Headstamps and colours

Case identification
As with all things there are exceptions this information is a guide only:
Stampings on the case head show what factory the ammunition came from at the 12 0’clock position,
with the year of manufacture at the 6 o’clock position. This is true for the Soviet states and most of the Warsaw pact. Czech ammunition uses letters for factory identification and the others all use numbers.  Confusingly there are some duplicates, both Romania and Poland have used 21 (when this is used by Poland the date at the bottom is upside down so that the two countries can be told apart).

Small arms ammunition colour codes
The tips of the bullets are coded according to their type:
Green tip : tracer
Red tip : spotting or incendiary
Magenta tip with red band : armor piercing incendiary tracer
Black tip/redband : Armor piercing incendiary
Black tip: Armor piercing
Yellow tip: heavy ball
Silver tip: light ball steel cored

The picture on the left shows a light ball steel cored round and the picture on the right is a tracer round.