Help ID this 9mm ammo?

[msmp5]

Found this box of 9mm in my garage, probably got it over 30 years ago. Can anyone ID country of origin? Headstamp? Likely Berdan primed? ..... maybe corrosive? Or....??? Any info appreciated.

 

[Jim Watson]

Maybe Egyptian.
If so, high chlorate, very corrosive.

 

[DocRock]

In Arabic

Headstamp from the top.clockwise:

75

Maybe: wow, rayn, noon (w r n), first letter could be 'ayn instead of wow.

27

Packaging:

Factory 27

36 "shots" (this is a colloquialism) case 9mm Parabellum

Made of nitrocellulose powder

The word for "gunpowder" in Modern Standard Arabic. is al-barud. This packaging uses "boudrat", which could indicate a colloquialization of the English "powder" or the French "poudre" . The use of "shot" (talaqat) rather than kartoosha (cartridge) is also interesting. Use of Arabic-Indic numerals (rather than Western) might be more Gulfish than Levantine or North African.

Without more info, can't say where it's from or anything else. I would speculate that the headstamp reads Factory 27 and date of manufacture was 1975. Can't figure out WRN or Ayn,RN though.

 

[msmp5]

DocRock, would you concur with Jim Watson that it is likely corrosive? And for those of us that flunked Chemistry class, what is "nitrocellulose powder"?

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

Nitrocellulose is smokeless (as opposed to black) powder. All nitrocellulose powders break down and become unstable over time. Burn rates and pressures will become unpredictable. The amount of time depends on the environmental conditions it has been stored under and the amount of stabilizer added to the powder at the factory.

All of the Egytian and Turkish surplus Ive tried over the years has been extremely unreliable and corrosive. Not sure where that stuff is from, but I wouldnt attempt to shoot it.

 

[Jim Watson]

Nitrocellulose powder is "single base" smokeless powder.
Nitrocellulose + nitroglycerine form "double base" smokeless powder.

The British used much double base Cordite and made special note of nitrocellulose powder in their ammo. There was once a lot of British influence in Egypt, maybe they followed suit.

 

[DocRock]

Can’t be sure it’s Egyptian without seeing more of the writing on the packaging. But that seems reasonable. Probably made in 1975. Seems late for corrosive primers.

 

[msmp5]

Interesting info, thanks to all of you. I think I'll leave this "on the shelf" as a curiosity, rather than shoot it.

 

[JT-AR-MG42]

That stuff pictured is absolutely corrosive primed.
Pull a bullet and fire the primer on a piece of brightened steel. (safety glasses and plugs)

Oh yeah, and be sure to clean that barrel right after.
Just in case Jim W and Nightlord are right.

JT

 

[msmp5]

Can’t be sure it’s Egyptian without seeing more of the writing on the packaging. But that seems reasonable. Probably made in 1975. Seems late for corrosive primers.

More pictures of the writing on other sides of the same box....

 

[DocRock]

Definitely Egyptian. “Arab Republic of Egypt” in the top photo.

 

[Steel Horse Rider]

Corrosive primers will not instantly rot your barrels despite rumors to the contrary. Shoot them but if you live in a humid area run a few patches with a good solvent or cleaner through the barrel and clean the breach area also, Wipe the whole thing down with a little CLP on a rag and you should be fine.

 

[Archie]

Might brighten some cartridge collector's day. Check on line or take to a gun or cartridge collector's show. Can't hurt and you might pick up some useful information.

 

[Jim Watson]

When the Egyptian surplus was common here, it was recommended to clean at the range; it laid down so much potassium chloride it could rust before you got home if above the critical relative humidity.
And the best cleaner is water or a water based solvent.

 

[792mauser]

^Yup.

If it rotted out bores that quickly NO government would use primers that corrosive.

Water then a normal cleaning.

 

[Steve C]

When the surplus Egyptian ammo was available I bought quite a bit of the 9mm to shoot for cheap practice and a bunch of the 8mm Mauser that I shot in my Egyptian Hakim and FN49 as well as a Mauser 98. I still have several 50 round boxes of the 8mm left but the 9 is long gone. I knew the ammo was corrosive being Berdan primed military surplus but never had any corrosion problems in my guns. Probably the main reason for lack of corrosion was the low humidity of the AZ climate and I cleaned my guns after every shooting session. Never did use any bore solvent made for corrosive ammo, just Hoppes and home made Ed's Red.

The 9mm was hard primered probably designed for open bolt SMG's, there was usually several rounds out of every 50 that would take two hammer strikes to set the round. The striker fired Glock 19 had more failures and often wouldn't set off a round with multiple firing pin strikes. My Browning Hi Power and Beretta 92 have stronger than normal hammer springs and would set off rounds much more reliably.

 

[BCR#1]

Hot, corrosive, berdan primed 9mm for the Port Said / Swedish K subgun in the 50's. I'm not sure if the Helwan pistol could take a steady diet of that ammo w/o coming apart https://modernfirearms.net/en/submachine-guns/egypt-submachine-guns/port-said-akaba-eng/

Bill

 

[Zygodactyl]

It's Egyptian, I still have quite a bit of it. Definitely corrosive. I just run a few soapy patches through it to dissolve the salts then clean it normally. I've never had a problem with rust. It has hard primers and will have problems in some pistols.