CZ52. What Surplus ammo should I Not run in it?

[Analogkid]

I bought a CZ52 for a very good price. It came with a 3/4 full box of SB factory ammo.

I see a little of the surplus ammo is for sale here and there. Is any of that safe to run in it? And if so what kind and please be specific?

I keep seeing this sub gun comment thrown around and I certainly do not need to have any more guns blow up on me.

Thanks ahead of time.

 

[barnbwt]

None. It will run anything that wasn't improperly loaded in the first place, properly. Do check the rollers, firing pin, safety, etc. for damage before messing with it, though (the design as executed isn't the safest thing in the world)

Some people think the SMG ammo was 'hotter,' the way some ammo was up-loaded for 9mm SMGs over the years. This is simply not the case; the CZ26 and other Czech subguns use the same ammo as the pistols, and the Soviets the same. The only difference is that each nation's factories produced ammo of slightly different performance, and Czech is supposedly on the higher end of the group; still designed for pistols & SMGs both, though.

TCB

 

[R.W.Dale]

To reiterate the post above Czech ammo wasn't loaded hotter because of use in sub guns. It's hot, sometimes catastrophically so because it was crappy ammo.

I wouldn't run surplus com block ammunition through any gun I cared about and I wouldn't shoot Czech 7.62x25 if it was someone else's fingers at risk

 

[joem1945]

I've shot a lot of czech ammo when i could get it. chrono'd at 1650 FPS. All the stuff now is not as hot and some of it has undersized bullets and crapy accuracy. CZ52's are built like tanks. When they were cheap I bought 5. I should have bought way more czech ammo.

 

[yugorpk]

I ran about 3K of Czech ammo and the same amount of Polish ammo through one over a two year period with cleaning only when the chamber started to gum up. Not the most accurate gun and it has a terrible trigger but when ammo was almost being given away it was a great gun to blast away all day Never gave the subgun ammo myth a second thought. The gun didnt care.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

I would say off the top of my head, the only surplus ammo to avoid for the CZ52 would be ammo that was out of spec, or stored under questionable conditions, especially extreme heat and driness. That warning applies to all pistols of compatible caliber.

WHB Smith "Small Arms of the World" 1966 listed Czech 7.62x25 M1948 cartridges as 1800 fps from a 10" barrel SMG, and 1600 fps from a CZ52 pistol and noted the Czech load was high velocity than the Russian in same barrel lengths ~10" smg and ~5" pistol.

I suspect the M1948 cartridge used a slower burning powder to get higher velocity w/o higher pressure. It is a suspicion I have. The CZ52 pistol was designed as a sidearm companion to the Czech SMGs.

WHB Smith "Small Arms of the World" 1966 also listed the WWII 7.63mm Mauser ammo for Model 1930 Mauser broomhandle pistol and select fire "fast firer" as closer to M1948 Czech velocity, faster than Soviet 7.62x25mm TT for the Tokarev pistol and PPSh43 SMG.

Clark has done blow up tests. Apparently if you overload, the CZ52 has a weakness where the barrel is cut for the locking rollers, and the Tokarev pistol barrel and Mauser C96 barrel hold up better to deliberate overloads. The Tokarev is unpleasant to shot with "hot" ammo, and the weak point in the Mauser C96 is the bolt stop: it will give when the barrel still holds. (Dont' shoot an old C96 until you have both new recoil and hammer springs installed.)

The TT33, CZ52 and C96 will work with intended specification ammo; deliberately hotrodded ammo will expose different weaknesses in all three 7.62-7.63x25mm platforms.

Mauser made C96 Military pistols in 7,63 Mauser were used by French Marquis with 9mm Parabellum ammo to execute isolated German soldiers to take their weapons; firing a 9mm .355" bullet down a .308" barrel says alot about the strength of the Mauser barrel and of the French Maquis of WWII .

 

[Analogkid]

I can get 10 70rd boxes of this in trade for some 22lr. I assume this is polish ammunition? It sure is cheap enough.

Not worried about reloading for it. Just want to shoot it and not grenade it.

 

[cougar1717]

Several years ago, I purchased a can of the "evil sub-gun star-53 will KB your handgun" Bulgarian ammo. The first round fired just fine. The second round proceeded to get itself stuck in a CZ-52. After measurement, most of it was out of spec by about .002" bigger at the base. However, it fired without problem out of a TT-33.

 

[yugorpk]

I had a bunch of that polish stuff I knocked the bullets out of and reloaded with 174 grain subsonics for a 7.62X25 AR-15 upper. Made 100 rounds or so before I got coaught up in something shinier. Had a weird 3 dot crimp that split the case about 1/4 of the time. Many were split already. Still fired OK but generally the brass was toast not that you could reload the stuff anyway without a lot of heartache ( berdan ) .

