Morality of shooting Russian ammo?

General General Discussion
1

A short time after I was considering purchasing a S&W M&P 15R upper receiver assembly upon my return to the states, I was reading some world news and it now seems to me that the Russians are truly becoming an adversary of the United States. In the early 2000s I wasn’t quite sure if this the was future of Russia even though it seemed like that was the direction they were slowly moving (for a while I thought they would become somewhat neutral / non-aligned), but now they’ve pretty much cemented their position. :mad:

I’m generally a free-trader, but I don’t know what to think about buying ammo from a country that is helping the enemies of the U.S. Being that I’m in the military, I had a knee-jerk reaction at first… but then I thought about my free-trade credentials…

What do you guys think? I know there are a lot of people here who shoot Russian ammo, such as Wolf and the various [insert color here] Bear brands, as well as shoot old Russian surplus ammo, so I’d like to hear what you all think, as well.

Also, what company actually imports the Russian 5.45mm surplus (not brands like Wolf) for the various dealers, and what is the primary Russian export company?

2

Oh my god…

Enemies of the US… Russia neutral? Do you have a glimp of an idea about politics?

Get your bloody ammo. Ammo has no morality. Morality is strictly bound to an acting human being.

Otherwise would it be immoral to buy US ammo… Why? For the bloody same reasons you have stated in your post…

For god´s sake…

Stay safe

Jan

3

Since you’re woefully ignorant, during the 90s nobody was really sure what direction Russia was heading in. In fact, for a short period of time the country was remarkably pro-US. And after 9/11, the Russian people were the single strongest supporters of the War on Terror outside of the US, and this reflected in their policies until the end of 2002.

Get your bloody ammo. Ammo has no morality. Morality is strictly bound to an acting human being.

First of all, I’m in the US military and morality is extremely important to what we do. What the money used to purchase that ammo is then turned around and used for is a moral issue.

Otherwise would it be immoral to buy US ammo… Why? For the bloody same reasons you have stated in your post…

Sorry, dude, I don’t draw a moral equivalence between the US and Russia. The AK-47 has killed more people in the twentieth century than the M-16 because the Russians (primarily the USSR) actively supported the vast majority of the world’s totalitarian governments.

4

I am in the military,too… And I lead men into combat… At least I studied politics.

Your point of view is a little bit too tight,hm?

What did the US in Cuba, South America, Phillipines,or the early Afghan war? M16 killed a lot of people too, innit?

Do what you think you have to do. But that kind of thinking is as dangerous than any other of your so called immoral systems…

5

I’m not saying anything further to you, JMB. Thanks for your initial comment and have a nice day.

6

You response was far less intelligent than his question, this while being offensive at the same time.

If you are a leader, you apparently need to refine your discussion methods so that they are educating rather than demeaning.

7

Ammunition manufacturers are not nationalised. Why should you discriminate towards them based on their country of residence? Sure, the factories employ Russians. They pay tax to the Russian government. But if you’re going to trace where the money goes that far you can barely buy a single thing.

What about the Chicoms? How much Made in China isn’t there on the shelves?

Personally I don’t care. Unless it’s from a government owned enterprise somewhere, I’d think twice about that…

8

The US Government has bought millions of rounds of Russian 7.62x39mm for use in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for training purposes.

I shot Chinese and Yugo ammo in the 80’s, Russian, Czech, Hungarian, former DDR ammo in the 90’s, and have shot a whole lot of Russian and Serbian ammo in the past decade.

Not something to get overly torqued over.

9

We have (Russians and the US) have been historical adversaries (Cold War) since WWII. The only time we have taken our fingers off the nuclear trigger, was for a year or so after the “wall” came down. During my Service in various leadership positions, up to Division and Corp level, all our training was specifically focused towards destroying Russian (and Russian trained) forces globally. Our cultures, both being people who are rugged individualist (though theirs are of the extreme) are unwilling, in able, or incapable, of bowing to the other. Russian hard liners, like Putin, have always been in the background in the Russian Federation. Putin, while he was the President, made no bones about bringing Russia back to her former “greatness” in military power, and now pulling strings as the Prime Minister. This is nothing new.

