Milsurp Mythbusting: Ultra High Pressure Czech 7.62x25

[@werre2]

So it's within specs and the most consistent.

[@kyfirearms]

I love the Tokarev. I have shot and chronographed a lot of different ammo. I have found the Czech is hotter and the TT pistol will handle it all with ease. Nice video 👍

[@hobofactory]

Thanks for watching!

[@314299]

I ran some Russian surplus (made in 1947) over the chronograph and it averaged 1482 fps from my TT33 pistol, Norinco commercial stuff averaged1472 fps. So that Czech ammo does not seem all that high speed by comparison.

[@theblindsniper9130]

I've seen tons of situations exactly like this, including with Turk ammo. I like that 8mm muaser man did his own testing on it, really helped disprove a lot of nonsense.

[@hobofactory]

It seems there’s a lot stuff people just repeat because someone who sounds really sure of themselves wrote it on a forum at some point. I think you tackled a similar thing testing to see if commercial steel-cased ammo is corrosive.

[@8mmmauserman]

Thanks to Hobofactory himself, I will soon be abole to test a whole bunch of Turkish 8mm.

[@loquat44-40]

@@8mmmauserman I have some turkish 8mm, but I have decided not to fire it. I may pull the bullet and reload with a lesser powder charges just to be safe. I also have a bit of bulgarian 7.62x25 that I am afraid to fire. I may break it down for the projectiles.

[@andrewgates8158]

​@hobofactory like when you couldn't confirm the galil was manufactured in a 7.62x39 variant chambering.

[@Toolness1]

There was also the Fudd lore that the CZ52 was built super strong to handle this rumored super hot ammo, and that it could take way hotter ammo than a standard Tokarev design....well a guy (Clark Magnuson) wrote about how he did overload testing on multiples of each of Tokarevs, CZ52s, and Broomhandle mausers using 7.62x25 of increasing over-pressure. The CZ52's all failed before the Broomhandle Mausers even though they are designed for a weaker cartridge. The Tokarev clones were the strongest by far. The failure point on the CZ52 is the thin area of the barrel above the roller lock mechanism, failed there every time. This was with intentionally over-loaded ammo though, not any commercial or milsurp loads. I thought the Fudd lore about Czech 7.62x25 wasn't that it was all super high pressure, it was supposedly a separate loading for submachine guns only. But I have never seen proof it exists and every test I have seen was this stuff that was maybe a tad hotter than others, but not any amount that would risk any 7.62x25 gun failing. I guarantee a Chinese Tokarev will handle anything a Russian, Polish, Yugo, or Romanian Tokarev will. I have gotten higher velocities out of S&B commercial ammo than that Czech milsurp in this test. I would have to go dig out my logbook but I know it was well above 1400 fps. EDIT> Grabbed my book. I was getting 1650 fps out of handguns with the S&B. Ed Harris says he clocked it as high as 1699fps in his CZ52 My CZ52 and Romanian, Polish, and Yugo Tokarevs have all eaten a ton of S&B 7.62x25 with no problem. So if this magic super Czech ammo exists, it must be well above 1650 fps. I think it's all BS

[@hobofactory]

Thanks for all of the additional info! I have also heard about the extra-hot SMG ammo lore (although not all of it is necessarily said to Czech in origin, though it is definitely sometimes said to be). The reason I didn’t really address that is because it’s difficult or even impossible to prove a negative experimentally (how do you prove the mythical SMG ammo DOESN’T exist, from somewhere?). I’ve just never seen any good evidence that it does. The Chinese clone comment was half-joking, I would expect it indeed would have survived equally well!

[@Toolness1]

@@hobofactory You're welcome, I enjoyed your vid. Yeah I've always wondered if they really ever did make the hot SMG ammo, seems like someone would have uncovered some by now but maybe they didn't make much of it. The case design can only contain so much pressure though despite what the gun might be able to handle, so I really doubt there was anything ever loaded too insanely hot and they wouldn't want to risk it getting mixed into handgun stashes and possibly damaging them. But I could be way off, that's all just guesses.

[@russbilzing5348]

@@Toolness1 Refer to my reply above.

[@1961goofy]

I didn't chrono it, but years ago, I had a couple of boxes of czech 7.62x25. This stuff was steel cased and came packed on stripper clips. The rounds felt really hot and they were steel core. The sparking against the range backstop was noticeable and set off a residual powder fire for about 30 seconds. about 25% of the cases had a split at the case mouth. I believe this ammo was made for their sub guns.

[@agoogleaccount2861]

If it was. It'd be a green lacquered case with a black primer and usually comes on those 8 round strips. Those are for a vz 48

[@chestertownelectric6290]

I had some surplus ammo that seemed very hot. When cases started to split in my CZ52, I stopped using that ammo.

[@0529mpb]

The Yugo is steel jacket, so not indoor range friendly. They have corrosive primers. It's good ammo. It's like comparing NATO 9mm to range 9mm.

[@RUSTYSURPLUS]

Hey Hobo thx for showing.. storage will have a small effect on the velocity.

[@hobofactory]

It certainly can. None of this ammo seemed corroded, boxes don’t show obvious water damage so I assume they’ve all been stored ok, but can’t say for sure.

