Ammo history in the US.

[Evil Monkey]

I was born in 1987. There are plenty of you here that were born WAY before I was.

So if you can help me...

I really want to know, how was the availability of 5.56mm NATO, 7.62 NATO, 7.62x39 soviet, 7.62x54R, and 5.45x39 soviet between the 70's all the way to 2000?

At what point did the soviet calibers emerge? How was the surplus market during these times? Did prices rise/drop often or seldom? How often did the amount of surplus ammo disappear and come back all of a sudden?

At what point did rounds like the 303, 30-06, 8mm, etc, start fading away?

Tell me anything else you might know about any other munition history in the US.

 

[Onmilo]

In the 70s there wasn't much 7.62X51 around, no real demand.
7.62X39 wasn't around much either except for some batches that guys were bringing back from Viet Nam.
There was quite a bit of USGI .30/06, 8mm Mauser, .303 British, 7mm Mauser, quite a bit of pistol calibers except for .45acp.

In the 80s there was some surplus USGI 7.62 NATO along with the calibers mentioned.
7.62X39 was all Finnish Lapua and the only guns in the early part of the decade were Egyptian Maadi AKM clones and Finnish Valmet rifles.
It wasn't until 1986 or so that 7.62X39 became very common and that was due to a huge import of Chinese SKS and AK type rifles.

5.45X39 didn't really come onto the surplus scene until the mid to late 90s
The first rifles to show up in this caliber were bolt action 'Stassi sniper rifles.'
Really nothing more than target and training rifles.
Very small batches of East German 5.45X39 came with the rifles.
The West Germans scrapped several hundred million rounds of ex East German 5.45X39, 7.62X39, and various pistol rounds.
East German 7.62X39 was some of the best Mil-spec ammunition in this caliber I have ever fired, it was a true shame.
I remember the Bulgarians importing the first 5.45X39 AK type rifles in the early 90s then the Romanians brought some in not too long after.
The ammunition has been kind of hit and miss since then.
90s also saw a LOT of 7.62 NATO come in from everywhere and anywhere and .30/06 began drying up.
There was still quite a bit of 8mm Mauser and .303 British but these are drying up now too.

For the future 7.62 NATO, 7.62X39, and 9mm pistol will be calibers to look forward too unless some goofy politician outlaws the imports again.
There are billions and billions of these cartridges available and the trend is toward smaller calibers and fresher stocks of ammunition.
The drawback of non-corrosive priming compounds is that they have about half the shelf life of corrosive compounds and if they don't sell the stuff on the market before it begins to go bad then countries eat it and write it off or scrap it out and send the materials to China.

 

[TexasRifleman]

When I was in high school, in the early 80's, I had a Mini 14 and 1000 acres to play on

I remember buying 5.56 for $109/1000 tax included. I remember it clearly because I had to buy my own ammo and having 110 bucks was the Holy Grail for me at work. This was real M193 IIRC, though in a plain white box.

There was a True Value hardware store in town and the owner had an FFL. He kept a case or 2 in stock for me and a friend of mine pretty much all the time.

I was going through a case a month or so back then.

My senior year I convinced my father to buy a Lightning Link for an AR I got that year. My ammo use went up considerably then

 

[1911JMB]

Non-corrosive primers have a shorter shelf life? How much shorter?