Earlier this week I went shooting at my range with a good friend. He had recently acquired a significant amount of surplus 9mm ammunition in a trade. The ammo is Italian, assume it's 115gr FMJ, and corrosive since it's Berdan primed. Name is BPD, and it's dated 4/1953 on the box and 53 on the shell casing. Comes in a brown paper box with copper staples. The ammo is tarnished, but clean. Main problem with this ammo is it has very, very hard primers. I assume it was originally for sub gun use, but it's a nice shooting ammo that's not bad in the accuracy department. No flames, sharp recoiling or flattened primers (signs of high pressure) of surplus ammo I've seen in the past.

IN NO WAY IS THIS A THREAD TO SLAM ANY BRAND OF PISTOL ABOUT TO BE MENTIONED. JUST OBSERVATIONS AND A HEADS UP. My friend had brought 3 different pistols to shoot this ammo out of: a Glock 17 Gen 4, Taurus Mod 92, and a new Sig Arms Mod 2220. The Glock did not like this ammo, period. Maybe ignition every 2 to 3 rounds. Very light primer hits that didn't seem to dent the primers. A little better luck with the Taurus and Sig Arms due to being hammer fired. But, thankfully being double action pistols if they didn't fire on the first try they usually did on the second try. Plus ejection was light on all 3 pistols just like rolling out of the ejection ports by his feet. Huh? My fiend was not a happy camper at this point having almost 900rds of this ammo.

I happened to have my Browning Hi-Power with me. I said what the heck and loaded up a 13rd magazine and turned to. Out of the 200rds I fired I had one, yes one failure to fire. Re cocked hammer and round went off. Ejection was positive and brass landing in a nice area about 6-8 feet away. Nothing wrong with this ammo other than it's probably corrosive and filthy. So I bought my friends remaining 700rds for $70. I will only use this ammo for range purposes. I've shot corrosive ammo in the past with many firearms and never had a problem as long as you clean your firearms after your range session. My Hi-Power recoil spring was a OEM 17lb, and hammer strut spring a 26lb (Browning went to a 32lb in 1985 I believe with the introduction of the MKII).

I haven't seen primers this hard since the late 1980's when the market was flooded with this cheap sub gun Egyptian ammo that was corrosive, high pressure, filthy, but only $89 for 1400rd case delivered to your door step! At the time this ammo didn't work in a friends early Glock which kept me from buying one for 27 years ( I now have 4 Glocks and would bet my life on them). Just thought I'd share. If you've shot this ammo I'd like to hear your story.

I have some of that stuff. The ROF of my STEn went from 500ish RPM to 700ish RPM.

In my experience, DA 2/3 rd gen Smith autos loved that hard primer MG ammo. I had some of that and it was awful hard on a 92FS locking block.

Does it pass a magnet test? I've had some czech that was steel jacketed from that same era.

Thanks for the replies. First off the ammo is non magnetic. I guess OTTOSEAR your ROF increased due to your bolt not traveling as far back meaning weaker ammo? Help me out on this one. I take this ammo as being moderate power. Amazing people would pay $20 for a box of 50rds. And it never crossed my mind that 2nd & 3rd Gen Smith's would like this ammo. It's been sometime since I fired either generation.

The older P series Rugers used to eat hard primer ammo. Glock makes a heavier firing pin spring for markets outside the US with hard primered ammo . It raises the trigger pull and changes the break to be a little cleaner . It works well

While I suspect this ammo is indeed corrosive ( no big deal of course just clean gun after shooting with appropriate cleaners) just because a round is berdan primed does not automatically mean corrosive just typical European type primers.

Thats hard primer stuff and will rust your gun up clean her good .

I would not shoot hot ammo in a BHP, especially with a stock spring.