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Surplus 7.62 x 51 LC M118 LR ammo
- Thread starter ron_c
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LoboGunLeather
US Veteran
Back in my days of service 7.62 ammo came on stripper clips for loading into M14 magazines, or it came in a cardboard box with a 200-round disintegrating metal belt for feeding the M60 machinegun. Only exceptions I recall were the National Match ammo in 20-round boxes. Everything came in sealed metal ammo cans.
Of course, I'm talking about 50-plus years ago so there have probably been a few changes. What used to be my shoulder muscles and pectorals have settled in around my belt, which I attribute to the long term effects of gravity. While others have watched their hair turn gray I have been surprised by the distinguished silver color of my own hair (and happy to still have hair, as well as a few natural teeth). Some other changes seem to have occurred, but it may take me a while to remember those.
Of course, I'm talking about 50-plus years ago so there have probably been a few changes. What used to be my shoulder muscles and pectorals have settled in around my belt, which I attribute to the long term effects of gravity. While others have watched their hair turn gray I have been surprised by the distinguished silver color of my own hair (and happy to still have hair, as well as a few natural teeth). Some other changes seem to have occurred, but it may take me a while to remember those.
What Lobo said, but I also have another version - an ammo can with LC 64 M118 loaded into Garand en bloc clips, the clips stuffed into a cloth bandolier with cardboard stiffeners/keepers in the pockets. Strange, can't explain that.
In my M-14 days with the National Guard, range ammo was in a wooden ammo box, you counted out only what you needed and stuffed your magazines while a range sgt watched to be sure you weren't stuffing your pockets. For all I know, that wooden case may have been filled from ammo cans.
Issue ammo for riot duty was in 20 rd magazines over the Supply Sgt's counter.
In my M-14 days with the National Guard, range ammo was in a wooden ammo box, you counted out only what you needed and stuffed your magazines while a range sgt watched to be sure you weren't stuffing your pockets. For all I know, that wooden case may have been filled from ammo cans.
Issue ammo for riot duty was in 20 rd magazines over the Supply Sgt's counter.
That was Navy ammo. The Navy converted a number of M1 rifles from .30-06 to 7.62 NATO around 1960. Some had the original barrels sleeved (MK2 MOD 0), which didn’t work out to well. Other had new barrels installed and were designated MK2 MOD 1.
The Navy had difficulty obtaining M14’s and and had plenty of M1 Garands on hand. A number of these converted rifles were later awarded to winners of service matches.
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Also, in the earlier days of the 2nd Gulf War, didn't they find out that the M16 round had no poop left at long range, and they pulled m-14s into duty? I recall reading in the NRA magazine that they got CMP instructors, or maybe Camp Perry competitors to teach M1/M14 long range shooting skills. Perhaps these are from those days?
OP
ron_c
US Veteran
Lake City LR is different from standard 7.62 NATO ammo. The LR stands for long range and is loaded with a 175 gr Sierra Match King bullet. The cases are match grade and the primers are not crimped in.
The LR cases are popular for reloading and bring a premium. The label on the front of the can seems to have a UN number on it, but it doesn’t appear military. Is this remanufactured ammo, or is it sold as surplus?
This is a case of British surplus ammo, marked with a UN serial number. My guess is member nations provided ammo for peacekeeping forces and it was eventually released.
As Lobo described, the M60 ammo was supplied in ammo cans. Each can held two large boxes with pull straps and each box held a belt of ammo. They look like this:
When you de-link ammo, it leaves telltale marks. This stuff sat for a long time in stockpiles and the links left faint circular dark rings around the cases. The OP’s ammo is LR and was never intended for MG use.
The LR cases are popular for reloading and bring a premium. The label on the front of the can seems to have a UN number on it, but it doesn’t appear military. Is this remanufactured ammo, or is it sold as surplus?
This is a case of British surplus ammo, marked with a UN serial number. My guess is member nations provided ammo for peacekeeping forces and it was eventually released.
As Lobo described, the M60 ammo was supplied in ammo cans. Each can held two large boxes with pull straps and each box held a belt of ammo. They look like this:
When you de-link ammo, it leaves telltale marks. This stuff sat for a long time in stockpiles and the links left faint circular dark rings around the cases. The OP’s ammo is LR and was never intended for MG use.
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Back in September, 2007, The CMP held its first Master Instructor Course, conducted by Gary Anderson....at Anniston, AL....At the end of the Course, We were asked if we could Volunteer our time to teach Basic Marksmanship to Recruits At Army Bases...out to 300 yds...on the M16 Rifle.....Housing and meals provided on Base and a per diem paid for mileage for travel....This was for a 3 week period.....Several different Bases and dates available.I Really wanted to do it, maybe make a difference, but my Wife had a serious Health Issue at the time and there was no way I could be gone for 3 weeks, plus a day or two on each side for travel.
