what can you say about this cartridge and what its good for

Effective on deer and hogs, far from my favorite cartridge and yes I have hunted with it. SKS and AK guns have shot tons and tons of it and is the choice of many militaries around the world

Back in my college days, we bought a few Norinco SKS and a case of ammo for about $300. We went shooting, not hunting, almost every weekend for almost two steady years. I sold mine to pay for books. One of my roomies sold his to pay for weed, and the last of us kept his several years. I will admit that we had so much fun shooting those rifles and the stories still continue today.

So here I am, almost 50 years old, and I just don't dig the round the way I once did. Sure it plenty of fun to shoot. It is still as deadly on game as it ever was; but there are so many options.

I actually have an AKM and an AR in 7.62x39, plus a couple thousand rounds of ammo that I think I will be selling soon.

A lotta years ago, I realized that my 223 bolt gun was not the best thing for going after sounders.

A buddy that owned a gun store got in 25 crates of SKS's in a group buy.
He told me and a couple of our mutual friends that if we would help him clean them up, we could have one of our choice.
Quite sometime later and after a lotta cosmolene cussing, I had a matching number Chinese Factory 26 SKS and a wooden crate of Norinco ammo.
The ammo was a bonus since the cleaning job was such a pain....

Along the way, I picked up a nice Yugo for my youngest son and he and I laid down quite a few piggies with them.

We still have both of them and some of the original Norinco ammo.
Back then, you could buy a box of FMJ ammo at Academy for under 2 bux.

I have since moved on to a pair of 6.8s with NV for hog control but break out the Commie hole punches on range days for fun and to get a whiff of that milsurp gunpowder.

I have also had a couple of ARs chambered in 7.62x39 and will have another.

Lets look:

.300 Black Out = 25.4 gr H2O
7.62 X 39 = 35.6 gr H2O
.308 Win = 56.0 gr H2O

I've got some friends with ARs chambered in it, and they love it on hogs. I zeroed one of the rifles, and on Monarch ammo, it literally shot sub-MOA.

My belief as to the reason it has a reputation of being minute-of-man at best is the rifles it was chambered in. I think an AR, and a hand load it would be a great shooter. If I wanted a decent sized bullet coming out of an AR-15 platform the 7.62 X 39 would be very difficult to ignore.

As the Fireman said, it's a very good close-intermediate round limited only by the quality of the rifles it's chambered in.

Similar to a 30-30 but for autos instead of lever guns, 30-30s are not known to be accurate either.

My Norinco SKS is plenty accurate for hogs, it shoots sub 2 MOA at 100 yds with decent ammo. Its definitely more accurate that my Ruger Ranch Rifle ever was. Have not ever used it for hogs because I have better choices but I'm sure it will work with quality soft point bullets.

I got clarification of a story that happened at my range, a couple of years ago.

10.5" AR-15, chambered in 7.62X39. We moved a Viper PST over to it, and repeatedly hit steel out to 600 yards with it. All of us were surprised it would do that. Now, of course it wouldn't have much energy that far, we were just pushing limits on a rifle range. But that was impressive nonetheless.

Wow, I wouldn't have thought that possible of that round. That's very cool.

It's just knowing how to use the scopes, and reading wind. Most people wouldn't think a .308 Win sub-sonic to 500 yards is possible either. But it happened.

I've seen a 300BO hit the 2MOA plate at 700 yards.

Dangit!

I forgot about that. It happened, no doubt.

When I hosted youth hunts at my place, I was asked how I felt about the 7.62x39; I replied I have no problem with it as long as bullets designed for deer & hogs were used. The kids demonstrated how effective a hunting cartridge it was, and I became interested in the cartridge, but I have never owned an AK or SKS. I've owned a Zastava M85 Mini-Mauser and currently own a Savage 10FCM Scout and Mini-30. All three of these are very accurate rifles, but I only shoot hand loaded ammunition. That's not quite true. I have sent some Tula 154-grain soft points through my Mini-30, and they shot well enough that I have 1K of them in a case just in case, but I've never sent any of these through the bolt guns.

Both my Savage and Ruger see a lot of hunting. When someone talks about the cartridge not having any accuracy potential, I remove the scout scope from my 10 FCM and send five rounds downrange as fast as I can operate the bolt, banging steel gongs at 50, 100, 200, 250, and 300 yards using the Williams Ghost Ring sights. The first three are 6", and the last two are 8" gongs.

I also have the 308 Win but prefer shooting the 7.62x39.



My Mini-30 spends a lot of time on hogs. For daylight use, I shoot it with either a Ghost Ring or Weaver Scout scope and use the latter for hogs under feeder lights at night. I switch the scout scope out for a cheap night vision scope for hogs on senderos or out in my native grass pastures at night. Yeah, I know it is cheap but has shot a lot of raccoons under protein feeders at 100 yards and a big black hog is no contest. Any of it is a killing combo. The Mini is also my favorite coyote and bobcat rifle.





I only shoot a 165-grain cast bullet of my design in the Savage. The Speer 123-grain SP #2213 is a very good hunting bullet and I use it with the Mini. About 95% of my shooting is with a 150-grain cast bullet that I designed for it.

Finally, anyone that thinks a 30-30 Win cannot be accurate needs to spend some time with it. There are a lot of guys that would say otherwise especially those shooting Sav 340s or Rem 788s. I have six rifles chambered in the cartridge, all are very accurate or they would not be here. My 1995 Winchester Timber Scout is probably the most accurate rifle I've ever bought, straight out of the box.

Earlier this year Whittaker Guns had the Howa MiniAction LTWT on sale for $329. I really thought about buying one but didn't. A rancher friend did and it is has become his primary rifle. He is a reloader as well.

What kind of bullets do you load for hunting? It used .311" bullets instead of the more-common .308", right? Are good bullets hard to get?

RD, DIPinc. makes an aluminum bottom metal to replace the plastic that is standard on the Howa Mini.

The Savage 10FCM has a .308" groove diameter so if I were to use jacketed bullets, I would use a .308". The cast bullet I shoot, the TLC310-165-RF is a .310" bullet.

The Mini-30 has a .310" groove diameter and the Speer 123-grain HCSP is .310", so... perfect. The cast bullet I shoot is sized .312".

I will past that along to my friend.