I have searched all (all I can find) the big ammo data base sites with no luck. ??? I have a lot of this ammo I would like to identify.
Date stamp is 82, M80 7.62, maker initials are: OFV
I have some other 7.62 X 51 stamped OFN which is "Ordinance Factory Nigeria".
Anyone know anything about this OFV? Date on 10 round boxes is 85.
-fb
OFV is Indian mfg.
By most accounts not very good or desireable ammo. There is discussion about it on both CMP forums and FAL forums.
I had a small amount and it wasn't good at all. Some of it keyholed at 25 yards and very erratic velocity.
Yep its Indian. I had 2 lots, 1 was early 80's on stippers and bandoliers. It shot pretty well. The 2nd was mid-90's and loose packed. It was terrible so i pulled it down. A lot of the bullet cores were very poor. Some were overfilled and a bunch were half empty. The powder charges varied between 35gr and 48 gr. I culled out the worst of the components and reloaded it with a somewhat reduced charge. It will now shoot 4min if you squint real hard but its never going to be match ammo.
Regarding Indian ammo,,,the 411 is , prior to 1980 the Brits ran the factory, and the ammo was o.k.,,,if you run onto any OVF dated in the 1970's your gtg.
After 1980 the Indians took over and quality went away.
Up through mid 80's, it's said to be OK.
Late 90's, it's crap.
And, though it may be boxer primed, do NOT reload the brass. Inconsistent wall thickness, weak sidewalls.
I blew up my M14 clone with this brass, had a case head blowout. Cost me a bolt, ejector, stock, a mag and a $300 Emergency room bill to get metal chunks removed from my palm.
It was NOT an overload, either (wasn't even a max load, just slightly under).
I've still got about 600 rounds of '97 vintage Indian. I'm saving it for when I have no choice. I'll say it's better than nothing, though I'll restrict it to my bolt gun.
Nickle,
Now that you mention it I recall having some case failures as well. Not seperations but verticle cracks through the body of the case on the first firing.
It was not good stuff.
Quote from: Nickle on July 15, 2009, 09:44:10 AM
Up through mid 80's, it's said to be OK.
Late 90's, it's crap.
And, though it may be boxer primed, do NOT reload the brass. Inconsistent wall thickness, weak sidewalls.
I blew up my M14 clone with this brass, had a case head blowout. Cost me a bolt, ejector, stock, a mag and a $300 Emergency room bill to get metal chunks removed from my palm.
It was NOT an overload, either (wasn't even a max load, just slightly under).
I've still got about 600 rounds of '97 vintage Indian. I'm saving it for when I have no choice. I'll say it's better than nothing, though I'll restrict it to my bolt gun.
Thank you for this info. I've got about 300 once fired cases of this that I am in the process of prepping. I will discard this brass instead.
I also have about 300 cases that I pulled the components out of. I was going to reload the cases. Do you think that would be OK? It has never been fired. Or, would I be better off ditching that brass as well and loading the remaing components in US brass?
Thanks,
Brad
Nickle had his problem because the standard mil-spec chambers on M-14 & clones are huge relatively speaking. On mine I can take fired brass and drop it into the chamber and gently close the bolt easily w/o any problems. This is neccessary for reliability in battle conditions with ammo that may be dirty or not meet all the spec. Can't run too a gunstore in the middle of a firefight! ++) They make up for this slop in the chamber by making stronger & heavier walled brass like Lake City that can take more of the pressure. This brass consequently has a smaller case capacity than most commercial brass and you have to reduce and recheck your load if going from commercial brass to Lake City or other quality military brass.
If you inspect your brass carefully and use the softer bottom end loads with middle of the road powders like imr-4895 or win 760748 (my bad was looking at a can of 760 on my desk while I was typing!) in the reloading manuals, you can reload the Indian brass for use in bolt guns. If you chase velocity you are going to have more problems. I'm on my 2nd reloading of this brass (OFV 97)and after firing each time about 1-2% of the necks are split. I could probably anneal the necks and probably do better but its too much effort for too little return. I keep this stuff separate from everything else and only shoot it out of a good conditon Ishapore enfield (bolt gun with a very strong action). I've also shot it in a Remington 700 with out problem.
Head stamp codes are here:
http://www.igman.com/ammunition/codes/
Under the qualifications Joe makes, he's right.
Keep it to quality bolt guns, Like a Remington 700 or 600, or a Winchester 70 series.
Don't use it in an M14 clone, as the base of the chamber isn't fully supported.
Keep the load to a little on the light side of what you would load in USGI brass, which is lower than commercial brass. The load I used was one that was very slightly on the soft side if I was using Lake City brass. And, I was using 4895. WC 844 or WC 846, and Win 748, BL-C 2 or H335 are all good choices as well.
Thanks for the heads up on the Indian ammo I have. I did not pay much for it. It will go in the "emergency" area of my storage shed with notes as to what poor quality it is. $$-0
Maybe I can sell it to a liberal. :D Some of 'em own 'guns'.
-fb
If you decide to keep it, look at every single round and cull the really bad ones. Some of them have bad necks, like the bullet caught the case mouth while it was being loaded. Some of them are badly out of round. Either of those will cause an unfired round to stick in your chamber or maybe not chamber at all. Some have very thin rims. That could cause a whole other catastrophe.
Here's what I did with mine. I pulled down every single round. I tossed the worst of the cases and bullets. Resized every case, without punching the primer of course. Trimmed the cases to uniformity. Separated the bullets by weight. The bulk of them fell to within a couple grains with some extremes at both ends. Then I recharged with a uniform powder charge (the pulled powder) and reseated the good bullets. The lower end of the charges that I pulled was about 41 grains, so I used that. It gives a nice soft-shooting 2600 fps that will cycle an M1A and group within 4 MOA. But after reading about Nickle's kaboom, I probably won't use it in my M14 clone anymore either.
It took quite a bit of time, but it's a labor of love. Plus a lot of it can be done in front of the idiot box during the evening.
I will not be held responsible if someone decides to do what I did and blows their self up.
And if anyone has some of this and wants to get rid of it, I will buy it if it's a really, really good deal.
Take care,
Clod
I've run about 100 rds of OFV 75 through my DPMS AP4 (which is kinda picky about feeding anything on the higher end of spec) w/o any problems. No experience with the newer stuff though.
Guy
From a newbee, I have 400 rds. of Jan. 1980's OPV that appears to be in good condition and intend to run it thru a 1919a4 semiauto, any info will be gladly accepted as I do not to damage me( not into pain) or the gun. Thanks, Smokering.