Initial Review: Turkish .30-06 From Tactical Shit

This post is a review of the surplus Turkish MKE (Makina ve Kimya Endüstrisi) .30-06 ammunition made for a disintegrating link belt-fed machine gun, and purchased from Tactical Shit. It lists for $335 for a case of 400 rounds. The ammo is linked in four round units with disintegrating links and is advertised as non-corrosive. The ad states that it is 151gr M2 Ball and was made from 1962 until 1978, however as you will see what I received is newer. I received my ammo very fast (5 days from order to delivery from Missouri) delivered by UPS. Because of Kommiecticut state law, I had to send them a copy of my state pistol permit to buy ammo, but unlike the CMP this was not a problem, nor did it cause a delay. A range report will be forthcoming as soon as I can get there to actually shoot it.

It came in this outer carton. Weight was 30 pounds.

 

There was no damage to the outer carton, but the corner of the box the ammo was in had the corner crushed in by handling prior to shipping. Problem?

Nope. The way the ammo was placed in the box allowed the ammo to move and not be damaged. The blue foam on top was hard and crispy from age.

 

From what I saw and this picture shows, the visible ammo is really clean. Near the end of the Greek surplus from The CMP, they were selling 200 round cans of loose rounds and some of them had exterior corrosion on them that I cleaned off with 0000 steel wool. So I decided to dig down through the ammo to the bottom and see what it looked like below the surface. All clean.

Upon closer inspection there was slight green corrosion here and there, but only on the links, the brass was clean.

UPDATE 7-28-23: It turns out NOT to be corrosion on the links, but residue from the crumbling foam packing on the top of the ammo pile that was rubbing on the ammo on top. It brushes off easily.

As I wrote above this ammo had newer head stamps than what was advertised. All of this ammo is dated 1983.

Next was trying to disassemble the linked four rounds for re-insertion into an enbloc clip for an M-1. It wasn't too difficult. I used a block of wood and pressed the bullet tip downward on the wood while holding the links. The round slid out with little effort. Doing a large number of dis-assemblies, it might be wise to wear some mechanics gloves. As you can see, there was no corrosion under the links. All the assemblies I took apart looked like this.

I noticed these rounds looked different from the Greek ammo. You can see ribbed cannelure at the case neck. I wondered about overall length, so I grabbed my Vernier Caliper to measure. Sure enough they are slightly longer. The Greek M2 measures 3.320" and the Turkish ammo measures an average of 3.327". As a reloader, I know better than to fool with changing the bullet seating because those little 0.007" changes can increase pressures and that is never good for an M1 Rifle.

Greek HXP on the left, Turk MKE on the right

Because US Rifle M1 is semi-automatic, I was concerned about possible feeding issues. I loaded an enbloc clip with 8 rounds of the Turkish ammo and took my rifle outside to test loading and hand cycling. With my rifle pointed in a safe direction, I set the clip in the grooves and eyeballed the line up. The tips of all the bullets had plenty of visible clearance from the front edge of the receiver. I pushed the clip down and into the magazine and sent the bolt into battery. It fully locked into place. I then pulled and released the charging handle as hard and fast as I could ejecting and loading all the rounds until the clip popped out with the telltale 'PING!" I picked up and closely examined all the rounds, paying attention to the bullet tips to see if any of them got jammed into the rifling. Not one showed any rifling marks. I went back in the house and proceeded to break apart several more link assemblies so I have about 60 loose rounds. I plan on breaking apart the remainder on the next rainy day I am just hanging around. The links appear to be for an M1919-A4. Once I have all the links separated I will try and sell them to a collector for cheap to offset the price of the ammo a bit. I refuse to just throw such things away. A quick look online shows about $50 for 400, but I saw an interesting notice from AmmunitionStore.com that they WILL NOT sell links to a resident of any state that has magazine restrictions, because links are "feeding devices" and if you link too many rounds together.... well you might be a law breaker.

My plan for the range is at least three clips fired for function testing. Subsequent shots will be for accuracy testing compared to the known Greek accuracy. My rifle holds a 200 yard battle zero so if I can at least bang the 8" gong at 200 yards consistently, I will be happy to have some cheap target ammo for blasting away.