Albanian 1987 7.62x54r Steel Core Light Ball
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This lacquer cased ammo is much less common that it's brass cased counterpart and seldom found in the US.  It is no great loss to the shooter as it exhibited sticky extraction to a greater or lesser extent across all rifles used in the evaluation.   In some cases the extractor came off the rim of the case and it had to be removed from the chamber with a cleaning rod from the muzzle.  Ignition is reliable, but that is small consolation when a rifle is frozen shut.

ammo037a.JPG (12953 bytes) ammo037b.JPG (34389 bytes) ammo037c.JPG (53905 bytes)

(Reference number 037)

Case Primer Over all Length Powder
Headstamp Material Coating Water Volume Berdan Min. Max. Weight
"3" (country) over "87" (year) steel lacquer 63.7 gr. Corrosive 2.971" 3.010" 47.6 gr.

 

Bullet
Dia. Length Weight Style Core Tip Color Magnetic? Ballistic
Coefficient
Sectional
Density
.310" 1.269" 148.3 gr. spitzer boat tail steel none yes 0.435 0.219

 

Package
20 rounds per paper wrap 440 rounds per spam can Can opener and packing list
ammo037d.JPG (64901 bytes) ammo037e.JPG (67053 bytes) ammo037f.JPG (73449 bytes)

 

Measured Muzzle Velocity in Feet per Second (10 shot string)
Rifle M44 M28 M91/30 M91 (Finnish) M91 (Russian)
Low 2665 2829 2836 2857 2815
High 2745 2886 2900 2918 2868
Average 2706 2863 2869 2887 2846
Extreme Spread 80 57 64 61 53
Standard Deviation 25 24 28 21 22
Trajectory and Drop Graph
(click on the thumbnails)
20061109026.jpg (101431 bytes) 20061109027.jpg (101396 bytes) 20061109028.jpg (101155 bytes) 20061109029.jpg (100879 bytes) 20061109030.jpg (100853 bytes)
Notes on the graphs  The graphs above each represent two sets of data.  The red line is the path of the bullet fired from the rifle with the sights zeroed at 200 yards.   The bullet exits the muzzle at a distance a fraction of an inch below zero inches.   This represents the height of the sight over the centerline of the bore.  The bullet rises above zero in a trajectory that then passes through zero again at 200 yards and continues downward.  The blue line is the the bullet drop in inches for the distance traveled.  This begins at the muzzle at zero inches and decreases with distance not taking sight height or zero distance into account.

 

Trajectory Comparison Graph
This graph combines the trajectories of the 5 graphs above to compare the performance of the test rifles.
Click on the graph for a large, scalable PDF to zoom in for better detail clarity.  Adobe Reader required.

20061109026thru30.jpg (86050 bytes)

 

Bullet Velocity to 500 yards in Feet per Second

Distance (yds) 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
M44 2706 2602 2501 2403 2306 2212 2120 2030 1942 1857 1774
M28 2863 2756 2651 2549 2450 2352 2257 2164 2073 1984 1897
M91/30 2869 2762 2658 2556 2456 2358 2263 2169 2078 1990 1902
M91 (Finnish) 2887 2780 2675 2572 2472 2374 2278 2185 2093 2004 1917
M91 (Russian) 2846 2739 2635 2534 2434 2337 2242 2149 2059 1970 1884

 

Bullet Energy to 500 yards in Foot Pounds

Distance (yds) 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
M44 2405 2225 2056 1897 1748 1608 1477 1354 1239 1132 1034
M28 2693 2495 2310 2135 1972 1818 1673 1538 1412 1294 1182
M91/30 2705 2507 2321 2146 1981 1827 1682 1546 1419 1301 1189
M91 (Finnish) 2739 2539 2351 2174 2008 1852 1706 1568 1440 1319 1207
M91 (Russian) 2661 2465 2282 2109 1947 1794 1652 1518 1393 1275 1166

 

Recoil

Rifle M44 (Soviet) M28 (Finnish) M91/30 (Soviet) M91 (Finnish) M91 (Russian)
Weight (Pounds) 8.25 lbs 9.75 lbs 8.56 lbs 9.5 lbs 9.38 lbs
Recoil Velocity (Feet per Second) 10.8 fps 9.7 fps 11.0 fps 10.0 fps 10.0 fps
Recoil Energy (Foot-Pound) 15.0 ft-lb 14.2 ft-lb 16.2 ft-lb 14.9 ft-lb 14.6 ft-lb


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