Praxis: Tactical Packing the 7.62x54R -- of SPAM, Football Monkeys and Tool of the Evil Communist Conspiracy Against Imperialist Yankee Running Dogs.

The Menu

* Egg and bacon
* Egg, sausage and bacon
* Egg and spam
* Egg, bacon and spam
* Egg, bacon, sausage and spam
* Spam, bacon, sausage and spam
* Spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam
* Spam, sausage, spam, spam, spam, bacon, spam, tomato and spam
* Spam, spam, spam, egg, and spam
* Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam and spam
* Lobster thermidor aux crevettes with a Mornay sauce served in the Provençale manner with shallots and aubergines, garnished with truffle paté, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam

As I have written before,"Packaging is everything." Now, by virtue of Hannah's newly acquired Mosin Nagant M44 Carbine, I must learn how to improve the tactical packaging of an unfamiliar caliber, 7.62x54R.

Of course most 7.62x54R surplus ammo comes packed like this, in "spam" cans.



As it happens, a very good friend yesterday gave me a can just like the one above containing Russian copper-washed steel case, 147 grain spitzer boat tail ball, twenty rounds to a paper container, headstamp 60 85. There are (or were) 440 rounds to the can.

I hate spam cans. I must have opened hundreds, maybe a thousand, in my life and I hated each and every one of them. They are heavy, bulky, have no ready handle to tote them by, are hard to open in the daylight with a special tool and impossible at night.

Tool of the Evil Communist Conspiracy to raise the blood pressure, break the knuckles and cut the flesh of Imperialist Yankee Running Dogs.

It is so awkward that we hereby award it the Sipsey Street Football Monkey Copulation Award for 2009.

Now THIS is an ammo can you can fumble around in the dirt with on a pitch black night.

Behold! The lowly, incredibly useful and ergonomic M19A1 "Thirty Cal" ammo can.

These, and the bandoleers containing stripper-clipped ammunition that go in them, are supremely easy to use. And easy and quick counts in combat.

But "spam" cans? Spam cans ain't tactical, that's for sure. Now, the wooden crate they come in, that's another thing.



I like this case arrangement better than the USGI wire-bound case below because it is lighter, handier and stacks better.

This GI wire-bound crate holds 4 M19A1 cans. Others hold two M2A1 "Fifty Cal" cans.

Once the ComBloc cases are empty of "spam" cans, the torn husks of the cans are discarded and you finish bandaging your hands, two M19A1 USGI "thirty cal" ammo cans filled with repackaged "spam" contents in bandoleers will nest in them quite nicely.

People who are content to keep their ammo in individual boxes or even cans have never had to shift large quantities of ammo from place to place. Think you'll be able to stay in your house forever? Admit it, you may have to bug out. Trust me, packing the trailer goes a lot faster if the ammo is in cans and the cans are in crates. USGI cans, having handles, are good, but having those cans packed in crates is much, much better.

The ComBloc crate containing 2 M19A1 cans is my default method of packaging. I have everything from 7.62 NATO, 7.62x39, .30 Carbine, 5.56 NATO packed in thirty cal cans, bandoleers and stripper clips. I even use the 7 pocket USGI bandoleers to pack 5 round boxes of 12 Gauge combat ammo (buckshot, slugs) which works out to 35 rounds per bandoleer, 70 rounds per can, 140 rounds per ComBloc case.

Now, for 7.62x54R that presents a problem. Stripper clips are, according to my friends who are into Mosin Nagants, hard to find and expensive. Russian clips made for their military are, I am told, the best. Current after-markets, I am also told, are unreliable. If any reader has had a different experience or can direct me to a source of reliable Mosin Nagant stripper clips, please let me know.

For now, I have two solutions to the packing dilemma. First, I used the old Federal cartridge strip trick as detailed here.

Note that these ten round inserts come with belt loops, enabling them to be worn on a standard pants belt. The loops are just a bit less than two inches internal width. Of course the colors of these inserts are hardly tactical, usually being red or white as in the illustration above.

My solution was to spray prime them with Rust-Oleum Plastic Primer and then spray paint them OD. I have some 1.75" OD thin webbing on a roll that I picked up cheap somewhere in the Clintonista era and so I cut an appropriate length of material, threaded it through four 10 round carriers (scavenged from the trash barrels at the range), and secured the two ends by threading them through some 2" plastic slides that I scavenged off packs, duffle bags and purses bought at the thrift store. (For an average of $.79 each, I get a fair number of slides, d-rings and fastex buckles off each one. Can't buy them that cheap in WalMart or a sewing shop.)

Four bandoleers will fit in an M19A1 "thirty cal" ammo can, giving a hundred and sixty rounds per can. Voila! Tactical storage that can be used in the field. The plastic carriers actually grip the rounds more tightly than the average modern Mills-type belt, no matter what it is made of.

When it is used up, it can be discarded at little expense, or reloaded from bulk boxes. This is my contribution to making deer hunters tactical.

Using these for the 7.62x54R presented a bit of a problem because of the large rim on the cartridge. I ended up loading them by skipping a hole with the first five rounds and then coming back and filling in the holes in the middle. The rims of the second run of 5 cartridges end up resting on the ends of the first 5, but the cartridges still are held in place by the tension of the plastic.

I considered stringing them together, as above, with webbing, but elected rather to use a current pattern, USGI 4 pocket bandoleer. Each pouch holds two inserts, or 80 rounds per bandoleer, 160 rounds per ammo can, 320 per case.

The 4-pocket USGI M16 bandoleer.

But for the Russian "spam can" above, I chose to use the almost universally useful British 5 pocket "snap" bandoleer. Using this arrangement, I put one of the 20 round paper packs of Russian stuff in each pockt, or 100 rounds per bandoleer.

What a Brit 5-pocket looks like packed with 20 round paper packs of 7.62x54R

Two of these will fit in an M19A1 can and thus 2 cans will fit in a ComBloc crate, for a total of 400 rounds per crate.

This is not the ideal tactical arrangement I wanted. It does however still make issuing ammo and carrying it into harm's way easier and quicker than individual paper packages in a "spam" can.

Lacking the reliable stripper clips, this is the best I can come with at the moment.

Mike
III

Translation: "Comrade, how do we know now is the time to attack the Imperialist Yankee Running Dogs?" "Because, they bought all that ammunition in SPAM cans. They'll NEVER get them open in time!"