tal35 Posted May 22, 2020 Report Share Posted May 22, 2020 I have some bullets up for sale on the ammo section, they are .312 diameter, nickel plated, they have a hole in the back which I thought looked like tracer, but I put a propane torch to the back and it exploded with a bang similar to a primer or more. The bullet was still intact, but what would this be? The other question, I have some 308 marked 80 MDRP 762x51 on the rim, any thoughts what country made it and is it corrosive or not? I have about 500 rds I found. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike todd Posted May 22, 2020 Report Share Posted May 22, 2020 what you have are tracer projectiles the washer in the back, was to compress both items in the jacket, the actual element and a starting compound to start the tracer element burning. starting compounds varied to control when the trace occurred. the "bang" you heard was the ignition of what was left of the starter. little remains in most of the examples seen in the pics and maybe all gone in others so there is no way they will ignite as originally intended or at all. I never learned exactly what causes the loss but believe it to be from the powder going bad. this is a common thing with any starter that is not sealed from actual contact with the powder. surplus tracers that wont light are very common which causes some problems for the user. sometimes and not all times the tracer element will ignite when the projo hits something real hard. the heat generated lights it and it will lay there and burn. not all will do the same thing so one never knows the downrange results . this can cause fires if fired in the field. and I have seen many shooters thrown off the range when they hit a steel gong and went off not knowing they were firing tracers the USGI 30/06 red tipped tracers from WW II have all gone bad as they were not sealed. the new orange tipped rounds that followed have all been 100% for me but I have heard of a few folks having problems. the first .223/.556 tracers with red tip will seldom light when fired but again do burn if they hit a rock or something hard. you will find both red tipped and orange tipped 7.62 USGI ammo and all of it has been 100% for me the red tip was for OVER HEAD FIRE ,and ignites at the muzzle or danged close . it was designed for shooting over the troops when bailing from choppers and can be hard to find. the orange tip lights somewhere after 75 yards. most of the above problems and details also apply to the .50 cal ammo. seldom will pre 1953 red tipped light as intended. all the maroon even WW II or orange tip and later dated red tip .50 has been 100% light for me that's most of what I have experienced I a nut shell. MIKE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike todd Posted May 22, 2020 Report Share Posted May 22, 2020 MORE and maybe most IMPORTANT. what you did with the torch was extremely dangerous to you and the surroundings! you got LUCKY ! I know a gent that lost one eye completely and most of the other doing that. another person I met in AZ lost his thumb and two fingers and suffered other major injury when a bullet burst the jacket burst the tank and the propane blew up. it was determined to be a CANADIAN .50 projo of some type. LOTS of surplus ammo from EUROPE and South America contained ammo that was not marked with paint and when folks were pulling the bullets they exploded with varied results. we broke down tons of bad ammo over the years and I had a few bad events doing so. I was pulling a mixed lot of GERMAN WW II that had bad primers. the lot contained what l later learned was PMKV observation rounds. a 3 color tracer for ranging and a violent incendiary explosive at the end. to protect myself, I had made my own pulling die that covered most the case in the process . when the bullet exploded I got 2 pieces of brass in the forehead and a pretty good burn. the die body was split like a shotgun wad. the danger still remains but most of the odd lot ammo has already followed its destiny still its a hard call when attempting to salvage so do your homework and know as much as possible when doing so. cheers MIKE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike todd Posted May 22, 2020 Report Share Posted May 22, 2020 STILL MORE! in the 90's I built a home with a walk in vault / man cave that contained several key items from my collection. it was carpeted had easy chairs , TV and several display shelves of unusual trinkets from the industry. at the entrance was an oversized wooden door , when opened it revealed a swinging bank vault door that weighed more than 3k pounds. where it traveled was exposed tinted concrete the door almost rubbed. all this was normally open day to day, and the actual vault door only closed when going away for a spell. it was quite difficult to swing and took some effort and when it seated, it would shake the 24" thick solid concrete walls of the room. right to the edge of the doorway was a set of floor to ceiling shelves . I had a BRITISH 10 round clip of ITALIAN .303 PURPLE ANULOS ammo. it fell of, hit the concrete and all 10 rounds exploded. to control the results took well over 15 minutes. and the smoke was catastrophic ! it set the carpet and one easy chair on fire, damaged several expensive firearms, my ego and my wife almost left me. WOW ! I had that event pretty well blocked off until just now, hope the shakes go away soon. PLEASE USE CARE AND DO BETTER THAN I DID ! the total dedication of my life to this stuff led to complacency and a false sense of security. every day since that, ALL the explosive, incendiary and oddball ammo is in ONE place well removed from anything else of value or importance. cheers MIKE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tal35 Posted May 23, 2020 Author Report Share Posted May 23, 2020 thanks Mike! Any thoughts on the 308 Ammo I mentioned? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike todd Posted May 23, 2020 Report Share Posted May 23, 2020 SORRY, I never ran into that head stamp and cant answer . if you will send me a pic of the actual base, I will see what I can learn. the only corrosive 7.62 x 51 or what ever you want to call the .308 nato round I ever ran into is the steel cased SELLIOR and BELIOT steel cased CZECH lots with the black primer in turquoise plain 20 rnd boxes. I thought I had pulled a major coup when I bought a 28ft pup full from a distraught trucker in 1980 so for less than .07 per rnd. my next shoot after about 1100 rounds in my saco 60 I went to sleep. next morning the gun was so corroded the op rod would not budge. almost welded in the tube, we did manage to get it free and running but there was a lot of severe permanent pits. too many producer's meant too many bad lots. I bought some SOUTH AMERICAN BALL that you could not hit a 4'x4' board at 50 ft using a good rifle! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tal35 Posted May 25, 2020 Author Report Share Posted May 25, 2020 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tal35 Posted June 16, 2020 Author Report Share Posted June 16, 2020 Mike, were you ever able to ID these cartridges and where they were made? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike todd Posted June 28, 2020 Report Share Posted June 28, 2020 sorry , I dropped the ball and failed to get back to you on this. all my data lacks any info on these head stamps. this is something that has been a problem recently. It seems there are too many small producers or name changes going on in the industry and no body is trying to keep up. I have a lot of both 7.62 and .556 I cant pin down lately one would think with the net it would be better . maybe the interest is just not there anymore. i just got in 30k+ rounds of .303 and there are 4 lots unknown in it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsonlmg41 Posted July 2, 2020 Report Share Posted July 2, 2020 MDRP= Ministerio de Defencia, Republica Del Paraguay Made in France on contract for Paraguay and send to South Africa for........ 7.62X51 and .50BMG cal. only Google fu from several sources. supposedly non corrosive. HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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