Look at the following picture, it will cause some people's heads to explode that is for sure. The head stamp read 7.62x51 308 HP..........So does this prove they are one in the same, OMG the horror.......
![big shock :beek:](./images/smilies/eek.gif)
![very confused :vconfused:](./images/smilies/confused.gif)
![Twisted Evil :twisted:](./images/smilies/icon_twisted.gif)
![Big Shock :big shock:](./images/smilies/shocked2.gif)
The first sounds like a CYA answer so you can't call a lawyer if you blow your gun up. The second actually sounds pretty realistic.WeldonHunter wrote: ↑Sat Feb 06, 2021 4:41 pm Many years ago (like 10) I did extensive research about this when my uncle gave me a Garand that had been rebarreled by Arlington Ordnance with a 7.62x51 NATO stamped barrel. I read the debate about.223 vs 5.56 and saw that Sammi had a listing for those and not to use 5.56 in a .223 chamber but nothing about .308 vs 7.62x51. I had ordered 1000rds of .308 thinking it was the same because I was new to this and just started running gun-deals and saw they were listed as inter-changeable on most vendor's sites. After doing further research and coming up with nothing definitive I decided to go with what the barrel had stamped on it which is 7.62x51 NATO and bought a crapload of it. I still have the 1000rds of .308 and have since bought an AR10 that I can use that in so it wasn't a wash. Point is I never found anything one way or the other as to what's safe and what isn't. I saw some competition shooters say "you're taking your life in your hands swapping them" and some said "It's no problem, been swapping them for years" and the same can be said in general from most other sources.
The Egyptian Hakim can shoot any 8mm round you find despite the small variations in pressure between different manufacture cartridges. The reason for this is it has an adjustable gas system, you can set it for the round you are using so it won't batter the bolt to death, you just can't use mixed rounds at one time. Uncle Sam intended the M1, M1 carbine, M14, M16 to use only the ammunition Uncle Sam provided and no other. These rounds, like the M2 ball for the M1, were made to very specific spec, and these rifles have no provision for gas adjustment unless aftermarket gas cylinder plugs are added. The M14 will shoot .308, but without being able to adjust the gas system to the slightly increased pressures you will start battering the op rod, and bolt. Uncle Sam's M14's could take it for a little while, so can most civilian ones using GI parts kits and USA receivers, but don't try it with the Chinese copy as they are known for soft metal. The bolt rifles of course have no gas system to worry about, here you are just worried about the hardness of the steel, how many rounds fired at pressure past original design spec can it take before parts start to deform and headspace slowly increases. Maybe never, maybe soon.steelbuttplate wrote: ↑Tue Feb 09, 2021 6:05 pm It's best to use the round stamped on the rifle. My Springfield manual say no .308 Win thru the M1A, 7.62 Nato only. The Russian Tula bolt action I have has both stamped on it. You should use M 80 only in those Spanish conversions.
This is probably more a case of cheap Chinese surplus coming back to haunt you it's cheap for a reason after all. I've shot cheap Chinese .223 and ya wasn't a great idea as I had some bullets actually come unseated while trying to feed. Like with most things you get what you pay for there. That being said sounds like your son has some cheap plinking ammo at least for his gun.bogozzo wrote: ↑Fri May 28, 2021 9:13 am Actual cartridge sizing/naming aside, not all ammo is created equal. Following the "wise advice from the internet" that its ok to use 7.62 in a commercial 308 I ordered 500 rounds of steel case Chinese surplus when I got my Savage 99 in 308. The issue with this particular 7.62 is that its designed for machine guns and the casing is thin enough that it expands and locks itself in the chamber of my 99. About half of the rounds will eject when the gun cools, a quarter eject fine but the last quarter need to be tapped out from the muzzle (fiberglass cleaning rod) whether or not the gun has cooled. In my son's Savage Axis they eject fine for every shot, but the primers are hard strike and about half of them need a second hit to go bang, an issue that occurs about 1 in 10 in my older Savage. Both guns run well with commercial brass cartridges and even Baurnal steel case (the cheapest commercial round I can find here).
I think that the engineering in a rifle's chamber and barrel is such that they will withstand pressure differences without catastrophic failure, but damage to the firearm can occur in other ways (say a broken ejector in my gun, damage to firing pin in my son's). So, end to the long story? My son has about 400 rounds to play with, knowing how the ammo will perform.