Korean Surplus .30 Carbine ammo

35 Whelen wrote: Interesting stuff guys. My can of Korean arrived three hours ago. I had no idea FedEx delivers on Sunday! Anyhow, if time permits tomorrow I'll shoot a little of it and run it over the chronograph.   Do any of you guys keep your brass to sell? It'll easily bring 10¢ per each and if a fella was to spring for the shipping and use a Flat Rate Box, he could probably get 15¢ per each.

Yeah... I now see I somehow missed post #6 and the replies on soot earlier in the thread. I did notice a lot of the red primer seal on the bolt face, but no soot there or on the case face. It was all in the chamber and walls of the case.

choprboy wrote: So I finally got a chance to use some of the Korean surplus I picked a few weeks back. It is all stamped "PSD 85" and no punched/backed out primers that I saw. However, it did seem to burn very dirty and not seal to the chamber properly. I ran 60 rounds of the Korean and all ran fine but 95%+ had soot on the outside of the case, I could see more in the chamber, and the area around the gas piston was filthy when I went to clean. I ran 20 rounds of the PPU interspersed with the Korean to compare and saw no evidence of dirty cases. Has anyone else thought the Korean surplus ran dirty?

It arrived today....... fast work.

Just shot 50 rounds of my PSD 85 ammo, lot # PSD85C110-046, checked every casing and found no punctured primers and no backed out primers. 

David Milisock wrote: Gorsnlb28 I think, do you have access to a chronograph? Can you weigh the fired brass please?  It looks like extreme pressure and maybe brass variations.

Unfortunately I don't have a chronograph or scale. I do know the ammo was consistently accurate same as my can of 81.

Gorsnlb28 I think, do you have access to a chronograph? Can you weigh the fired brass please? 

@jackp - yes I dont like the situation with the pierced primers [or primer backout] and hadn't seen any in the 81 batch after shooting around 3 bandoleers worth. I have never seen it with Lake City or commercial. I do collect all my brass and as part of that I always check for abnormalities. On the headspace, I have a full set of gauges and check every rifle I buy or build. After I saw the primer backout on those few I checked it again and headspace is perfect on that rifle... It is a very slight back out, attached a picture.

PS84 https://imgur.com/a/EMVAQaL

Since my first posting I bought another can which is PSD 84. Experienced 6 pierced primers in 110 rounds. Also a handful where there was a very slight back out of the primer.

After firing approximately 150 rounds in seven different carbines, I concluded that the Korean surplus ammo head stamped PSD 85 performs about the same as my other go-to lower cost plinking ammo, American Quality. The only problem I noticed is that about one round out of ten would suffer a pierced primer. The primers appear to be unplated brass whereas the American Quality primers look to be nickel plated. This condition results in a noticeable blast of smoke escaping the receiver that is somewhat annoying but not dangerous. There was no noticeable affect on accuracy or function when this occurred.

The picture below shows, from left to right, a Korean surplus case with the normal primer hit, a Korean surplus case with a punctured primer and a typical American Quality fired case.