- About Russian ammo....
Lately we have noticed a lot of advertising hype on copper verses steel (actually a soft
bi-metal) jackets. We have visited a few Russian factories and this is what we have
found to be true.
These factories, or at one time actual military complexes, were
usually designated to produce one product each and do it well. It's mind boggling to
look back to the cold war era and imagine what the production capabilities were then.
Their military technology had refined the use of steel in the construction of cases
and projectiles. Their best steel alloy jackets are almost on par with the old
nickel-plated bullets of Czech, German and FN origin. The fact is we can't do steel
like they can and they can't do brass and copper like we can.
Of all the Russian factories only one uses a so-called copper
jacket. Not because it's best, but as we suspect this factory produces monetary
coins as well and has an excess of copper scrap. On accuracy tests these particular
projectiles failed by a great margin against steel (the bi-metal) projectiles, and the
only market for these copper slugs is here in America. Are we really that gullible
here to advertising?
Some technical features of modern Russian cartridges are:
- Jacket material is a specially developed low carbon elastic
steel only coated or washed with copper.
- In comparison with thicker brass cases, internal case volume
of steel is increased by 8% which allows a decrease of pressure.
- Applied jacket material together with pressure and powder
gases temperature reduction essentially diminishes barrel wear.
- Proper necking eliminates case influence on accuracy.
- All projectiles have boat tails.
- The configuration of grinding, and optimal allocation of
hardness on case body allows easy extraction even in conditions of fouling.
- A specially developed non-corrosive Berdan primer being more
reliable in comparison with a Boxer primer.
- All cartridges are sealed hermetically for long-term storage.
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