I guess thanks for tuning in to another
video on Forgotten weapons comm I'm Ian
Callum and today we're going to be
taking a quick look at Malaysian l2a to
7.62 by 51 millimeter ammunition this is
generally referred to as 7 62 by 51 NATO
which it basically is except it's
important to remember or it's relevant
to remember that Malaysia is not a NATO
member state and this ammunition has not
actually passed nato specific trials
that doesn't mean it better or worse
just means it doesn't have that actual
nato approved stamp on the heads and so
what we have here is a product of the
one malaysian arms or ammunition factory
it's called SME
which stands for with some translation
sorry cap malaysia explosives Limited
which i believe actually translates into
malaysia explosives Company Limited not
a hundred percent sure on that but
there's only one a munition factory in
Malaysia
so the company the factory was set up in
1969 as a joint venture between the
Malaysian government a couple of local
private Malaysian firms and then also
Oerlikon out of Switzerland and Dynamat
noble out of Germany so there was some
some very substantial expertise that
went into the setup of this Factory
appears to be generally good quality
ammunition will of course be taking a
closer look at that I believe it is
called L - a - after the British
standard of ammunition the British
adopted their first version of 760 -
NATO as the l2a1 in 1954 and then they
pretty quickly modified it to L - a - by
increasing the strength of the taste
head the web inside the case head not in
1955 so Malaysia has long maintained
strong ties to the United Kingdom in a
variety of ways both to their benefit
and to the United Kingdom's benefit and
I believe that when they went ahead and
started up this factory they simply used
British specification for the mo because
they had that relationship this is only
one of many calibers that this factory
makes also makes 556 NATO
nine millimetre parabellum 12.7 browning
as well as larger cartridges 20
five millimeter and I believe even some
stuff bigger than that anyway let's go
ahead and take this out to the range and
see how it shoots rifle is an Israeli
Mauser
converted to seven six to NATO and
chronograph is running here we go to
seven zero seven two seven one two two
six seven seven two six nine eight two
seven zero two two seven zero two seven
two six two six seven four two seven
zero two and our last five rounds two
six six seven
two six seven eight two seven one eight
two seven one two seven two seven that
is 15 rounds no evidence of any
hangfire's
or other anomalies noticed all right
let's go ahead and open up this nice
fresh can of it all the markers are in
English here which is nice and
convenient this came in two different
ways they packaged it in 30 caliber ammo
cans like this one with 300 rounds in
each they also packaged it in 50 caliber
ammunition cans with 540 rounds basic
description there are lot number
headstamp on this as mal presumably
Malaysia and then a date so this is
December 1981 the can itself is sealed
with this little lid seal so I'm
seasoning just twist that up and pop it
off this requires a bit more leverage
that was sticky inside the ammo is
packaged in interestingly both 40 and 20
round boxes they've got a piece of
string here so that we can easily get
the first one out and they've done this
neat thing where they've you know you
mix 40s and 20s in order to get the
maximum number of cartridges into the
can so there's our 20 round there's our
40 round that are going to be a bunch of
each in total we have 740 round boxes
for 280 and then a single 20 round box
to give us a grand total of 300 rounds
plain brown cardboard here with some
sealing tape on it
this has all the same information as on
the outside of the can
including lot number and production date
these dates at least match that on the
outside of the can go ahead and pop that
tape off inside we have rows of eight
cartridges with little slips of paper in
between them the ammunition is a little
bit tarnished looking what I saw of the
50 caliber cans is that those were in a
little bit better condition internally
we've got our head stamp here which is
mal
7.62 and then the same month and year
date code as on the outside packaging so
you can see here we've got 1281
and the same on these others there's the
next row same stuff a little bit of
basic data this is non-corrosive it is
Berdan primed so not easily reloadable
the bullets are a little bit of basic
data here these do have a sealant at a a
little bit of basic data here these do
have a purple colored primer sealant
they do also have some sealant on the
bullet although you don't really see it
above the case nak but you'll see it on
the individual pulled bullets the
primers are non corrosive and Berdan so
this is not easily reloaded bullets are
a fairly typical open base Full Metal
Jacket boattail design you can see the
primer sealant or the bullet sealant the
casing neck sealant here these bullets
do also pull a magnet so this is a bi
Metal Jacket if that's relevant to the
shooting range where you might use them
and the powder is of the ball variety I
pulled and weighed 10 bullets came to an
average weight of one hundred and forty
six point two grains standard deviation
of 0.4 one grains and a maximum spread
of 1.5 grains
that's pretty good as for velocity our
15 rounds average twenty seven hundred
and two
ft/s with a standard deviation of
nineteen point three seven and a maximum
spread of 53 feet per second that's not
extraordinary but it's not bad the the
specification the requirement for
American m80 ball is to have a maximum
standard deviation of 32 which this
easily comes in below I will also point
out while it didn't show up on this
particular video this ammunition does
have slightly hard primers obviously
within spec for the mauser to
successfully detonate but I have had
other firearms that I've used this in
that had occasional light strikes
relative to other ammunition so this is
on the hard end of a NATO spec primer so
our average velocity was 2700 feet per
second the specification for American
m80 ball is that it needs to be 2750 at
78 feet from the muzzle and that's plus
or minus 30 feet per second
interestingly however the British
specification for l2 a 2 is 2700 feet
per second plus or minus 30 again a bit
farther from the muzzle than what I was
shooting
however by British specification which
is what this appears to be based on this
ammunition fits exactly right into the
very middle of the specification so
that's pretty cool
overall seems to be pretty good
ammunition this came into the United
States back around 2000 and then a bunch
of it has come into the United States
right now so there's quite a lot on the
market if you decide that you're looking
for some ammunition to use hopefully you
found this valuable thanks for watching