czech or hungarian surplus ammo?

[trickyasafox]

hi all, i'm about to order some surplus ammo for a recently acquired M44 and was wondering if anyone had a preference between czech or hungarian surplus.

price is close, but czech is cheaper. I am planning on ordering from AIMsurplus.

also, is there a hazmat charge? i always get screwed up when ordering ammo. if anyone knows of a better deal than AIM let me know.

 

[KaiserBen]

No hazmat charge for ammo, and FWIW, my M44 likes the Bulgarian surplus that AIM, Century, and others have. The Czech causes sticky bolt syndrome, and I haven't tried the Hungarian that AIM currently has.

 

[Koobuh]

Czech silvertip is generally pretty accurate, at least judging by most people's observations.
I've found the Hungarian light ball significantly less accurate than the Czech, for whatever it's worth.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

I've shot both out of my M44 and 91/30 and the Czech Silvertip stuff is more accurate than anything else around. If the price is the same, and it usually is, go for the Czech stuff. (blue/green box of 20, silver stripe on 1 side that looks like tape but it's really on the box)

 

[zamboxl]

i tried the hungarian and i gotta say it shoots and cycles pretty good, as far as acuracy i dont know casue i am a horrible shot.

 

[270Win]

I haven't yet tried the Czech, but the Hungarian silvertip is high quality. No sticky bolt, very accurate in my M38.

 

[jagdpanzer347]

Haven't shot any of the Czech yet, but I really like the Hungarian light ball. I suspect the Hungarian will dry up much sooner than the Czech, for what that's worth. Also, AIM is great to deal with.

-jagd

 

[trickyasafox]

kaiser ben, is that bulgarian brass reloadable?

 

[DMK]

I'd get both. You rifle may prefer one over the other.

Personally, I prefer the Czech because most of my Mosins shoot it better and I've stocked up a bit more of that than the Hungarian. It's also slightly cheaper per round from AIM right now. I've never had any problems with the bolt sticking in any of my more than a half dozen Mosins.

 

[Jackal]

I will never buy Hungarian again. I had some Hungarian yellow-tip and after the 3rd shot, the primer blew. Needless to say, it's a good thing that I flinch when I fire that rifle. I don't enjoy getting blowback to the face.

 

[JonB]

That sucks. Guessing it can happen with any of that old ammo. I was pricing stuff today (as I just ordered an M44) and some of it being sold now was made back in the 50's.

 

[Koobuh]

"I had some Hungarian yellow-tip and after the 3rd shot, the primer blew."
The silver-tip AIM is currently selling is quite different from the yellow-tip in my experience.
I had trouble with the primers blowing out on the second batch of Hungarian yellow-tip I acquired, and thus discovered that my M39's firing pin spring was warped. It literally bows a full width to one side- pretty impressive, really; I'd like to know how that happened.
Anyway, I dropped-in a new Wolff spring and it's working much better now; no blown out primers, and it strikes much more aggressively.

My theory on the cause of the blowouts was that the spring tension was so weak, the pressure of the firing cartridge actually forced the firing pin back into the bolt. As one might expect in this case, in nearly every incident a piece of primer the size of the pin channel was lodged inside the bolt head.
I only discovered that this was happening because I started to get consistent misfires. Pretty bad thing to happen when you're firing a timed course!
On the other hand, the instructors were somewhat impressed at how quickly I could disassemble the bolt to dump primer bits.