The M118 ammo is usually 175 gr. Match ammo and works best in 1/10 twist Barrels.... The standard 147 gr. run best in a 1/12 Barrel...The cross in a circle is. NATO stamp and any ammo with that is non- corrosive, the two letter number is the year produced. Storage conditions directly affect performance.
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Scharfschuetzer
Member
7.62 Match Ammo
When I was shooting an M14NM for the Army, our M118 "White Box Match," the follow on M118 Special Ball and then the later M852 Match ammo all came in a wood crate with two M2A2 metal ammo cans with 460 rounds per can. Inside the M2A2 can, the rounds were in either a 20 round white box, or a 20 round brown cardboard box for the Special Ball.
When I was shooting an M14NM for the Army, our M118 "White Box Match," the follow on M118 Special Ball and then the later M852 Match ammo all came in a wood crate with two M2A2 metal ammo cans with 460 rounds per can. Inside the M2A2 can, the rounds were in either a 20 round white box, or a 20 round brown cardboard box for the Special Ball.
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Green Frog
Member
The Navy rifle teams were eating the lunches of the the teams trying to develop the early M-14s for "Service Rifle" matches. They tried to get the Navy teams' tried and true match built M-1 Garands that had been rebarreled to 308 banned as "obsolete so no longer eligible." The Navy brass said, this is what you made us keep as our service weapons, so this is what we shoot! The Navy won the argument.
BTW, properly installed, the adaptors worked well for the conversion, but in competition, the other military teams succeeded in getting that conversion banned from competition, so the guns the Navy teams used were rebarreled with original 7.62 chambering.
Froggie
Is there any paperwork or labeling on the outside of the cardboard box in post #1?
I've seen XM118LR in the 20 round boxes and consolidated in 500 round packages. All labeled on the outside. Somewhere I've got the breakdown on the what the various extra letters mean. I do recall that PD means the ammunition was found to be out of spec and pulled down for components. The powder was blended and the ammunition reloaded with the components. This ammo was usually restricted to training use where it would NOT be fired over the heads of any troops.
IIRC, the "X" indicated that the ammunition failed some aspect of the accuracy requirements. Again, IIRC. that was not greater than 1 MOA @ 1000 yards/meters
I've seen XM118LR in the 20 round boxes and consolidated in 500 round packages. All labeled on the outside. Somewhere I've got the breakdown on the what the various extra letters mean. I do recall that PD means the ammunition was found to be out of spec and pulled down for components. The powder was blended and the ammunition reloaded with the components. This ammo was usually restricted to training use where it would NOT be fired over the heads of any troops.
IIRC, the "X" indicated that the ammunition failed some aspect of the accuracy requirements. Again, IIRC. that was not greater than 1 MOA @ 1000 yards/meters
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OP, a few years back, I purchased a box of loose M118LR and a
box of 20 round boxes before I did my homework. I fired most of it in a Remington 700 Varmint rifle, and was lucky if I could keep 30 shots on the 6'x6' target at a thousand yards. At shorter ranges (100 & 200 yards) it was difficult to keep this ammo within a 2 MOA group.
In diagnosing the problem, I chronographed ten rounds, and got an average velocity around 2800 fps with an SD in the neighborhood of 40. In doing some homework, I found that lots of M118LR that didn't meet military acceptance standards was sold off as surplus in loose pack boxes. I was accustomed to M118 having a published MV of 2550 fps, the same as M852. Having experienced the performance potential of M852 and M118 in my NM M1MKII and M1A, I was disappointed with the M118LR.
I vaguely remember paying about $0.60 a round for that stuff, I can only imagine what that stuff is selling for now. Granted, it is ammo with a premium bullet, I don't think that I'd buy it today unless I was super-desperate for ammo.
box of 20 round boxes before I did my homework. I fired most of it in a Remington 700 Varmint rifle, and was lucky if I could keep 30 shots on the 6'x6' target at a thousand yards. At shorter ranges (100 & 200 yards) it was difficult to keep this ammo within a 2 MOA group.
In diagnosing the problem, I chronographed ten rounds, and got an average velocity around 2800 fps with an SD in the neighborhood of 40. In doing some homework, I found that lots of M118LR that didn't meet military acceptance standards was sold off as surplus in loose pack boxes. I was accustomed to M118 having a published MV of 2550 fps, the same as M852. Having experienced the performance potential of M852 and M118 in my NM M1MKII and M1A, I was disappointed with the M118LR.
