Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Velocity from a 7.62 x 39 for deer??

For a 7.62 x 39, shooting say a 123 grain SP...

What kind of MV should the bullet have leaving the muzzle?

and would the point blank range be considered 150 or 200 yds?

Talking hand loaded here....

Thanks in advance.. never hunted with a 7.62 x 39 round....

Winter time so I'm playing with loads, from the bench...testing what works...

Hodgdon list it at at 2554fps for a 125gr with one powder. I have a mini 30 I load for but have not shot it in years.

I did a bit of testing with my CZ-527 last spring using Speer Gold Dot, old .311" Hornady's, and PPU soft points. Accuracy wasn't astounding with my best averaging 1.175" with the Hornady and 27 grains of Rx7 running 2286 fps. Second place (2.17") belonged to Speer GD and 32 grains of WC-844 @2307fps. I got close to 2500 fps using AA-1680 but, no accuracy. After not finding much to make me want to keep buying jacketed bullets, I went back to my 165 grain cast at a little over 1900 fps which shoots like this:

That's what I like to see, Joe!

What size are you running them, and what alloy are you using for your 165 cast bullets?

I did some handloading for the 7.62x39 with RL7, and the Hornady 155gr ELD-M.

My end result was 2140 fps via 16" AR carbine. I used 25.0gr RL7.

My test/group above was with the carbine shown. It is non-floated, and trigger is milspec. There has to be some room to tighten that group size.

Thanks Shane, and I love your AR there my friend!

cheers,
seafire

Sizing them .314" and using straight clip on wheelweights. Rather amazing it shoots home made better than store bought.

Joe, if I may ask, what mold are you using for your 165 grainers ?

Between myself and my wife we have killed 5 antelope and 6 deer with the 7.62X39 round. Used AK47s on all of them. My wife shot her first game animal ever (an antelope) with her AK. On her first kill she fired 3 shots. One mid body, one miss and one centered in the chest. Other than that one, all others she's shot have been 1 shot kills. My record is all one shot kills but 1, which was a clean miss. Odd for us, but not one was killed with a handload. All factory loads.

We have used the 122 HP ammo which was not what I'd recommend for hunting because all wounds were not very deep, staying inside the lung areas with no exits on the other sides and a lot of fragmentation. Be a great choice for a defense gun however.

Next is the 123 grain Wolf soft points all of which were very good with exits of about quarter size.

Last we shot some with the 154 grain soft points and I believe them to be the same bullets that are loaded in the sporting ammo for 7.62X54R. The exits were small, around penny to nickel size, so I don't think they are opening up much, or maybe not at all. Those deer ran some, but were easy to find due to the blood they left on the ground. Of the 3, the 123 grain soft point was the best for deer.

To address the original question about velocity:
I doubt it matters much.

You see, the bullets should be matched to the game, and if they are, the speed is not really that important. I have killed game with projectiles as slow as about 170 FPS (arrows from a wood bow) and as fast as 3300 FPS from a 30-378 Weatherby. Some of the worst performance I have seen have been from the very fast bullets when they didn't hold together and gave erratic and somewhat shallow wounds. High striking velocity usually is a benefit if the bullet will punch through in a fairly straight line. BUT I have killed a lot of game with handguns firing bullets at 1300 FPS and slower, with 7 deer killed with a 45 ACP firing bullets at about 850 FPS. If the bullet makes a hole straight through and hits what I want it to hit, even the slow old 45s kill deer and pretty fast.

Just last season I did all my deer killing with a 30-30 with 170 grain bullets and a 35 Remington with 200 grain bullets. The MV of the 30-30 is 2155 FPS and my 35 Rem clocks 2061. One kill with the 35 was lasered at 187 yards and the longest 30-30 shot was lasered at 217, so you can see the bullets had to be notably slower at impact then when they left the muzzles, yet both deer dropped at the shots.

So my "take" is that you should load some bullets to shoot well and get them to a standard velocity range for what ever weight you are using.

My friend Randy has shot several with flat nose .308" bullets made for the 30-30 and from what I see of his targets even though they are "too small in diameter" he is still keeping groups of under 2" at 100 yards with his Ruger American and has killed 3 deer so far with them. He says he can't tell the difference between the 30-30 bullet fried from his 30-30 and the same ones fired from his bolt action 7.62X39 on deer. The 30-30 needs no help to kill deer and has done well for well over 100 years. Shooting a bullet of the same size and weight at the same speeds are going to do the same things the 30-30 does, or be so close that you (or the deer) can't tell the difference.

