7.62x39- How accurate is it really?

Well the .22 PPC and 6mm PPC BR cartridges get their roots from x39, X39 is used in short range benchrest competetions and Lapua even makes brass for it. The cartridge itself has no issues with accuracy. I sold my AIA M10A1 7.62x39 to a member here who told me it shoots everything he feeds it into an inch at 100, and even better with handloads. The SKS is a military carbine with a strong lean towards reliability which ultimately means loose tolerances/reduced accuracy.
 
ya - the cartridge itself is capable of amazing accuracy. I have a Savage re-barreled in this cal, and it's quite possibly the most accurate gun I own; it's really shockingly accurate. With hand loads. With surplus, it's 5 MOA, at best.

As to whether it deer-capable or not, I think, it really depends whether you're hand loading or not. If you ARE, then it's *easily* as good as the 30-30. Better even. You'll be ~150 fps behind 30-30 MV's, but you'll also be shooting ballistically superior pointed bullets - boat tails, even - so that by the time you're past 50 to 75 yards, you're carrying the same sort of speed and energy as the 30-30.
 
These #'s are from hornadys website, after 100yds the KE is higher than the 30-30, don't get me wrong i like the 3030, but the higher BC makes the difference, if you use LE ammo, it is entirely different, but I can't buy that for 8$/20, Also, the barrel length being equal, I think the russian would be even better
fiddler said:
7.62x39 is NOT equivalent to 30-30 unless you are shooting or hand loading 170 grain bullets. Since nobody does this and ammunition is not available commercially, you are most likely going to be stuck to 125 grain loads. If someone feels that a 125gr bullet is more or less equivalent to a 170 grain bullet, then we can further incorrectly speculate without any knowledge that a 7.62x39 cartridge is also comparable to a 30.06.


Can 7.62x39 cartridge kill deer? YES

Is a 7.62x39 similar to a 30-30 ? NO, not even close.
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7.62x39
Test Barrel (20") Velocity (fps) / Energy (ft-lbs)
Muzzle 100 200 300 400 500
2350/1508 2040/1136 1755/841 1502/616 1289/454 1129/348
Trajectory (inches)
Muzzle 100 200 300 400 500
-1.50 3.50 0.00 -14.80 -45.20 -96.60

30-30
30-30 Win 150 gr RN
Test Barrel (24") Velocity (fps) / Energy (ft-lbs)
Muzzle 100 200 300
2390/1902 1959/1278 1581/832 1276/542
Trajectory (inches)
Muzzle 100 200 300
-1.50 0.00 -7.70 -29.60

30-30 Win 170 gr FP
Test Barrel (24") Velocity (fps) / Energy (ft-lbs)
Muzzle 100 200 300
2200/1827 1796/1218 1450/793 1186/530
Trajectory (inches)
Muzzle 100 200 300
-1.50 0.00 -9.40 -35.70
 
if you figure that you lose 30fps/inch that further moves the 762x39 into the lead. figure 20"bbl (2080*2080)*170)/450240=1630ft/lbs at the muzzle.
 
The 7.62x39 loaded with a 154 gr Spitzer SP @2,104 ft/s, develops ~ 1,519 ft·lbf energy

The .30-30 loaded with a 150 gr FN @2,390 ft/s develops ~ 1,903 ft·lbf energy

inside 150 yards with a well placed shot i doubt the deer will notice the difference.
But the 30-30 is still more powerful, and ihmo the 30-30 is on the low end of the deer killing rounds. i think a .308 or 30-06 would give me a lot more confidence.
 
I dont have a bolt-gun in 7.62X39 but I know that when I handloaded for my 1956 tula my groups got cut in half. I basically did it out of boredom. I did 20 rounds with all the charges meaured by hand so that they were at most off by a 20th of a grain (about the fudge factor of my scale.) I measured all the projectiles for weight and picked the 20 closest to eachother, made sure the seating depth and even case weights were almost identical for that batch (I did that because I was too lazy to measure internal volume so I used casing weight as an indicator for uniform volume) I loaded each round into the chamber singly so the tips wouldnt get distorted by the action, and as I said, the groups went down by half and thats with stock irons.

I also wouldnt use the round as a first choice or primary hunting round but the one deer I did shot with it, well lets say I was surprised. He was quartering twards me and the round (a factory PMC softpoint) went through the shoulderblade, took the top of the aorta off, nicked the liver on its way through, broke another rib on the off side rear ribcage and exited. Thats on par with damage Ive seen .30-30s do. As others have said, under 100 meters, and pick your shot and it will kill every time, it is capable enough on deer.
 
Go get your self a SKS and a crate of ammo. The calibre is accuate and powerful enought to but black bear and deer down. You wont regret it. I got 1 inch groups at 50 yards with one. Shot gophers at 50-100 yards and took them out.

There the funnest rifles to shoot today.
 
I have a couple of CZ527 mini-Mauser bolt action guns factory chambered in 7.62x39. They are unbelievably accurate...they will both make one hole groups with my hand loads. They are less impressive with surplus military steel cased stuff, but will both do less than 1 MOA with sellier & bellott factory exposed lead hunting ammo. But those barnes 150gr bullets hand loaded into Lapua brass? Wow.

A great deer gun at ranges less than 200 yards.

