Any thoughts on Chinese-Made Rifle Rounds ?

[swamp thang 16]

In this neck of the woods, rifle rounds are scarce as chicken's teeth, so I jumped at a chance to acquire two 20-packs of .308 Winchester rifle rounds for my Steyr Hunter Pro, so that I could get in a bit more target practice without running out of ammo.

 

When the ammo that I had paid for arrived, I was taken aback to note that it was Chinese made, even though the dimensions of the cartridges did seem identical to the factory rounds I already have. Also, the base of each catridge, where the caliber is normally stamped, was instead marked with some cryptic numbers that did not relate to the caliber of the round. Finally, the bullet and the shell casing were exactly the same bronze color, on these Chinese rounds, unlike all other rifle rounds I have seen where the brass shell casing is NOT the same color as the bullet.

 

With the reputation of exceptionally poor build quality on most Chinese-manufactured products out there, I got to wondering if I should just take these two packets of 308 rounds and deep-six them in the swamp, rather than risk shooting what might turn out to be old, expired stock well past its sell-by date. Back in the day when I dabbled with a 7.62x39mm Kalashnikov rifle at the shooting range, I worked my way through quite a few crates of Chinese made AK rounds, with no misfires or mishaps, but these rounds, with their odd color and absence of caliber markings, make me nervous enough to ask here what you old hands think of the rounds I just bought, and about their safety or otherwise for target practice use.

 

Any opinions would be much appreciated. I'd much rather ditch the whole lot and lose my purchase price, than take a shot and wish I hadn't.

[matt_hooks 188]

The Chinese are more than capable of making high quality goods. Granted most of the product we see from there is pretty poor, but that's more down to the economics of the situation than any inherent inability to produce quality. We demand low priced goods, and the easiest way to reduce price is to reduce quality.

 

As for the rounds, I guess there's no way of knowing other than to run a few through the rifle.

[PlasticJock 539]

Military rounds (I'm assuming that's what these are) and mass produced rounds are inherently more accurate than standard off the shelf stuff apparently.

 

As Matt said, the only way is to test fire a few...

[swamp thang 16]

Matt and Plastic Jock, I thank you both very much for this vote of confidence in this Chinese ammo. Your assurances do calm my worries, and I will head out to try a few shots in the next couple of days. With rifle ammo so scarce here, I wasn't looking forward to discarding what little I could find to buy, so it is good to hear that panic measure won't be necessary.

 

Thanks again, fellas, and happy hunting.