So…it all depends on your level of morality, your personal wealth, your way of thinking, and your firearms training goals. If you choose to or not, so be it.

On a personal note, if I was on Active Duty, I would prefer to use there resources to build my firearms skills, in order to use said skills, against a possible enemy in the future, on the cheap.:wink:

10

Gentlemen, this is a forum and you should be prepared to defend your ideas without being offended… at the least, agree to disagree. We are all friends here.

11

Well, most of the surplus ammo was in fact manufactured by nationalized companies in the old USSR. And much of the contemporary equipment is marketed by a Russian state-owned company, Rosoboronexport.

What about the Chicoms? How much Made in China isn’t there on the shelves.

Admittedly, a lot of people on this site and others rail against Chinese manufactured goods on a regular basis. I would like to try their 5.8x42mm ammo.

True, and helicopters, too. I don’t see this continuing for much longer, though.

I shot Chinese and Yugo ammo in the 80’s, Russian, Czech, Hungarian, former DDR ammo in the 90’s, and have shot a whole lot of Russian and Serbian ammo in the past decade.

I shoot a lot of Serbian ammo (Prvi Partizan), too, but I haven’t tried any Russian stuff. I haven’t even shot Wolf, although I’m buying a few hundreds rounds when I get back to see how I like it.

Not something to get overly torqued over.

Just looking for opinions, that’s all. This post wasn’t actually generated by my own dislike of it, but rather seeing people railing against it on a regular basis.

This is actually my primary line of thinking, but, like I said in my comment immediately above, I was curious as to other people’s opinions.

And now that many of the Islamic militants are converting to AK-74s, the more surplus 5.45 we take off the market, the more they will have to pay. :wink:

12

Exactly. The US military has purchased “enemy” equipment before in order to maximize supply and logistics in hostile areas. Buying Russian small arms ammunition at $.05-$.50 a cartridge won’t exactly pay off their debt and give everyone a bottle of vodka.

13

Just don’t discuss matters of national security around your Russian ammo and you should be fine.

Seriously, if sometime in the next couple of decades we will be in conflict with Russia, I’d rather their practice ammo get consumed by US citizens than Russian citizens. That’s just me, though…

14

As the old saying goes “buy it cheap and stack it deep”.

15

I’ve believed for a long time that the biggest threat from Russia isn’t Russia, but the arms that they sell to our enemies. In this case, they don’t seem to mind selling them to us, either.

16

Ha! Why shoot up all the good stuff when you can use up the Russkie stuff!! lol!!1 awesome

17

This is likely a KGB plan to disable all the civilian owned weapons in the US. If they can encourage enough people to keep shooting steel cased, laquer coated ammo it will damage their extractors and gum up their chambers enough to render their weapons inert. This was actually part of the plot in Red Dawn, but they had to cut out some of the scenes to deal with time constraints.

18

Here’s another possible way to look at it.

It appears that most (if not all) of the surplus 5.45 ammo (made during the time of the USSR) is being sold by an entity in Ukraine. The Soviets had an ammo plant in what is now their separate country.

A significant portion of the the people in Ukraine want to side with the “West” and some even want to join NATO. Russia wants to bring Ukraine back under its complete domination.

I assume that the money for this surplus ammo goes to a Ukrainian company and/or government entity. So if we buy this surplus ammo from Ukraine then the money we spend would be helping Ukrainians.

From that perspective buying the surplus Soviet/Russian 5.45 may actually be helping a current potential ally (Ukraine) and frustrate the current intentions of Russia. Granted we’d have to buy a LOT of Ukrainian ammo to have any practical impact, but morally we would presumably be benefiting the Ukrainians and frustrating the Russians.

19

You’re right!

20

We live in a world where half of what we buy is made in China or any number of other countries with interests hostile to ours, drive cars powered by oil from nations who sponsor terrorism and our government function is largely financed by a bunch of people most of us wouldn’t walk across the street to piss on.

…so using Russian ammo is probably the least of our worries. :wink: