Yugo ammo crates... Year?

[jbs007]

I see a lot of crates of Yogu ammo for sale "from 70's to 80's".  Is there any way to tell the year of the ammo by the writing on the outside of the crate?  Thanks

[NCCruffler]

yes

[CaptainRW]

yes

... and???    you need to read Yugo... Slavic????

I can say it's nice stuff, stored a crate on clips and one off, and have shot a few of each, never a misfire or hickup.

[allesennogwat]

I'm not certain as it doesn't matter to me which year it is as long as it's a sealed crate but I believe from the crates I've seen it's a letter code for the factory and a 4 digit number for the date. The date is backwards in that it's letter code- 2 digits for the year - 2 digits for the month and dash the day of month.  (letter code) 8606 would be June 1986 or (19)86 June. (letter code) 8108-22 would be 1981, August 22nd. 8108-19 would be 1981, August 19th. Some have the day and some seem to only have the month and year. This is just guessing though. It's the only numbers on the crates and boxes that make any sense. Word is, at least one factory started making non-corrosive ammo around 1990 but I have had corrosive ammo from 1992. I don't know which if any factory made the non-corrosive ammo.

[jbs007]

Thanks for the info allesennogwat! Where did you get ammo from the 90's???

[Laufer]

This won't help, but the Serbo-Croatian language is written in Cyrillic for the Serbs, and our Roman alphabet for the Croatians.
I've not read that the Croatians ever manufactured ammo. If not, it's too bad, because the words could be translated with an Internet dictionary.
For the Cyrillic used by Bulgarians, Serbs and Russians, I doubt that there is any way to translate on the Internet, unless you have the correct keyboard.

With my Czech 8mm Mauser ammo, some words resemble some of those on Yugo boxes.

[CaptainRW]

From what I've found, Yugoslavia made three versions of 7.62x39 ball ammo. One was called "M59". This was a boat tail steel core bullet loaded with ball powder and matched Soviet specs. This is the only ball load mentioned in any M59. M59/66, M59/66A1 manuals I've found, even the 1980-1981 editions. From the M59 it's rated at 735 m/s and from the M59/66 it's rated at 748 m/s. The next ball load is called "M67" and has a flat base lead core bullet loaded to a higher chamber pressure than standard 7.62x39 but with only a slight increase in muzzle velocity over standard7.62x39 ammo and uses about 23.0 grains of extruded powder. (Note the Zastava factory website refers to the "M64" AK as the "M67" rifle) This M67 ammo is only mentioned in M70 and M72 manuals and not M59 or M59/66 manuals. It's rated at 720 m/s in the M70 and 745 m/s in M72. The third ball load made by Yugoslavia seems to have been made for export. It is called "M43". It uses the M67 lead core flat base bullet with a different extruded powder loaded to standard 7.62x39 chamber pressure. The only velocity data I can find for this cartridge is 733 m/s in the M72. Comparing barrels lengths the M59 is 520 mm, the M59/66 is either 550 mm or 560 mm according to different Yugoslavian sources and some American sources call the barrel length 555 mm. Since there were at least two muzzle device designs there have have been a couple of barrel lengths used over the years. Production of the M59 began in 1964 and the M59/66 looks like it started production in 1967. The M70 has a 415 mm barrel and the M72 has a 542 mm barrel. The cartridge drawing of the M67 case shows a shoulder angle the same as Finland's ammo and different from Soviet ammo. Maybe the bullet and cartridge were inspired by Finnish ammo which also uses a flat base lead core bullet.

In 1961 the US standardized the NATO rifle specs to include an integrated 22 mm rifle grenade launcher and an automatic bolt hold open after the last round in the magazine. I think these NATO specs must have influenced Yugoslavian rifle design. Somebody in Yugoslavia must have thought there must some advantage in these specs if NATO adopted them and added these features to Yugoslavia's  M59/66 and AK. Most likely somebody whose job it was to "improve" Yugoslavia's rifles. Funny thing is, during the Cold War, small arms were at the bottom of the list in importance for NATO and resources in design went to bigger things, like planes, tanks and bombs. That's how NATO countries ended up with so many different rifles and magazines and rarely updated their designs. Small arms just weren't that important to NATO at the time. Part of this was Yugoslavia playing NATO and the Warsaw Pact against each other for their benefit.. Sorta a what have you done for me lately... :-)