Please correct me if I am wrong. But it is my understanding that Wolf, Golden Tiger, Tula, etc. are all companies that make ammunition for government contracts in Europe. And, that some of the ammo we purchase is simply 'branded' overruns of government contract ammunition. I base this on the fact that SGammo stated that the reason Golden Tiger was sparse for a while was that the company made more money filling government contract orders than it did exporting it to us. At the very least, I would assume, that the manufacturers use the same equipment and raw materials to manufacture government / military ammunition as they do the ammo we buy. Is there any logic and / or truth to my assumption?

If what I have assumed is true, I have a few follow up questions.

If a government / military (for sake of argument, let's say Russia) was to place an order for 7.62x39 ammo to use in their uppermost tier combat unit (just assume they would be using 7.62x39 even though they probably wouldn't), what do you think they would use? I would assume that Russia adheres to the Hague Convention and must use FMJ only. Do you think that their ammunition uses the same projectiles as the ammo we buy? What weight of projectiles would they get? Simple FMJ or FMJBT? Do you think that they use a proprietary projectile? Sealed case & primer or not?

I am just curious. Any knowledge or speculation is appreciated.

Military surplus 7.62 (M67 excepted), when we got it, was quite different than the commercial ammo we currently get. Corrosive primers, low(er) flash powders, hollow-cavity FMJ bullets....all designed for military demands. I've never had the pleasure of shooting any, so I can't say whether it was loaded with any degree of consistency.

I think "military contracts" refers to exporting cheap ammo to various shit holes currently burning around the globe, not to use by European militaries themselves.

The ammo we can buy now for the most part and all the ones you mentioned plus all the rest of them, is commercial ammo made by factories that also supply (or supplied at one time) various militaries using 7.62x39. It is not, with the exception of M67, actual military ammo. That is exactly why M67 stays in demand even though it is corrosive. However, GT for one has good accuracy, is relatively inexpensive, is non-corrosive, has sealed primer and cannelure and chronos out to equal hot military ammo. So, there is really no good reason to insist on surplus mil 7.62x39 except for the M67 which still has a pretty good price for brass cased/copper-jacketed lead-core ammo.

Thank you for the info. Why did SGammo state that GT was hard to get, earlier this year, because military contracts were paying more than the manufacturer could get by exporting it?

It's my understanding that when these factories aren't completing military contracts they keep machines & employees busy stamping out our civilian ammo.

I was under the impression he was talking about GT 5.45 when he said this.

If some country or another decided to use GT for military ammo, it doesn't change the fact that it is commercial ammo. But if that's true, it raises my opinion of GT even more!

GT is a brand name, just like Wolf, Tulammo, the various "Bears". None of it is surplus, all of it is purpose made to meet US import requirements. GT is commercial ammunition made at the Vympel ammunition plant in Russia. Last I knew, this was a Russian government built and operated plant. Since it is the newest and most modern of the Russian ammunition factories and originally set up to produce 5.45 for the Russian military, is suspect that government orders take priority.

Since we cannot import steel core 7.62 and 5.45, all of the European manufacturers had to re-tool to make lead core projectiles for the US market.

Export contracts to other countries, either commercial or military would be at whatever specification the customer specified.

1DD