mosin nagant ammo??

sharpshooter039

is it better to use heavy ball or light ball and how is all the yellow tip I am seeing on the net ? some sites say its corrosive some say its not and its all hungarian.

Bill Costik

I would treat all ammo for the Nagant as corrosive, just to be on the safe side. I can't help you with your heavy/light ball ammo though.

heavyiron

Hi,

Good question that confuses many.

If you are visiting different sites on the net and seeing "yellow tip", do not assume it is all from Hungary because many eastern block countries used the same color code system. When the advertisement states "yellow tip" they mean it is ammo loaded with 172-grain lead core bullets. Some of this ammo is corrosive and some of it is not. If the ad doesn't state clearly that is noncorrosive, assume that it is corrosive. Also, the arsenal codes are needed to know the country of origin.

I believe standard issue ammo for the Mosin Nagant during WWII was usually heavy ball ammo. Russian heavy ball ammo has a yellow tip - 172 grain lead core type "D" bullet. Production was discontinued and out of first line inventory by 1970. The Czechs refered to this bullet as type "Tz". The heavy ball load works great in most Mosin Nagant rifles.

In order to be able to accurately identify 7.62x54R ammo both the arsenal and color code for that country are needed. In other words, yellow does not neccessarily denote a heavy ball round in all countries that manufactured 7.62x54R. The arsenal code for Hungary was "21", but "21" was also the arsenal code for Poland.

Here are a couple of links that will help explain.

http://www.mosinnagant.net/i3tro4.asp

http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinAmmo.htm

Regards,

Heavyiron