Like Ganderite said, poke the bullet threw the press with no die present, grip it with side cutters, the bullet will pop right out on the down stroke. Who cares if you damage the bullet. Pullers are only required if your want to minimize marks or deformation. Mexican match and yer dun.
Turning surplus fmj 7.62x39 into hunting ammo?
- Thread starter Bushbum40
- Start date
If you don't care about the military bullets just place the loaded round in the shellholder and run it up through the press with no die in it. Grab the bullet with vice grips and lift the handle, the case now has no bullet.Re-seat a SP of the same weight or less to the same OAL.Been doing this for years.Last fall a buddy shot a mulie doe with his 91/30 sniper using pulled PRC 148gr ball replaced with 150gr Hornady SP's....200 yards........ no heart.....Harold
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Hey right on guys, there's a ton of good info. Didn't expect such an awesome response. Kudos to the gun nutz around here!
EDIT: Yes i am hunting with an sks. Took a forker with mine last fall at 70-80 yards. My gun gets around 3" groups. Good enough to put meat on the table as far as im concerned.
EDIT: Yes i am hunting with an sks. Took a forker with mine last fall at 70-80 yards. My gun gets around 3" groups. Good enough to put meat on the table as far as im concerned.
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Yep, nothing wrong with that rifle. There are ways to tune that SKS a bit and bring the groups down. If hunting, the first thing you can do is remove the operating rod and use it as a bolt action. You can also check the crown to see if it is even or worn and often clean that up pretty quick with a brass, round head screw of appropriate size chucked in a drill. AND you could play with your powder charge as was detailed very early in this thread.
I have no proof that this would work at all, but a buddy of mine claims that with a saw they cut an X across the tip of some 7.62 fmjs to supposedly allow it so separate and expand, when his hunting rifle (in a different caliber) failed him on a trip and he had to hunt with the SKS and FMJ he brought to plink with
well, breaking the tip (and if you had read the entire thread you would have seen the reference to a member grinding off the tip) or grinding it down will cause it to expand, but the expansion is uncontrolled, and the core is not designed to stay with the bullet now that it has an open tip.
I agree. I used to do expansion testing of experimental and production hunting bullets. We shot the bullets into large blocks of bees wax that was used to lubricate the 22 ammo.
An expanding bullet with a lead core. The gilding metal (brass) jacket is thin near the tip (to allow expansion) and thicker near the base, to hold the bullet together.
If a military bullet has a lead core (which is not true of most com bloc milsurp - steel core) cutting the tip off to expose the lead core will not make an expanding bullet. It will make an unreliable bullet that may not expand at all, or might break up, or might expand.
You put your hunt and game at risk if you try to convert milsurp bullets to expanding. But making Mexican Match by swapping bullets is a real good option.
There are a couple of ways you can go.
Cheapest method, knowing this is really all you ever want to tackle as far as reloading goes, and don't have a buddy that reloads to help you out:
Tools needed: (stick with Lyman or Lee to keep costs down)
- bullet puller (go with a press mount collet type like the RCBS unit with a .30 caliber collet. - I'm in the camp of saving the bullets because a) they are worth money, and b) the bullets in surplus 7.62x39 are actually quite good and consistent (for FMJ) - sell them to guys who reload .303))
- shell holder for 7.62x39mm
- dies for 7.62x39mm (all you'll need is the seating die)
- press (I'd recommend the Lyman Acculine - small, portable and quite cheap)
- .310 diameter bullets in a similar weight as your surplus pulled bullets (majority of 7.62x39 is 120 - 124 gr.)
Procedure:
- set up the press (mount it to a heavy bench for leverage) with the bullet puller installed
- remove each of the surplus bullets (don't dump the powder unless you have a way the weight each charge)
- switch out the puller for the seating die
- seat each of the new hunting bullets to the same depth as the surplus bullets.
Optional - once all have been seated, adjust you seating die (using the instructions in the die set) so it crimps the case back onto the bullet (just a light crimp).
Make more than you'll need as there will be a bit of a learning curve to this.
After, you can decide if it is worth investing time & money into more and better equipment.
Good luck
Lyman Accupress:
Bullet puller, surplus round and new bullet:
Bullet removed by collet and press (I didn't use the Lyman, as mine isn't set up at the moment):
New hunting round seated:
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