The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

I have a hypothetical issue with applying for a FAC, which may well become a real issue for me in the future;
How do the police handle firearms that can safely fire multiple calibers of ammunition?

I'm specifically talking about the mosin M39, which can fire 7.62x54R as well as 7.62x53R, however this could also apply to several other calibers, such as some .357 magnum guns being able to shoot .38, and so on.

Every M39 I've seen in the UK has been registered as chambered in 7.62x54R, however they tend to be more accurate when shooting the very slightly different 7.62x53R. Is it possible, when applying for a FAC which has an M39 on it, to ask for both calibers of ammunition? Or is the ammunition considered to be essentially the same, so you don't need to worry about differentiating it? The 53R isn't readily available new, put the parts to hand-load it are easily obtainable; does this make a difference?

not sure if it is a problem, as the original wasn't built to shoot cast loads yet we make up ammunition using cast loads all the time, now where it would be a problem is if you were making 7.62x53R ammo up using cut down 7.62x54R cases in order to get a sec58 rifle firing an obsolete cartridge up and running, if you didnt have the rifle on your FAC I could see that being a big problem should you get caught at it !
that said I haven't looked to see if the Finnish cartridge is obsolete.

The Finnish cartridge isn't considered obsolete, as it is still -VERY RARELY- available, and it is still being produced.

You can buy 7.62x53R cases brand new from Lapua, you wouldn't have to use cut down 54R cases; same goes for the bullets.

The Finnish M27 and M28/30 had a nominal bore diameter of .3082" but on the M39 the bore diameter was changed to .310" so it will shoot Russian .310-.311" 7.62x54r perfectly well, infact the Finns changed the bore diameter so they could take advantage of all the captured ammunition they had..........and chances are a .308" will be inaccurate (don't ask me how I know!) in a .310-.311" bore.It is a good idea to slug the bore on Mosin's to see what the actually diameter is as I've seen well used Russian Mosin's with .314" bores.I have a 1926 Izhevsk ex-Dragoon that shoots very nicely with .312" Hornady bullets but not so well with .310" bullets (Russian/ComBloc 54r military ammunition varies from .310" to .311" depending on the factory/country of origin, I've had some 1980's Egyptian milsurp 54r that was actually loaded with .308" bullets!)

Whilst there are slight dimensional differences between a 53r and a 54r case chances are they won't make much difference in a Mosin chamber, whether it's Russian or Finnish.

I have currently got Russian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Chinese and Egyptian milsurp rounds as well as PPU commercial ammunition and on all of them the case length varies very slightly, but all chamber perfectly in my rifles, the Hungarian light ball I have has actually got the same case length as Finnish 53r but is marked as 54r.

A link to a site with some excellent Finnish (and Russian etc) Mosin information.......


http://mosinnagant.net/finland/finnish_ ... antm39.asp

Ooh, I'm always looking for more sites to trawl through. You may have already seen it, but take on of my favourites in return: http://7.62x54r.net/

The 53R itself generally uses a D166 bullet, which is .310 in diameter; it's what the M39 was originally designed to use, so it won't be an issue for the bore size. Interestingly, it's very heavy - 200 grains - and has a 'boat tail' Apparently is has a very flat trajectory. Here's a picture of one, it looks odd compared to normal mosin bullets: https://media.mwstatic.com/product-imag ... 21823.webp

The M39s actually have a slightly different shaped receiver which works better with the shorter cases; I believe the 53R also has a slightly different taper at the neck. Whatever the cause, people frequently show that the accuracy is notably better when using a proper 53R case, even compared to a similar 54R handload.

It's by no means the end of the world if I can't get any 53R on my FAC, but it would be nice to have maybe 300 54R for general shooting and 50-100 53R for handloads if possible.

All Finnish Mosin's use Russian receivers, whilst some were fitted with Finnish made barrels the Finns never domestically produced their own receivers.

I seriously wouldn't bother with 53r cases, just use 54r cases.Commercial 7.62x54r from the likes of Sellier and Bellot and PPU etc are shot in Finnish .310"-.311" Mosins with no problem, same with Russian Barnaul ammunition.I believe the main reason that the Finnish variant is called "7.62x53r" isn't really about the case length, as the Finns rounded down whereas the Russians etc rounded up, but because the Finnish cartridge uses a .308 diameter bullet versus the Russian .310-.312. It has to do with naming conventions. You can't have 2 cartridges that are identical in every way except the bullet diameter and still call it the same thing if that makes sense.

BeerBelly wrote:How do the police handle firearms that can safely fire multiple calibers of ammunition?

I would have thought you could just ask for 7.62x54r/7.62x53r for both rifle and ammunition. Lots of lever actions are in multiple calibres e.g. with .38sp and .357 magnum. I’ve got .223/5.56 for one of mine to avoid any issues.

Alberto wrote:

BeerBelly wrote:How do the police handle firearms that can safely fire multiple calibers of ammunition?

I would have thought you could just ask for 7.62x54r/7.62x53r for both rifle and ammunition. Lots of lever actions are in multiple calibres e.g. with .38sp and .357 magnum. I’ve got .223/5.56 for one of mine to avoid any issues.

This /\ /\ /\ I have .223Rem/5.56x45mm and .308Win/7.62x51mm on my ticket and in the past have had .38/.357, no biggie.

Exactly the information I was looking for, thanks guys!

The police will only give you slots for specific calibres so for example you can have .308 or 7.62 for your rifle. You cannot have .308/7.65 (you could ask for two slots though). In terms of ammunition i explained that my rifle could use either and my ammo slot is .308/7.62. Some RFD's will sell you 7.62 ammunition if you have .308 on your ticket and vice versa but many won't. Note that none of my slots (rifles or ammunition) are chamber specific.