Ok, So I go to the range today to test out my brake exchange, on a Saiga and my Wasr10...

Swapped out the AK74 brake on my S-.223 for one of them drag brakes that Rick was selling... (like the one stokstad has on his)...Pics to follow in another thread in the proper spot... and I put the AK74 style brake on my WASR, after removing the slant brake it came with... also... pics to follow elsewhere...

There was a mag hanging around with my last few rounds of Olympic left in it still, which UP TO this day have NOT proven bad other than significantly noticeable accuracy reduction compared with the wolf...

Until ONE ROUND took it in the ass....

IT went PFFFT!! It LOCKED my bolt carrier in the closed position, I had to take the cover off, the spring out and then beat on it to get it to extract the shell out of the chamber... LUCKILY the bullet was NOT lodged in the barrel but was STILL in the brass...

When I got it out, upon inspection, I was quite suprised to see this...

Click to view attachment

Needless to say, I was NOT pleased to have one of these in my rifle... even if it IS a cheap WASR10...

So follow the common consensus gentlemen... Olympic is CHEAP... and it is NOT the best to use, if you can buy something else for the same price!!!

did the shell go off or was it just the primer that whent off?
it looks like the Xplosion cracked the sheel if it did not send the led flying when the shell was struck your lucky it Did'nt Xpload in your face

Yikes!!!

it APPEARS that JUST the primer went off... I should pull the bullet to see whats in the casing...

ok... 2 minutes later, bullet pulled, powder is fine, bullet is fine, it LOOKS like the primer hole is OPEN... Ok... so...

AH HA!!!!

I found it.....

I pulled the PRIMER OUT... those fucktards put the primer in SIDEWAYS!!!!! Let me rephrase that.. MASHED the primer in sideways... then sealed it with laquer... the sideways primer, then sealed the flash hole with the edge of the primer. So it fired out the SIDE of the primer ring, not down into the shell... thats why it back blasted and was fucked up... GO FIGURE...

Mind you... had any flash gotten inside the shell, it probably would have fired off normally and I wouldnt have even had a CLUE that anything was wrong...

Chances are... the force of the primer on the SIDE of the brass expanded the casing in the chamber, just enough that it was hard to remove... had it fired, it would have probably had enough backwards force to kick it out... If not... It would have fired, then jammed the NEXT round as the chamber wouldn't be empty. and then I would have had to fuck with it to get the EMPTY casing out of the chamber...

Well gents... there you have it... sideways inserted primer in the Olympic.. watch out if you have any... inspect them and be careful... dont want none of you guys gettin hurt...

I think the lesson here is that one should inspect every round before loading it into a magazine. Unfortunately, I have not been in the habit of doing this, but I have been in the habit of keeping most of my ammo in magazines, eg, keeping all my magazines full.

I guess I should unload them and reload them, and inspect all the rounds.

So, the things to look for that I know about:
- odd seating of the bullet
- defects in the case
- primer sideways or otherwise unusual
- shake it to make sure you can hear the powder, and it sounds like sand (?? heard of someone doing this.)

anything else?

By the way, this is not the chore it probably sounds like, cause I have a LULA. The things really work great. The girlfriend is upset that I loaded all the mags, and she wants to load them, so now we have an excuse and she can load a bunch (but I'm only going to go 50/50 with her.)

Have you ever had contention over who gets to load the mags in your house? No? Then you need a LULA! :-)

see the other olympic thread for the many MANY bad results I have had.

http://forum.saiga-12.com/index.php?showtopic=8095

Thanks for the range report. I never saw Olympic ammo for sale around here or even looked into cheaper ammo than Wolf. I thought Wolf was as low as it gets! After hearing about this, and Bvamps bad experiance, Ill stay with Wolf.

I buy Wolf at Cabela's by the 1k box. Ive never had any probs......ok I had a dud once. Out of a few thousand rounds, one dud. I racked it out, and kept shooting. But never anything as bad as a sideways primer, Jeeesh!

Thanks for shareing that.

Actually if the thing had ingnited the load, I imagine that you might have had something close to a full case rupture with the gases coming back thru the primer and into the bolt. I guess I will keep away from olympic ammo in all calibers now.

Ok this ammo info is all fine and dandy but how did the FH work. I havn't had a chance to try mine yet.

Well, the one on the WASR 10 functioned just fine, as I would expect an AK74 style brake to function. Although it still seemed to me to be about the same as the slant brake... baybe a SLIGHT reduction in recoil over the slant brake...

As far as the FH on the .223... that is NICE... more for looks than anything else, I think... It works... flash comes out the holes when you shoot... LOL I never shot it in the dark, so I dunno how well it works to reduce flash!

I was rummaging thru the junk on my shelf at my compter table here... and I came across a few cartridges...

Two of which were 7.62X39 OLYMPIC... ONE is the one I pictured here... the one that I took the primer out to check, and it was in sideways... so I LOOK AT THE OTHER ONE...

HOLY SHIT...

THAT ONE HAD A SIDEWAYS PRIMER TOO!!!!!!!!

I hadnt realized it, looking at it before, as it was tossed up on the shelf days or weeks before the one I took apart to CHECK the primer... But upon inspection... it too had a sideways inserted primer!

So out of 200 rounds of Olympic... I had TWO with sideways primers!!! ( thats not counting the ones that might not have gone off, and I just cycled them and ignored them, without picking them up to inspect... )

Needless to say... TWO sideways primers is TOTALLY uncalled-for and potentially VERY DANGEROUS...

STAY AWAY FROM OLYMPIC AMMO, folks!!!!!

I remember some Olympic threads from the past, and I had concurred that the stuff was junk. But I just finished off the last 200 of 400 rounds yesterday, including bump firing two 30 round mags full without a hitch. I still wouldn't suggest anyone run out and buy the stuff without checking the rounds over, but with this current drought of good 7.62x39, I would buy it again, especially if it was under 4 bucks for a 40 round box.

I suppose I would too.... if it was all I could find, and cheap...

I would just want to inspect each round before firing...

I had some bad rounds with Wolf as well, manily failure to ignite a few times. I also had the same problem with Brown Bear once. I only tried one box of 40 rounds of Olympic and haven't had problems but I read about their ammo not being the best.

there was an interesting article in american rifleman this month about a secret project to sabatoge ak rounds during vietnam and have them explode in the rifle! Kinda reminded me of that. That sucks though..

Hello
I store my handloads in 100 round plastic trays in Mil-Surp metal cans. I used to put them in the trays primer-down, so the bullet type was obvious, but now, I load them primer-up so I can inspect them all at a glance. Don't need a sideways or backwards primer loaded in a round I'm depending on.

Respectfully,
guido2 in Houston

I haven't had a problem with Wolf ammunition yet but I was thinking about trying out Olympic. After reading this article, I'm sticking with Wolf!