[psycho dad]

went to a local sporting goods store for 7.62x54 ammo for my hungarian mosin nagant. they advertised it as being on sale. well anyway i picked up forty rounds. got them home and low and behold something did not look right, especially since i compared these rounds to 7.9x54. they newly purchased ammo came in a plain brown wrapper. i asked they clerk who made this ammo. he said it came in a plain green can. i asked if i could see the can and he said there was nothing on it, no writing or anything. these rounds appear to be lacquer coated. at the base two numbers are stamped 89, below the number 6. there are no other stampings on this ammo. my best guess is that this is a 9 milimeter round. it definately is to large as far as the diameter goes to fit in my mosin. anyone have any ideas.

[Big Dog]

Sounds like possibly the Hungarian 8X56R, for the Steyr M95 straight-pull bolt action. It has a long shoulder sort of like a 30-30, a big rim, and a .329 bullet diameter (8mm Mauser is .323).
Defintely don't try to fire it til you can ID it! Is it on strippers? The 7.62X54R has a simple folded metal stripper about half an inch long, from rim forward. The Steyr 8X56 stripper is an en-bloc style more like that used in the M1 Garand. Please be careful.

[psycho dad]

this ammo was not on strippers, it was just packed in brown paper and tied in twenty round bundles. i compared it to a 7.9x54 round. in comparison the newly purchased ammo is shorter, the brass is much larger in diameter. the base of the brass is big. the bullet itself seems similar to the 7.9x54. you are probably right big dog about it being hungarian. i am going to return the ammo and see if i can look at the can it came in or other wrappings. my philosophy is if i do not know what i am doing i dont do it. better to be safe than sorry. if i get any updates i will post them. but usually there is always something on ammo that i can use to identify it. but this one has me stumped. hopefully more to come. i will probably try asking the sales clerk to load a round in one of their mosins to see what i am talking about.

[Michael M]

If it is 8x56R, the base will be .553", case in front of base .491, tapers to .473 at shoulder, bullet .329, length of case 2.195 max, length over all is 3.012 max. Let us know if it is Hungarian, esp with 89 date. ( Diameters are from an unfired case, but measured with an old pair of calipers, so approx, only). I shoot a 95M, as do some others, so let us know what you find out, please.