I would not worry much about the velocity. Anything from 1900 to 2400 is going to do fine as long as you get some expansion, and the bullet doesn't shatter.

Get your rifle to shoot a small group with a good bullet and them practice to learn how to hold them out to about 250 yards ---------and go hurting.
It's 98% about your skill and 2% about your tools. Don't worry. You'll do just fine

I had Dan at Mountain Molds make the mold back in 2004 IIRC. This was before the on line design program was started and I made a slug of the throat of my rifle and sent it to him. I asked for a tapered driving band but, I don't think he does that anymore. Bullets look like this:

I had a Ruger 77 Mark II, shot 150g, does at 200 dropped like an anvil hit them. I moved on, sold the rifle...bored.

In my experience with a 77MkII,a CZ527 carbine and a Ruger No.1, it is possible to equal 30-30 velocities with like weight bullets in the7.62x39mm when using large rifle primer brass(mostly W-W but some Lapua) and H335. I wouldn't try it in a semi auto as the ones I have seem to be over gassed even with the mildest factory loads. The performers in the Rugers were the 150gr and 170gr Sierra FN Prohunters, 150gr Rem SPCL and Bronze Point, 150gr and 165gr Partitions, Speer 150gr RN Hotcor,150gr BTSP and 165gr BTSP, the best of them being the Lapua 150 Mega SP. By performers I mean 1-1/4 MOA or less groups and reliable expansion out to 200 yds. The Lapuas shoot about 1/2 MOA. In the CZ the 174gr Hornady RN meant for the .303 British was were it was at, shooting MOA and just clocking deer. Between myself and my kids when they were young Ive seen about a dozen deer and two black bear taken with the 7.62 x39mm loaded in this manner and only one of them didn't drop on the spot. That was a nice 217lb dressed UP buck that went about 40 yds after taking a 150 gr Partition thru the lungs at about 80yds. That was the first buck I shot with a 7.62x39mm and it taught me a lot of things. Mainly it taught me that I didn't need a hot loaded 45/70 or a .300 Weatherby to hunt deer in the swamp anymore and it made me realize that a lot of the older milder deer hunting rounds probably had their reputations for a reason and not just because that was all that was available at the time. A mild round,with bullets designed to perform at the velocities generated, kills deer handily with any vital hit.

A big round nose or better yet a wide flat nose kills all out of proportion to what you would think. Unless you have hunted with the 30-30 or 32 Special. Cast can do quite well too. The bigger the flat the better. Be Well, RZ.

Is the bore on your carbine .308 or .311?

I'm not exactly sure. I tapped a pellet of 00 Buckshot into the muzzle, then tapped it back out and measured the diameter. Best I could tell it is about .310 in the grooves.

I've often wondered if they just use the .308 barrels that come out a bit too loose, and make them into x39's.

I know that the barrel on mine is .310 and have heard of accuracy problems shooting .308 diameter bullets but it doesn’t look like it’s a problem for you. You’re getting good accuracy at a 100 from those Hornady’s if I recall correctly?

I’ve been using the SST’s in .311 for “premium” hunting rounds in my rifle. I might have to try some .308 bullets.

Thanks for your response.

Szihn, Appreciate your advise...this past season, I pretty much figured out what you said before you posted it...

just a little rational thought... but I did it with a 6.5 mm version instead...

140 grain Speer SP, 29 grs of W 748.... 2200 fps Ruger American Predator in 6.5 Grendal,
behind right shoulder and exiting lower left neck....

Bang Flop.....heavy forked horn Blacktail..... 140 pounds or so...

Not handloads, but my grandson has killed three bucks in three years with steel-case Hornady factory ammo loaded with 123gr SSTs. I bought 100 rounds when I bought the rifle and he has enough for next season. Last season’s, based on a formula for determining live weight by the weight of the boned meat, went at least 200lbs. Dead in his tracks. Power isn’t lacking.

You should get a good idea of trajectory from the info here, though it appears the steel-case has been dropped:

https://www.hornady.com/ammunition/rifle/7.62x39-123-gr-sst-black#!/

I zeroed his rifle at 100, which is good for where he hunts. Managed to secure some Nosler ammo for practice before the worst of the crunch.

Useful little round, not quite up to current .30/30, but Joe’s load duplicates the original .30 WCF.