 

[Ohen Cepel]

Be sure to clean it if you shoot corrosive stuff through it. Other than that, fire away.

Oh, and don't dry fire the 52.

 

[jonnyc]

"sub gun comment thrown around" - Don't worry; as posted above, it is internet myth.
I think you will actually find that S&B and Winchester (made by S&B), is about the hottest 7.62x25 ammo you can find.
That Polish ammo you posted is about the best of the milsurp 7.62TT fodder.

 

[barnbwt]

A lot of the stuff out there is pretty gross, though, especially the punch-crimped stuff I've seen/bought; about a 1/3 chance the neck splits each time, and smells like the powder-plant workers didn't get bathroom breaks. Was simply a stupid way to secure the bullets, and decades of brass aging hasn't helped . At least you won't be tempted to reload it, somehow.

TCB

 

[Snowdog]

I have fired hundreds of rounds of Polish 7.62x25 through two Yugoslavian M57s with zero issues. It's good stuff.

I also had good luck with Romanian fodder, but ran into a few split necks.

I'm so glad I stocked up on Polish milsurp when it was still $90/1260

Again, it's good stuff as far as corrosive milsurp ammo goes.

 

[tark]

There is no such thing as 7.62X25 sub-gun ammo. I learned this from JonnyC (Who seems to have stopped posting) He has probably forgotten more about 7.62X25 ammo than the rest of us will ever know. He is a member of several cartridge collector's associations and he specializes in this caliber.

The CZ ammo was hot because it was crappy. Quality control was Kaput. That was then and this is now. Lots of ammo loaded today, I'm thinking the Czech loaded Winchester white box metric stuff, is red hot, without excessive pressure. The box says 1645 FPS in a Tokarev. It will do it.

Surplus is attractive because of the price, but I would stick with factory new and not worry.

 

[tark]

Hi, JonnyC missed your post! You ARE out there !! I'm nearing the 4,000 round mark with my Broomie. (firing tokarev ammo ) LOL.

 

[ritepath]

Whatever you find that won't run, don't run.

 

[jonnyc]

Thanks, Tark. You might want to consider new springs at some point.

Snowdog, I noticed you mentioned that you stocked-up on Polish, but you show a goodly stack of Yugo ammo. Got lots of both?

 

[Snowdog]

Jonnyc, I indeed have quite a bit of Yugo surplus (old PPU stuff) and thought it appropriate for that particular photo as the M57s themselves were also Yugoslavian. Two peas of a pod type thing.

I have about an equal amount of Polish and Yugoslavian 7.62x25, but also quite a bit of Romanian as well.

 

[Snowdog]

Now I have to share more pics... it's like showing a family album, how can one stop?







Alright, enough of boring everyone. Bottom line, surplus ammo is fun and can be accurate. Just remember to clean up afterwards.

 

[Devonai]

I just picked up a nice military-issue '54 CZ 52, it doesn't look like it has been fired much, if at all. S&B is the easiest ammo to find around here and I'm fine with that; after dealing with surplus 7.92x57mm I am all set with surplus ammo for the most part.

I'm curious to know how many people have actually experienced a broken firing pin on the CZ. I've heard a lot of internet stories; Harrington Products has some photos on their site but I've never heard from anyone directly.

 

[tark]

Hi, Jonny. The gun gets new hammer and recoil springs every 2000 rounds, with a thorough check of the bolt stop and surrounding metal on the barrel extension.

Getting back to the topic of 7.62X25 ammo I had a tin of that Polish ammo about five years ago. I was impressed with its quality and uniformity. I weighed the bullets and powder charges on ten rounds. All of the bullets were within a half a grain of each other. All of the powder charger were within a tenth of a grain! I was impressed. Is this the best of the corrosive surplus?

 

[tark]

Devonai, I had a CZ52 when they first hit the streets about 20 years ago. DO NOT EVER EVER EVER DRY FIRE IT!!! I broke the firing pin on mine that way, and it only took a few snaps. I made a new one out of a drill bit shank, which worked until I could get a replacement.

 

[jonnyc]

Tark, many would argue that Chinese steel case is the best surplus out there. I always grab it when I see some.

 

[Devonai]

Thanks, it's good to know it's not just internet rumors, but I'm sorry you had to go through that hassle.

 

[kozak6]

I've had good luck with Bulgarian surplus.

The Romanian surplus had hard primers and tended to split necks.

The dangerous ammo is Bulgarian, but with a distinctive pink box. There is a picture of the headstamp in this thread on another forum:
http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?213705-Bulgarian-7-62x25-Dangerous