Canadian 7.62 NATO Ball

I have a lot of Dominion Arsenal 7.62 NATO Ball ammo that shoots like crap.  I’ve got 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 and 1963.  It generally shoots around 4 MOA out of my DCRA, mostly vertical dispersion.  Sometimes better, sometimes worse.  It was used during the early years of the conversions in Canada, and the poor accuracy was erroneously blamed on the rifle, the 7.62 was thought to cause flexing of the No. 4 action, too much power for the LE to handle.  Many experiments were tried, steel stiffening straps brazed to the action, new bedding methods in the forend and ultimately, a heavy free floating barrel was thought to be the solution.  None of those things really worked until they resolved the ammunition quality issues. I think a similar thing was going on in Britain.  Perhaps old worn out machinery from WWII was used to load the ammo. 

The Control Lot had an averaged MOA of 3.0 @ 200 yards whereas the Test Lot produced a MOA between 1.5 and 2.0 at the same 200 yard distance. The testbed was my M700P that was locked into a Lead Sled to avoid as much human error as possible so, the 1.5 - 1.0 difference in MOA between lots had everything to do with the consistency in the charge weights of the test group. 

The MV between the Control group and the test group was also a surprise to me. The control group has a 2550 fps factory rating but, produced as little as 2488 fps to a high of 2590. The test group had a MV deviation between 2534 and 2572 that was averaged out over 20 rounds to 2548 fps.

My conclusion was that the test group also had the added benefit of a lower pressure wave due to the .3 reduction in the powder charge generating a more consistent MV as well a more defined MOA at the target.

(I have always been of the mindset that, military ammunition is produced solely for the purpose to get as much lead into the air as possible without caring too much about just how accurate it really is. The same can be said for the .303 Ball Ammunition as well.)

The factory produced military rounds are abhorrent compared to their modern commercially produced counterparts or that of a refined handload.

Geoff. You used the phrase "of Service Specification" and that is the key to the problem that some if not most of today's Weekend Carlos Hathcock's are dealing with.  They buy a fully customized multi thousands  of dollars M1A or whatever "flavor of the month" AR and go to the range with a can of "Service Specification/Dirty" military ammunition and then get pissed off because the bullets are hitting everywhere on the target but that X. I have participated with a small group of individuals in pulling down cans of military "Sevice Specification" ammunition and "Reconditioned" those rounds to "Our Groups Specifications."

The Canadian 7.62 Ball Ammunition I had the recent opportunity to play with had an IVI 69 NATO headstamp on it. I have compared those to TW NATO headstamped 7.62 ammunition as well as 7.62 LC ammunition.  The results were basically identical...

DA 1962

Sample size  30

Mean          43.9 grains

Ext Spread    1.1 

Std Dev        0.22 (68% of population within 43.7 to 44.1)

2 sigma        0.44 (95% of population within 43.5 to 44.3) 

It’s not that bad, and much better than the DA ‘59 ammo:

DA 1959

Sample size   40

Mean          40.4 grains

Ext Spread    2.4

Std Dev        0.65 (68% of population within 39.75 to 41.05)

2 Sigma        1.30 (95% of population within 39.10 to 41.70)

So, I suspect the 1962 will shoot better than the 1959, if bullet quality is reasonable. Still, a fair bit of powder charge weight variation, much higher than most handloaders consider acceptable for decent accuracy. The 1959 is clearly dismal.

It’s going to take a while to reload these cases.  I forgot about the tar used to seal the bullet, I will need to remove it from the bullet and inside of the case neck, then neck size the case.  I don’t see doing many of these unless I get really bored some day. 

im suspecting the contracts allowed for a bit of a load spread and remain in tolerance , the equipment was not new and most places had not yet upgraded their machines after the wars , korea was just over and VN just starting to inspire , 

however - i like your reuse and care in reloading to prove it was not the rifle but rather the ammo , using our modern technology and taking all that time to get them so precise allows a rethink of what you have in hand for materials , 

i know its a lot of work but id do that with all of that surplus inventory , 

i might even think on that foir my radway green , 

In order to get short range velocity data, I shot these at 100 yds along with factory loaded DA 62 ball ammo.  

Here is the factory Dominion Arsenal 1962 NATO Ball ammo (not the re-metered charges described above), 147 grain boat tail hard point bullet.  I did not make any sight adjustments to see what the group size was. Extreme Spread was 65 fps,  Standard deviation was 16.8 fps for the 10 shots, quite good for service ball ammo. There was a definite correlation that low velocity shots struck high on the target.  This is because the muzzle is moving upward while the bullet exits the barrel, and the slower the bullet the higher the muzzle deflects upwards (positive compensation), 7 of the 10 shots grouped well at 1.3 MOA vertical spread.  The positive compensation makes the rifle group much better at long range. 

The pulled bullets and re-metered charges did no better having a Velocity Extreme Spread of 74 fps.   It’s possible that the DA 1962 ammo I have is from different lots, the 10 shots of service loaded ammo had a decent velocity extreme spread (65 fps), better than my re-metered powder charges.  Again, fast bullets hit low on the target.  Re-metering the powder did not reduce the velocity spread (and vertical spread at the target) in this case.