I've loaded 174gr bullets at about 1800 fps MV in my SKS. Might get a bit more speed with a bolt action. Not much case capacity. Maximum is ~30 grains with very little or no space left to seat a longer heavy bullet.
I agree. The thing I see here is that many are stuck on premium bullets with long ogives and boat tails.
None of this is necessary because of the limited performance this cartridge is capable of.
That's why I fully suggest the appropriateness of heavy cast bullets with flat bases and round or flat noses. Same shape would be appropriate for jacketed bullets. That would leave more space in the case for the right powder to get close to 2000fps. SAFE only in a strong/late bolt action.
I'm working on just this. Finding those heavy bullets with the shapes I'm interested in is the problem unless I purchase at least 500 at a time. In this instance only I am looking at partial boxes at gunshows.
The people that state this is a two hundred yard Deer cartridge are IMHO correct. Still the little 125 grain bullets in fmj do a formidable job on humans out to 400 meters quite well.
Very few animals just drop in their tracks when first hit, unless the spine is shattered or it's hit in the brain, a shot I sincerely don't recommend. The target is just to small for most shooters. Especially with an SKS.
However, a through and through lung shot from a heavy bullet will drop an animal quite quickly and leave an easily followed blood trail .
One other thing about slow moving, heavy bullets is that the animals are often more surprised and the hit leaves them confused. I've seen a lot of animals larger than Deer taken with black powder muzzle loaders using mini balls just stand where they were shot for several seconds before moving. Even then, their movements were not at top speed.
There is a very good case for using the relatively diminutive M43 round. There was a hunting program a few years ago showing a Russian Elk/Caribou hunter whose firearm of choice was an SKS with fmj bullets.
