Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting 7.62x39 for deer

Anyone here successfully using a 7.62x39 for deer hunting and past 100 yards!!!!?

Can't say that I have, but wouldn't hesitate to use it at that range coming out of an accurate rifle.

I shot one a bit past 100, maybe 125, with my Mini-30. I used a Hornady 130 grain SSP. First shot at the fast walking buck hit too far back, second follow up shot hit at the back edge of the rib cage quartering away. Both bullets exited. Internal damage wasn't what you would see from an '06 or similar cartridge, but fatal nonetheless.

It works about like a .30-30 for distance and internal damage. And we know the .30-30 works. That is with soft points of course. Two of my friends bought CZ 527 carbines for deer work. Both are happy with the results.

nephew loads his with 125 ballistic tips in his AR. I've taken pigs and deer to about 250 with it.

And one yote the other side of 500... we all laughed at the shot, the yote didn't.

Personally I think of it as basically a 200 yard deer gun. 300 not a problem for those inclined to know what to do and how to trail, as there is not a knock down factor in a slow round... but then folks were better at things like that back in the 30-30 days.

I have 2, Cz 527 carbine and a Remington 799. Both have worked well.
The 799 likes Rem soft points, the Cz Win Power Points.

IIRC, longest deer shot was 157, yote about 220.

It's pretty much a .30-30, so why wouldn't it work? It would make a nifty 200 yard kid rifle especially.

I put together a neat little 7.62x39 upper for my AR this year. I had short range deer hunting in mind when I put it together, and it goes 7# with a fully loaded 10 round mag. I topped it with a Leupold VX-3 1.75-6x32 with the heavy duplex reticle and I can keep 10 rounds of Federal Fusion in a 2" group at 100 yds firing fairly rapidly off a bench. Plenty good for what I thought it up for. It will do much better if I take my time and, I imagine, if I didn't have that fat duplex in a 6x scope.

The coolest thing is it collapses to about 31" long and is very handy in the blackjack oak thickets on my place.

Hopefully I have an on game performance report Saturday morning.

A guy I work with uses one in a CZ 527 for deer. He's killed a bunch with it and says it works well. He claims it's about like a .30-30 but I KNOW it's not. How ? Because I've killed a shytton more deer with a .30-30 over the past 40 years than he has with the 7.62 and have recovered FAR fewer bullets from deer carcasses than he has. .30-30 equivalent my azz.

Angry!??....

He does sound a bit offended.

It's because the 7.62x39 is metric.

Strictly speaking, in original loads it drives 123's about as fast as a .30-30 drives 150's. Which would agree with giving deeper penetration out of the old Win round.

The roosky round is loaded to only about 40,000 c.u.p. in deference to SKS's and AK's. It would be interesting to see what it would do in a strong bolt action or single shot. Of course, the same applies to the .30-30

I keep eyeing the current run of #1's in the caliber...

Yes, and yes.

Define "shytton", please, as upstate NY with said bag limits does not a "shytton" create.

Is the 7.62 the equivalent of the .30-30? No. In some ways it's inferior and in others superior, depending entirely upon platform each are in. Discount the SKS or AK variant as hunting rifles off the start, though, as accuracy (while possible) is an unlikely happenstance.

A .30-30 in a tubular lever action (most common) restricted to flat-nose bullets (not really, but stay with me) fires a bullet with more mass, but the velocity bleeds off fast. Per the OPs question, past 100 yards the 123/125 spitzer of the 7.62x39 is packing as much or more power and retaining it better than the .30-30 FN. Inside 100, the .30-30 delivers more to the target; outside of that, the edge starts going to the 7.62x39 123/125 grain slug.

If your 7.62x39 guns the 154 SPs well, then it is even out the gate and stays at least even all the way out. Amazing how folks constantly forget that there are heavier bullets in the little Russian available.

Now, if you put the .30-30 in a single-shot or bolt action, then there is no replacement for displacement and the bigger engine room of the Winchester round gives you more gas onto which you can mash the pedal. Putting a ballistically non-handicapped bullet on top just frosts that cake.

The little Russian round gunning the factor Remington or Federal SPs is a deer killer; giving up ground to the .30-30 inside of 100, but overtaking it outside the same. The Hornady SSTs should be at least as good (I'll be trying them this year). The 154s, if your rifle shoots them, are as equal to the .30-30 as you're likely to find ballistically.

BT/DT, many times over with each.

Someone say something? Sure there is a difference. And that can be changed by better choices on teh x39 end bullet wise and equaled with stupid choices on the 30-30 end.

In the end the 2 rounds are so similar there isn't enough difference between them to matter, except for arguing sake.

That's some really terrible logic.

I've killed well over 200 deer total and over 70 with the .30-30. Been doing it for quite awhile and deer tags aren't as limited in NY as many seem to think. 170 grain bullets can safely be driven 2300 fps out of a lever .30-30 if you handload. Like to see the x39 equal that. Nothing out of the x39 will equal the delivered energy of a 160 Horny flex tip driven at 2400 fps at any range.. Period.

You sre the fugg can't teach me anything about rifles, cartridges, ballistics or killing deer junior. Bank on it.

Well at least you have a few deer under your belt.

Yes, paper says one thing.

Your problem is you have not shot a fair amount with the 30-30 and the x39 to compare each. I have. Maybe on NY deer it could matter somehow.

On our deer, granted they rarely hit 200 and 150 on the hoof is pretty much about average for a buck, until he gets to 6.5 or so of age when he starts heading to 175 plus, there isn't a deer I have taken with the 30-30 that the x 39 cant' have done the same.

But you have your thoughts and I have mine.

I've also seen a LOT of pigs shot with the X 39. and very few with the 30-30, but the x39 has never failed... and on some fairly large pigs over the 250 mark.

Then again when you stick an X type bullet in a gun you have made it larger than it is.

this is about like arguing 308/30-06...when it comes to deer, take your pick, they both kill and are both more than enough.