Shooting ammo

Please note that I do not guarantee the performance of any of the suppliers shown below and offer these links for information purposes only!

8mm Nambu:

The single question that seems to come up most often is: where can I get 8mm Nambu ammunition? It is available at a price.

Old Western Scrounger sells it, though it seems it no longer comes in this nifty-looking box. It sells for around US$60 in the USA and twice that in Canada, where it is or was distributed by Ellwood Epps of Orillia, Ontario. Shipping within Canada is by UPS. It cost me $20 a box to have it delivered from Orillia to Calgary. Epps said they stocked the 8mm Nambu, and it arrived in about four or five days, but subsequently I have found they actually almost never have it in stock. If not, it takes them many months to get it for you.

For Canadian shooters, Ellwood Epps is on-line at:

http://ellwoodepps.com

Old Western Scrounger doesn’t sell ammo direct to Canada, but if you’re in the USA, they are on-line at:

http://www.ows-ammunition.com

I have shot the Old Western Scrounger 8mm Nambu ammo in two of my Type 14s and it worked fine, although it seemed a little light to consistently cycle the action of my Type 94. If your bore is oversized due to factory variation or heavy corrosion, you may get better accuracy with cast bullets, but this ammo grouped fine even though the bore of one of the guns I tested it in was heavily pitted.

There are a few other sources as well. I haven’t tried any of their ammo because I live in Canada, it is not sold here, and US laws make it almost impossible for non-Americans to buy and/or export ammo. Caveat emptor. Here are the links:

Mac's Guns (mrnambu) Japanese and German militaria

Load-X Ammunition Company

Buffalo Arms Co. - Search

There are a couple of other sources as well. A couple of sellers offer custom-loaded 8mm Nambu ammunition through on-line gun auction sites. Forget it if you’re Canadian, though: it’s illegal for non-residents to buy ammo in the US and export it with a few minor exceptions.

The auction where you can find this ammo is listed below. After you reach the auction home page, type “Nambu” in the search field and hit “search” and it will take you to the listings of ammo and other Nambu stuff (including guns).

www.GunBroker.com Online Gun Auction

If you look around at gun shows you may still find some of the Midway ammunition at shootable prices, even though it hasn’t been made in quite a while (since the 1980s, I think). In the photo above, the Midway round is on the left and the OWS round is on the right. Note the difference in the shape of the bullet, and that the Midway round has the punch crimps like original WWII rounds. If you are looking for Midway ammo at a gun show, its orange box makes it easy to spot (below). Note that Midway also sold brass and a lot of what you see at shows is handloads made with Midway brass. The safest policy in such cases is to regard the ammo as just components, break it down and then load it yourself so you know what you’ve got. Incidentally, MidwayUSA got its start making 8mm Nambu ammo, initially by reforming .30 Remington. You can read about that bit of history at MidwayUSA - About MidwayUSA: Who We Are, What We Do, Our Mission & How It All Got Started

(Box contributed by Steve Strange—Thanks!)

Something else you may see around is ammunition from Quality Cartridge. I first saw this ammo at a gun show in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho in September, 2005. This company makes or made ammo for a whole bunch of obsolete calibres. They give their address a Hollywood, MD, and have a website at http://www.qual-cart.com. However, as of October, 2005, a friend has not been able to contact the company, so we don’t know what its current status is. The rounds I have come from Lot 01862 and are supposed to have 100 grain RNSP (round nose soft point) bullets.

Here is the headstamp on this ammo. If anyone has tried this ammo or knows what is happening with the company, please let me know.

Another option for shooting a Nambu is a .22 conversion kit. When these first showed up on ebay in 2004 two of them sold for around US$175-200, although the last couple I saw went for about $65-70. They were made by Lothar Walther of Germany and look like a high quality item, but one that is not particularly easy to use (the empty has to be punched out with a rod after each shot). Here is the box. The German says “Calibre .22 LR Barrel Insert for Pistol”

Here’s what’s inside.

From top to bottom of the photo, the parts appear to be: a rod for poking out empties, a cleaning brush, two converters to adapt the centre-fire striker blow to rim fire (see below) and the barrel insert. The latter is shown here with the part that conforms to the 8mm Nambu chamber on the left and the locking nut with plastic cushion on the right. My guess is that the flat part of the chamber insert is there to clear the extractor on the bolt.

Here is a close-up of the little converter with the rim-fire firing pin at the top right.

The side of the box says: “Attention! Observe the warning on the inside of the cover.”

Here is that warning on the inside of the cover: “Warning! When shooting for a long time, tighten the locking nut from time to time.”

If you are going to snap the trigger on your Nambus a lot, you might consider investing in a set of snap caps to protect the firing pin. I got these from Buffalo Arms, but A-Zoom is a Pachmayr product, and Pachmayr is a division of Lyman, so I suspect it may be possible to order them from retailers who carry the Pachmayr or Lyman lines.

9mm Japanese Revolver (for the Type 26):

Old Western Scrounger used to sell 9mm Revolver ammo, but they discontinued it in late 2003 and say they are unlikely to carry it again. It came in a light blue box with two sumo wrestlers on it as shown above. I managed to get what may have been the last box of this ammo. I ordered three boxes in August, 2003 through Ellwood Epps and got the one box shown above in April, 2004. It looks rather rough, with the brass being rather crudely turned from W-W .38 S&W brass (see photo below). Unless you can find some of it or the older Midway 9mm ammo, you will have to “roll your own” (see reloading section below for sources) or try a custom loader of obsolete cartridges. Two sources that list 9mm Japanese revolver ammo are:

Mac's Guns (mrnambu) Japanese and German militaria

and

Gad Custom Reloaded Cartridges and Shell Reloading Services

(I have not used ammo from these sources, so you will have to ascertain its suitability for your purposes yourself).

From left to right, the rounds shown here are: OWS 9mm; R-P .38 S&W for comparison; Midway 9mm; original Japanese 9mm; 9mm brass turned from R-P .38 Special (the rim on this looks much more smoothly turned than the rims on the box of OWS ammo I got, though it is hard to see this in the photo)

Here is a close-up of the Midway round (left) and OWS round (right). Note the messy seating of the bullet in the OWS round and the crude thinning of the rim, which is particularly visible on the left side near the base. These are just cosmetics, of course.

Here are the headstamps on the OWS ammo (left); the .38 S&W (middle) and the Midway 9mm (right).

7mm Nambu (for the Baby Nambu):

I do not know of any source for shootable 7mm Nambu ammunition, but again you can make it using brass and bullets listed in the “Reloading” section. If anyone does know of anybody selling freshly loaded 7mm Nambu ammo, please let me know.

Last updated: January 8, 2007. All contents are copyright Teri unless otherwise specified and may not be used elsewhere in any form without prior permission.

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