So there may be a bit more of a mixture in this packaging. And then there is a three character,
wel, code here. Those three characters basically stand for Halie Selassie I
When Century first told me they had Ethiopian
Ammunition I assumed it was, you know some sort of European manufacturer
Sold to Ethiopia and then surplused by Ethiopia. But, digging into a little bit,
it turns out, no, there actually was an ammunition factory built in Addis Ababa in the late 1940s with
Czechoslovakian technical assistance. it was named the Emperor Haile Selassie
Ammunition Factory
that's where that three-letter code on the head stamp comes from. It's-
Given a little bit of weirdness in Ethiopian script apparently, each- each character kind of stands for both a consonant and vowel sound
Anyway, you put that together. It means Halie Selassie
Ammunition Factory. By the way,
the Ethiopian military at this time was using a couple of different 7.62 caliber rifles- in particular Beretta BM59s and
M14s, so that's what they actually made this stuff for. If we take a look at the cartridges, they look good
There's nothing really- they're a little bit dull, you know, they've obviously been in storage for a while
But nothing here that would make me really suspicious
Nothing that would raise concerns to me
We have some red primer sealant in there which, in theory, should help- help them last a little bit longer
There is some evidence of a sealant inside the case neck as well
But we'll see that a little bit later on when we pulled this ammo apart
All right. Now we can go out and do some shooting, and the shooting I am doing here is with a- an Israeli
K98k Mauser rechambered to 7.62 NATO
This has a 23.6 inch barrel length
For those of you who are going to be messing with the numbers for velocities that we're going to get
And I picked this because it is bolt-action
It's a K98k, it's very safe rifle if this ammunition is like heavily overcharged
This isn't gonna blow up. If it does blow up,
It's going to do so in as safe a manner as possible and won't hurt me. So,
That's what we're going to use. Let's go see how it shoots
2,641
2,629
2,646
2,606
And a couple of those were hang fires
I noticed just a brief delay between pulling the trigger and the round going off and that's not a good thing
Let me load five more
All right, number six. A little bit of a hang fire there too. 2,663
Another little brief hang fire. 2,616
2,679
Ooh, that was a definite hang fire - 2,546
Little bit of a hang fire again - 2,637
Little bit of a hang fire
2,689
Definite hang fire - 2,651
2,630
Hang fire
2,646
Definite hang fire. 2,649
All right, so the results of our shooting are- I have some cheater notes here-
Let's see, we had an average velocity of 2,637 feet per second
We had an extreme spread of a 143 feet per second, which gave us a standard deviation of 33.29
We had- lowest end was 2,546 and the highest velocity was 2,689
So in terms of velocity, that's a fair amount of extreme spread
I'm no expert in- in really good
handloading but my understanding is, good handloading will get you in the 10 to 15
range for standard deviation of velocity and
Decently, you know, acceptably good factory ammo is 15 to 20
So this is substantially above and beyond that, and I suspect that's due to the age of the ammo
This is 50 years old. This is all head stamped 1978. So, "Eh?"
now a bigger concern to me, perhaps than the
You know the consistency of the velocity was
actually the hangfires that we got. So we got a lot of hangfires in this. Close to, if my memory serves, and you can
Back me- Check me up on the video there- between a third and half of the cartridges exhibited some
some range of hangfire
so a hang fire is when
There is a delay, more than a normal delay, between when the striker hits the primer and when the primer actually detonates
The powder charge in the cartridge. Now, when they're really bad, these can be several seconds long and can be quite dangerous
a bad hang fire, if you,
You know, if you have a hang fire, that's a couple seconds long
And as soon as it goes click you open the bolt and eject the round
You have a very real potential of that round detonating while it's flying through the air after being ejected
Because that primer is slowly sizzling away and still working on igniting the powder charge
None of these were anywhere near that bad. You know, we're looking at fractions of a second here. What we had was
You know, click-bang sort of hang fires. That's not really a safety issue, but it is a marksmanship issue
That is a good way to have problems shooting good groups
and it's not a sign of well-stored or high-quality ammunition so
That concerned me. That's overall, from what we're going to see here, that was my biggest qualm with this ammunition
So let's go ahead now and we'll take a look at the components and what our bullet weights were
Pulling the bullets what we see here is we have a boat tail
Open base bullet. This is lead core. It's a a steel and gilding metal
jacket, so this does drag a magnet if you have ranges that are concerned about that. The scratches there, by the way, are from
Me using a pair of pliers to pull them out because I couldn't find my kinetic bullet puller. Anyway,
so ignore that. When it comes to
numbers I pulled ten of these and weighed them all out on a nice little
calibrated electronic scale
We have an average weight of 143.4 grains
with an extreme spread of 1.7
So our lightest bullet was 142.7
our heaviest bullet was 144.4 and the standard deviation came out to
0.52 and that is really pretty darn good
That's- that's a well-made bullet. Now, I don't have any way to
Assess the quality of the manufacture inside- whether there are any voids or how consistent the thickness of the jacket is. I-
That I just don't have a way to- to scientifically determine, so we'll have to go with just weight
For the purposes of this video. Lastly, you can see some of that black marks there. That's
What used to be some sealant between the bullet and the case mouth
The powder used in this is a stick type powder. So I've got a picture there. You can take a look at
Alright, so there's your overview of Ethiopian
1970s production 7.62 NATO as currently being sold by Century
Because century is a huge import company
I'm sure they will have a whole bunch of intermediate wholesalers and retailers. So you may find this all over the market
I don't know how long it will take to really get out there
And I don't know how much of it Century has actually brought into the country. So
Unfortunately, I suspect Century is not going to be too thrilled with the the results of this testing
But I'm not here to make them happy. I'm here to convey to you guys
Exactly the information that I found. So hopefully you find this valuable
We will continue with- I think if people like this, if you like this
let me know in the comments because I think this has the potential to be an interesting longer series to put together a
More thorough encyclopedia of some of the various surplus ammunition that comes in and out of the country
So people can really get an idea for- "what is the good stuff? And what is maybe the less-good stuff?"
Anyway, thanks for watching. I'll see you tomorrow