[@davidkohler7454]

I bought several wood crates of Tok rnds several years back. Recently I opened one and have found several rounds that the necks were split and of course the bullet was loose enough to just wiggle out. I do know out of a TT they are pretty snappy ,and eject way high. But i mostly got them for my Ppsh 41 and 43. They are great for them. Pretty hot stuff though. Im not sure if over time they get hotter. IDK.

[@8mmmauserman]

I'm a simple man - I see a well made ammo video and I click like. Are all the bullets the same weight? Regardless, I really enjoyed this video. Thanks!

[@hobofactory]

Much appreciated! Unfortunately I didn’t pull any bullets to weigh them since I was more focused on the hyper-velocity aspect, but I likely will as I have another 7.62x25 “internet lore” video in development.

[@8mmmauserman]

@@hobofactory Nice. I'm sad there aren't defensive guns made in a cartridge like 7.62 Tokarev

[@MegaBait1616]

Gotta look now in my basement think I still have a couple spam cans left.......This was dirt cheap.... Not Now...... be well.

[@hobofactory]

Yeah I do miss the days of the ultra-cheap spam cans.

[@MegaBait1616]

@@hobofactory , me too.........although just picked up a 900 rd. case of .8mm Yugo Mauser M-75 ammo for 500 bucks..

[@russbilzing5348]

The surplus Polish fodder that I am familiar with uses a steel cored (mild steel instead of lead core), bullet. This might , of necessity, give them a higher speed, especially when fired through a PPSH, PPS or other machine rifles, due to the longer barrels.

[@bigtrev761]

🇦🇺😎👍Great velocities 🏁

[@georgeking3218]

Years back when I had a CZ 52, I was warned that the Bulgarian 7.62 X 25 was the bad over pressure ammo. And to avoid it use in the 52. Some of the Czech military stuff has a steel core, (sintered iron?) and is prohibited from import and commercial sale by the feds. It's packed on steel stripper clips, to be used by the magazine loader mounted on the forearm of the Czech sub guns.

[@loquat4440]

The core of some of that ammo deformed the steel edge of some wire cutters that I was using to cut away the jacket to expose the core. The core was not scratched. My guess is that the core could be heat treated steel. This stuff was loaded in 8 round strippers intended for submachine guns.

[@Nonfunctioning]

Its the same reason this myth developed the Bulgarian ammo is fine but was being shot through Cz-52s which fail at the locking block/ bottom of the barrel due to metal fatigue and the barrel being thinner there. Its not an ammo problem.

[@loquat4440]

@@Nonfunctioning The bulgarian ammo forms neck cracks. The hypothesis was that a piece or section of the neck remained in the chamber causing the high pressures. The CZ52 was said to ok with czech ammo that is known to be hot and it is true that the CZ52 weaker in that area than is the barrel and chamber area of a TT33 tokarev. I have a bunch of bulgarian 53 ammo that I might sell or trade to a local person to in NW FL.

[@gwen6518]

What year was the czech ammo made. I had a few boxes of czech sub gun ammo made in 1948 that worked fine in the cz 52. It was a bit hot for my Yugo 57 only tryed on mag full.

[@hobofactory]

I’m not 100% clear, the box indicates 1951 in a couple of spots but the cases are headstamped 53. So not sure if that means some components (e.g. powder) were produced in 1951 but the actual cartridge wasn’t made till 1953.

[@donwyoming1936]

The Czech ammo on stripper clips appears to be for submachineguns. It's on clips to load SMG mags. I have no idea if they also used the same ammo in the CZ-52. I would assume so. Just have to take it off the clips. All my 7.62X25 pistols prefer the Chinese ammo. It shoots very smooth, for lack of a better term. I did have a CZ-52 blow up with the "Bad Bulgarian" ammo Century imported. Discovered that about 1/3rd of the projectiles were seriously deformed when crimped into the case. The mushroomed bases on the deformed projectiles may have caused significantly higher pressures

[@hobofactory]

I’ve always been skeptical that the loadings differed between pistol and SMG. As far as Bulgarian stuff, I was thinking of testing that one as well.

[@TheXterramann]

maybe due to bullet weights difference ?

[@estevevilla78]

Where to get ammo

[@nikolaurosevic650]

for yugo it ays for pistol and smg.... so its standard pressure. If the box sais za automat ( for smg) it would be a lot hotter.

[@hobofactory]

Yep, I do know my Cyrillic alphabet (know a related language). I have never been able locate any SMG ammo on the market here, unfortunately.

[@للبطولةسجلونييماني-ر3ط]

لدي ذخيرة تشيكية صنعت عام 1953 لدي كميات هائلة انا من اليمن واريد نصيحتك.

[@mefirst5427]

Those are corrosive you better clean the bore

[@loquat44-40]

What you showed only holds true for those specific lots of ammo. Did you break down any of the projectiles to see if they were steel core or not. Some of the czech but not all came with hardened steel cores. but of course you are showing real data and that is worth a lot.

[@hobofactory]

I did not pull any apart since I was mainly concerned with the velocity aspect of the lore. You are quite right in that I can’t necessarily safely generalize my results to all Czech x25 ammo, but to my knowledge no else has ever bothered to record any testing at all (or perhaps no one that’s shared their results)… but if anyone out there wants to send me additional ammo of differing lots, I’d gladly test it! :D

[@JasonBrown-vn1zz]

Have you tried the ppu it's suppose to be pretty fast

[@hobofactory]

I’ve fired a few boxes before but not through a chronograph.

[@imeprezime1285]

Try newer Czech ammo