I vaguely remember paying about $0.60 a round for that stuff, I can only imagine what that stuff is selling for now. Granted, it is ammo with a premium bullet, I don't think that I'd buy it today unless I was super-desperate for ammo.
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F224
Member
In my UH-1M Gunship pilot days, our helmet bag weight would top 60 pounds after a weekend at the range. More than a few came home with close to 6k rounds in the ammo cans. We would stop at a crew chiefs farm house on the flight home and dump it all out in his yard...to be recovered later.
I recall being surprised at the velocity of XM118LR, but I don't recall them being anywhere around 2800 f/s. Found my notes, that lot of XM118LR PD clocked 2660 f/s. I don't recall any trouble holding 1 MOA, maybe a hair better at 200 yards. I do recall the data sheet that came with the stuff or was furnished by the vendor showed the lot met horizontal dispersal specs, but was slightly excessive on vertical spread at 1000 yards. That would be caused by excessive (by their requirements) velocity variation.
I didn't plan on using it at 1000 yards and figured my mean error was greater than that of the ammo.
It's been quite awhile, but IIRC, M118 and M118LR aren't the same animal. FWIW, I broke down a couple rounds and recall the powder as a stick type powder with shorter grains than IMR 4064. Don't recall the charge weight.
Added edit- I don't know, but suspect, that the loose ammo is stuff that hadn't made it to the packaging (20 rd box) process when testing showed that lot didn't meet specifications. If there was no need to package it, it'd be cheaper/faster to keep it loose and dispose of it that way.
I didn't plan on using it at 1000 yards and figured my mean error was greater than that of the ammo.
It's been quite awhile, but IIRC, M118 and M118LR aren't the same animal. FWIW, I broke down a couple rounds and recall the powder as a stick type powder with shorter grains than IMR 4064. Don't recall the charge weight.
Added edit- I don't know, but suspect, that the loose ammo is stuff that hadn't made it to the packaging (20 rd box) process when testing showed that lot didn't meet specifications. If there was no need to package it, it'd be cheaper/faster to keep it loose and dispose of it that way.
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Scharfschuetzer
Member
The Navy rifle teams were eating the lunches of the the teams trying to develop the early M-14s for "Service Rifle" matches. They tried to get the Navy teams' tried and true match built M-1 Garands that had been rebarreled to 308 banned as "obsolete so no longer eligible." The Navy brass said, this is what you made us keep as our service weapons, so this is what we shoot! The Navy won the argument.
BTW, properly installed, the adaptors worked well for the conversion, but in competition, the other military teams succeeded in getting that conversion banned from competition, so the guns the Navy teams used were rebarreled with original 7.62 chambering.
Froggie
I shot against the Navy teams on a few occasions and they could make those 7.62mm M1 Garands sing.
My experience with the M118 rounds was that the White Box 173 grain ammo was loaded with something similar to 4895 while the Brown Box 118 173 grain ammo was loaded with a ball powder. At the time of the change from White Box to Brown Box, my scores suffered significantly. When we started getting the White Box M852 168 grain rounds, our scores went up significantly and I was back to tickling the X ring again at 600 yards.
In the end, we had to test the brown box 118 ammo for accuracy before any serious use, although with army logistics, we often got what we got. Some of the stuff would shoot 1 1/2 MOA in our M24 SWS rifles and some lots wouldn't hold 3 MOA. Go figure.
It is my understanding that the M118 LR in 20 boxes was used for "squad designated marksmen" in the first Gulf War and then, later on, in Iraq and Afghanistan. The ammo in the "bulk box" based on my understanding was overrun ammo that was produced at Lake City with the same specs as the M118 LR in 20 round boxes.
I am an attorney and got a call one day from the secretary for one of our Circuit Court Judges regarding her son, who was at that time a Lt. Col. in the 101st Airborne at Ft. Campbell. The squad designated marksman (SDM) program had just been initiated and all of the marksmanship trainers had deployed to the Middle East. She told me that her son was looking for help from civilians who were high-power rifle shooters and who had experience with the M-14 platform.
They needed someone for a week to ten days to train and familiarize selected soldiers with the M14 platform and Leupold scopes that were to be used in the program. My schedule was such that I could not take that much time off but, my shooting partner, who was retired and a Distinguished Marksman, on the M14/M1A platform, was available. Between the two of us, we had over sixty years of service rifle competition experience but, neither of us were veterans.
At that time, my shooting partner had no experience with rifle scopes so, we developed a plan. He would be on sight and if any issues arose regarding issues with the scopes, he would call me on my cell phone to discuss the issue. Prior to him actually going to Ft. Campbell, we met for me to give him a briefing on scopes, adjustments and potential issues.