Cheers,

Brobee
 
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Brobee, is that the .311 150 tsx your talking about? or do the CZ bolt guns use a .308 bore? Ive often wondered what the .311 tsx and .311 hornady sst could do in an x39, so long as theyre not too large for an SKS bore
 
The 7.62x39 cartridge itself is a great, accurate little cartridge.

The SKS rifle that this round is often association with is not super accurate, but tales of it's innacuracy are generally highly exagerrated, and made worse by some individuals firing cheap surplus ammo down range rapid fire. A well maintained SKS, shooting quality ammo, should be able to regularly shoot around 2" at 100 yards in my experience. Likely better with a properly mounted optic.

Handloads using heavier bullets in the SKS will likely be a bit of a bonus when shooting big game, but honestly, a decent 123gr bullet in the boiler is going to kill a deer or black bear at far longer ranges than most any shooter can shoot anyway. If you want to load a 150 gr bullet, or heavier, you can do that too, and you can push them along fairly well. 150's @ around 2300 is NOT crazy from an SKS (check your hornady reloading manual if you think I'm full of BS) and this DOES make it basically a 30-30 up close, and more, out farther. I've also loaded 165gr RN in my SKS and the work fine.
 
Northman999 said:
The 7.62x39 cartridge itself is a great, accurate little cartridge.

The SKS rifle that this round is often association with is not super accurate, but tales of it's innacuracy are generally highly exagerrated, and made worse by some individuals firing cheap surplus ammo down range rapid fire. A well maintained SKS, shooting quality ammo, should be able to regularly shoot around 2" at 100 yards in my experience. Likely better with a properly mounted optic.

Handloads using heavier bullets in the SKS will likely be a bit of a bonus when shooting big game, but honestly, a decent 123gr bullet in the boiler is going to kill a deer or black bear at far longer ranges than most any shooter can shoot anyway. If you want to load a 150 gr bullet, or heavier, you can do that too, and you can push them along fairly well. 150's @ around 2300 is NOT crazy from an SKS (check your hornady reloading manual if you think I'm full of BS) and this DOES make it basically a 30-30 up close, and more, out farther. I've also loaded 165gr RN in my SKS and the work fine.
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You beat me to the punch, and well said.

The SKS is clearly not a partcularly accurate platform, but most semi's aren't tack drivers. While I do not handload for the 7.62x39 (yet), my SKS's perform well with quality commercial ammo, particularly the Prvi Partizan 123 grain soft points and the cheaper MFS crap made in Hungary. I can get 2-3 inch groups at 100 metres using only the irons.
 
7.62x39 is accurate, some guns are NOT. ;)

My CZ527 shoots under MOA to 200m with Hornady SP 123gr bullets.
The best 10 rds group I had from 858 (irons) - 5 inches at 300m - 1968 milsurp!
Yugo SKS was capable of making 1 MOA at 100m with factory Rem ammo.


IMHO the bad rep comes from people blasting away cheap ammo without aiming properly.

s>
 
GunNewb said:
Ive always felt....skittish about getting into this calibre. Despite the awesome prices I dunno. I guess I feel its too small/innaccurate for someone who wants to hunt eventually and practice with a gun for that. Also, dont really enjoy blasting at the range more of a relax and see how well I can do kind of thing. BUT I had a good time with my brothers SKS.

Convert me?
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Depends on what you will be hunting and how. As of a bush rifle for ranges of 50 yards being fired from the shoulder (dogging, sitting in a stand near a trail, edge of a field, etc) the sks will do very well on deer size game, and black bear. Basically the sks caliber of 7.62x39 is like a 30-30 winchester, which has been a popular deer gun for years.

Just remember...for hunting you can not use the full metal jacket (FMJ) ammo. You need to buy hunting loads such as the Sellior and Bellot (did I spell that right?) which is soft point ammo designed to mushroom upon impact to do the damage needed to take down an animal.

For the target range, the SKS is a very fun little rifle. One SKS may shoot better than another at 100 yards, but I always felt it depends also on the ammo you use.

Basically it's a great gun, well made, extremley dependable, very easy to strip down to clean, many aftermarket upgrades available, cheap target ammo, and they are available for price ranges from $180 to $225. So the question is why don't you own one already?:) Heck, why not two of them:) Go for it and never look back.
 
Too many posts in this thread are confusing the original post. The discussion is on the cartridge not the SKS or a specific firearm. Many firearms developed for the x39 were meant to be easy and cheap to crunch out of the factory so there accuracy - not so good. But thats the gun not the ammo

x39 is pretty accurate stuff at reasonable distance with the proper firearm, you can shoot 1 or 1.5 MOA like any other ammo and firearm combo can
 
There are three parts to your accuracy question:

The ammo.

The rifle.

The shooter.

Milsurp ammo in the best of rifles will not shoot as well as a box of new commercial ammo. And a handload with a match bullet will shoot even beter in a first class rifle. In a good bolt rifle, properly bedded, etc., handloaded match ammow ill shoot under a half inch. Milsurp is 3" or more.

Rifles: I have milsurps (SKS and 858), commercial bolt action (Norinco and CZ) and a new custom target rifle. Even after some tuning, the milsurps have accuarcy limits.

The shooter: When CGNrs post here, we can't tell how good the benchrest setup is that they use or how expereinced they are at shooting small groups.

I plan on shooting a test, soon, of 4 kinds of milsurp ammo, plus 2 good handloads, in my SKS, 858, both bolt rifles and my target rifle.

I hope the result will give us an idea of the capablity of the rifles and ammo.
 
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