Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Still working up the Tokarev

Just got back from the range.

I've been making brass for my Yugo M57 from .223 brass and it's a chore.

I loaded some .312 diameter Speer 100 grain jacketed HP's over 6.2 grains of Blue Dot a while ago to serve as a fire forming load. I knew it would be very mild, but it wouldn't even cycle the action.

Also, the Lee sizing die didn't set the shoulder back far enough on those cut down .223 cases and the only way they would chamber was to single load them and drop the slide to hammer them into battery,..so I worked it as a single shot.

I'm still just working with fire forming loads, but this time I loaded them with 6.8 grains of Blue Dot.

Also, I took the shell holder to work and removed .015" from it's thickness with a surface grinder so that I could push the case far enough into the die to place the shoulder in its proper position.

The 6.8 grain load cycled the action fine and dropped all of the cases close by. It was also fairly accurate,...as is the Yugo M57. I was impressed by it's willingness to feed the 100 grain Speer hollow point,..which is intended to be a revolver bullet and has a lot of lead exposed at its tip.

I fired 60 rounds today,...mostly just to further process my brass. But even so, the fireforming loads chopped a ragged 3" circle at 10 yards without giving as much effort as I could have.

The 7.62X25 round is a smokin' hot .30 caliber bottlenecked handgun round, and even though the 6.8 grain load capped by a 100 grain bullet served to only be enough to cycle the M57 action, it wasn't all that weak. I haven't bothered to chorny it, but it feels at least as hot at the upper limit of a .32 H&R magnum.

Forming brass for it from Lake City 5.56 cases is a slow, laborious process,...and I've only played with a couple of fireforming loads,..but I'm beginning to develop a feel for what propellants will work well in it and where they should be.

There's a lot of new kids on the block in the propellant catagory, but as soon as I get enough brass properly formed, I'm going to work up some 100 grain, .312 diameter Hornady XTP's over my old friend, 2400.

Tooling up and loading for this handrifle is becoming a very interesting project.

From what I've seen so far, the results are going to be good.

Thank you for the information. I have been interested in this catridge / pistol for some time. Please keep us posted. John

Good stuff, Bristoe. I've been enjoying your updates and photos on this project. I'd like to see more of this kind of stuff in Handloader.

It's different.

I knew it was out there but never really paid much attention to it before.

Then I started reading up on the velocity it was capable of and decided to give it some work,..so I bought a fairly nice Yugoslavian M57 Tokarev to serve as a test vehicle for the 7.62X25

The biggest surprise so far is the accuracy of the M57.

This thing wants to shoot!

It reminds me of a heavy barrel Ruger .22 auto pistol the way it makes holes exactly where you hold the sights.

The surplus ammo for them has dried up and people are letting them go.

I'm probably going to buy another one.

Thanks for sharing your load development. Very interesting cartridge .

Ernie

I really haven't gotten to the load development part yet.

I've got to get a brass catcher first,..lol,..

Have you considered loading some of the 100 grain Hornady plinker bullets? Seems like one of my old manuals mentioned loading that little half jacketed bullet in those cases.

I wouldn't mind,...but they're .308 diameter.

The Toke that I've got has a .312 barrel,...at least.

I slugged it with a .312 hollow base wadcutter and it just barely filled the groove diameter.

Hmmm. Ten roger.

I bought several hundred bulk packed 71 grain .312" bullets intended for the .32 auto to try in the Toke.

I wanted some cheap bullets to fireform the brass with, but I'm also going to twist the ear on a few and see what kind of velocity I can get with them.

Found this guy on Gunblast who got over 1700 fps with 90 grain bullets using H110.

I would have thought that H110 would be too slow, but evidently not!

,...bet it makes a hell of a fireball.

http://www.gunblast.com/RKCampbell_CZ52.htm

Bristoe,

If you have access to some open base 110 fmj's designed for .30 carbine you might try them for fire-form/plinking. I know they are .308, but JB's use of .308 partitions in the .303 British makes me think it could work.

One of these days I need a 7.62x25 barrel for the 1911. Of course, I also need a 9mm 1911 pistol, too.

Need pictures!

Not much to take pictures of at this point.

Making 7.62X25 brass from .223 is slow going and the learning curve was a bit steeper than I had anticipated.

I've finally got some cases with the shoulder in the proper position and have fireformed them to my chamber, so today I put together my first batch of *real* loads.

They use the same .312 Speer 100 grain JHP and are loaded over a charge of Blue Dot that should get them to 1300 and produce about 30,000 psi. (according to my buddy with the Quickload software)

I read reports which state that surplus ammo for the 7.62X25 is loaded to 40,000 psi,..and those who have chronographed the Sellier & Beloit commercial ammo say that it does in excess of 1500 with an 85 grain bullet from a Tokarev

My goal is to take a 100 grain bullet to 1500 from the Zastava M57,..and I'm fairly sure that it's doable,...but I'm not sure how fast I should go with Blue Dot.

The people who run up velocity with this cartridge have been doing so with H110 and 296.

I think 2400 and Lil' Gun might also be worth a try.

It's an interesting chambering to play with, but except for an occasional tidbit of information from Quickload, you're pretty much flying blind when working up loads for it,...especially since I'm using non standard cases and have no idea as to how their case capacity compares to genuine 7.62X25 brass.

All you'll have to do is SHOW a groundhog one of those evil looking little beetches, and it'll fall over dead.

lol,..They do make a nasty looking little cartridge, don't they?

I'm getting a big kick out of playing with this commie pistol and its miniature rifle cartridge chambering.

I'm trying to hold back on informing people that they'll have to spend big bucks on their government model .45 to get the accuracy that this Yugoslavian Tokarev demonstrates.

Don't need the grief,..yanno.

People can launch into a pissin' match over Sunday dinner here.

If I tell 'em that a Serb pistol that costs $250 produces more energy and accuracy than their $2500 Wilson custom, they'll go ape chit.

Heh, there are some things in life that just ain't right.

On the subject of that cartridge, can you imagine facing someone with one of those PPsH SMGs?

Holy Shyte!

What is your trim length? Could you form from 221 fireball?

I push 208A-maxs from a shortened 223 case ala 300 whisper using 8 grains of blue dot at 1070 fps with a 16 inch 8 twist barrel. It would seem that your load would be slower, not faster, but there are a lot of different variables in play there. You have definitely sparked some interest in this round for me. Keep the updates coming.

I read about that a long time ago in a book about the seige of Stalingrad.

The germans had it closed off, of course, and the Russians were yanking up railroad track,..pulling beams out of buildings,..anything they had to do to come up with steel.

Then they were hammering it into those bullet pump SMG's chambered in 7.62X25,...probably loaded hotter than the gates of hell.

Everytime they'd get a batch put together, they'd pass 'em around to the peasants and have them rush the german lines at dawn.

I'm guessin' that must have been un-nerving for the Germans.

,...20 damn below zero,...you just wake up,..sittin' in a hole trying to get some coffee above 40 degrees,..ain't been laid in 2 years,..don't givva chit no more,..but what do you do about it?,....

,..and then,..through the morning haze here comes some half mongolian sumbitch who has lived off of rat meat for the past 18 months rushing you with an attitude and a submachine gun made from some babushka's chamber pot.

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