The plan worked very well and he did an excellent job in getting those troopers trained up on the M14 platform and the optics. As I said, he is/was and engineer and worked on aerospace projects from Apollo to the Space Shuttle. That being said, one of the first issues was that due to the shortage of true National Match M14's, two SDM's were assigned to one rifle each. He couldn't figure out why when shoot A had zeroed the rifle for themselves, that the zero would not work for the second shooter.
He and I spent a couple of hours in conversation for me to convince him that no two shooters would ever have the same zero due to differences in size, length of arms, necks, etc.... He finally got it and the solution was for each shooter to keep a data book for them to make the necessary corrections from their fellow shooter's zero in order to put their zero on the rifle/scope combination. It worked.
We talked every day and most evenings when he returned from Ft. Campbell to discuss issues and trouble shoot problems. It worked great and I enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity to help him and especially the SDM program. The ammo that was initially used in the program was the M118 Special Ball. This was essential the same a the M118 National Match ("White Box") ammo but, the primers were crimped. This round, as most of you know, was loaded with the 173 grain FMJ, match bullet.
The later M118 LR rounds, as reported by others, was loaded with the 175 grain Sierra Match bullet. That ammo was introduced later in the Middle Eastern conflict.
All, in all, the SDM program seemed to work very well. My shooting partner kept tabs on many of the troopers that he personally met and trained. I had no direct contact with those fine men and women but, appreciated their service and sacrifice. The SDM from that unit suffered a noticeable rate of casualties but, gave better than they got.
I am an attorney and got a call one day from the secretary for one of our Circuit Court Judges regarding her son, who was at that time a Lt. Col. in the 101st Airborne at Ft. Campbell. The squad designated marksman (SDM) program had just been initiated and all of the marksmanship trainers had deployed to the Middle East. She told me that her son was looking for help from civilians who were high-power rifle shooters and who had experience with the M-14 platform.
They needed someone for a week to ten days to train and familiarize selected soldiers with the M14 platform and Leupold scopes that were to be used in the program. My schedule was such that I could not take that much time off but, my shooting partner, who was retired and a Distinguished Marksman, on the M14/M1A platform, was available. Between the two of us, we had over sixty years of service rifle competition experience but, neither of us were veterans.
At that time, my shooting partner had no experience with rifle scopes so, we developed a plan. He would be on sight and if any issues arose regarding issues with the scopes, he would call me on my cell phone to discuss the issue. Prior to him actually going to Ft. Campbell, we met for me to give him a briefing on scopes, adjustments and potential issues.
The plan worked very well and he did an excellent job in getting those troopers trained up on the M14 platform and the optics. As I said, he is/was and engineer and worked on aerospace projects from Apollo to the Space Shuttle. That being said, one of the first issues was that due to the shortage of true National Match M14's, two SDM's were assigned to one rifle each. He couldn't figure out why when shoot A had zeroed the rifle for themselves, that the zero would not work for the second shooter.
He and I spent a couple of hours in conversation for me to convince him that no two shooters would ever have the same zero due to differences in size, length of arms, necks, etc.... He finally got it and the solution was for each shooter to keep a data book for them to make the necessary corrections from their fellow shooter's zero in order to put their zero on the rifle/scope combination. It worked.
We talked every day and most evenings when he returned from Ft. Campbell to discuss issues and trouble shoot problems. It worked great and I enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity to help him and especially the SDM program. The ammo that was initially used in the program was the M118 Special Ball. This was essential the same a the M118 National Match ("White Box") ammo but, the primers were crimped. This round, as most of you know, was loaded with the 173 grain FMJ, match bullet.
The later M118 LR rounds, as reported by others, was loaded with the 175 grain Sierra Match bullet. That ammo was introduced later in the Middle Eastern conflict.
All, in all, the SDM program seemed to work very well. My shooting partner kept tabs on many of the troopers that he personally met and trained. I had no direct contact with those fine men and women but, appreciated their service and sacrifice. The SDM from that unit suffered a noticeable rate of casualties but, gave better than they got.
Any Service rifle shooters remember taking M118 white or brown box, and pull the bullets and re-seating Sierra MK 168 bullets?
Was called Mexican Match in those years..........We would do the same with M80 ball.......pull the 147 FMJ and re-seat any quality 150-155 grain bullets for the short course ( standing and sitting rapid at 200 yards.) They were seated to magazine length and away you go!
The casing, primers and powder were good to go....just not the bullet.
Randy
Was called Mexican Match in those years..........We would do the same with M80 ball.......pull the 147 FMJ and re-seat any quality 150-155 grain bullets for the short course ( standing and sitting rapid at 200 yards.) They were seated to magazine length and away you go!
The casing, primers and powder were good to go....just not the bullet.
Randy
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