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A word of warning regarding Czech STV ammunition as it is rumoured that it doesn’t have corrosive primers, but having used it in my Saiga and leaving it a couple of days there was the beginnings of surface rust forming on the brake. I was hoping that l could stop flushing barrels and brakes with warm water especially with my Arsenal underfolder, which as the 3 part brake welded on to make up the barrel to minimum length requirements.

Normally put Barnaul blue non lacquered steel case through, but can’t find Barnaul blue or green available locally as l could before.

The spec sheet looks like it is the biz, but a bit of web work rumours it is rebadged Chinese surplus, whilst another rumour says it is fully re-worked in STV’s Czech factory to military standards. Nice laser etching on the cartridge would suggest it has been processed, but how much is questionable.

As l have bought a 500 round box looks like having to flush the barrels through for the foreseeable future.

If anyone knows any different it would be great to know. I rang the importer who couldn’t confirm anything about the primers.

I just treat all that ammo as corrosive, it's too cheap to ignore and shoots well enough. Never had an issue after flushing and oiling so just factor this into your post shoot clean.

The STV branded 7.62x39 and 7.62x54r is indeed of Chinese origin and it actually came out of Albania.The Albanians had to get rid of their Combloc ammo and Ordnance as one of the conditions of joining NATO and the Czech STV Group and another Czech arms company bought up millions of rounds in various calibres and this is what is being sold on.The Chinese shipped millions of rounds of the stuff to Albania during the Cold War and it is basically the same ammo that the arms dealers in the movie War Dogs were trying to sell to the US Military but they got shopped for trying to pass off Chinese ammo by the "box man" because they forgot to pay him!.....the movie is worth a watch

It hasn't been reworked in any way and the primers are still corrosive.Best bet, as Dan said above, is treat all 54r and x39 surplus as corrosive regardless of what any says.

Think I saw the same rumours, both the “non- corrosive” and the fact it’s repacked stuff from China or Albania