Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Share your 7.62x39mm hunting stories?

Picked up two scopes for the little Ruger. Both FX-IIs. A 4x33 and one of the Ultralight 2.5x20s with Heavy Duplex reticle.

Not sure which I will go with but really looking forward to being out of the bush and getting this going. Although seeing a lot of moose doing inventory work is pretty dang fun.

Shot a doe in the back of the head in mid jump at 75 yards with a BT out of an SKS. DRT, obviously…

My cousin was present, and to this day says he has never seen a shot like that. Some days, it all comes together. And then, once in a blue moon, you make an amazing shot with a rifle not built for such, and make folks who swore you would not hit anything with it eat massive crow.

I see the round as a 30-30 with pointy bullets.

Well, the zips sure laid a lot of our men in the ground with them.

I bumped into this little 8 point in Maine while carrying my Mini 30. One shot at 80 yards and he dropped in his tracks using Federal blue box soft points. It's the only game I have ever taken with the 7.62x39. It's an impressive little cartridge.

Couple years back in central Michigan, I was creeping along what was once a train track. I had a Howa mini in 7.62x39 with a Zeiss 6x mounted on top. As I poked along a basket racked six point came down a hill the train track cut through, maybe 60 yards in front of me. He was looking where he was going and never noticed me standing completely exposed. Once he clears the trees I put the cross hairs for the textbook quartering away shot, but didn’t pull the trigger. Descent bucks around there are not common so he would be better next year. I stood and watched as he crossed the train track and dropped into a swamp and disappeared in the cattails.

Micky

Out of curiosity, have you guys who've killed with both noticed any difference between a good 223 load and what the 7.62x39 or 300 BLK do? Or is it pretty much six of one, half dozen of the other?

I've got a T/C Contender barrel that is 7.62X39X.308.
T/C made it that way so you couldn't shoot the higher-pressure surplus ammo.
Very accurate.
Semper Fidelis
Soup

SKS was my first deer rifle used for woods hunting.......the closest i came to even taking a shot on a deer was when a group of does walked out, literally passing under my tree stand. The click from my safety sent the entire group into a scattering frenzy.

A buddy of mine found out about my using a SKS and loaned me a scoped Ruger #1 .270........"here, use a real deer rifle"

I sold the SKS to a guy that claimed it was a hog killing machine.

About like a 7.62x39, the 7.62x40WT will create a cloud of pink mist and eject chunks of lung from deer shot broadside at woods ranges.

My neighbor still has a 7.62x39 bullet in his pelvis from Vietnam. We went shooting one day and I brought my new zastava ak with. When I pulled it out he about went ptsd. He was a Ranger, green beret, from Vietnam through Bosnia and everything in between. After that I'm pretty positive he did other government work he doesn't talk about. Ge doesn't like the round for personal reasons but told me it was very effective at stopping people and he was lucky to live through a few hits from one.

I think it's an amazingly well designed little round. It feeds well, it's efficient, and has tremendous accuracy potential on a platform designed for accuracy. Downside is we don't have a lot of match grade .311 bullets to choose from.

I have a mini howa for the kids but I've just been letting them use 125g barnul sp ammo in it. Maybe one day I'll work up a load and see what it can really do.

Bb

Why would anyone still have a bullet in their pelvis?? After at least 40 years???

I'm not sure but it's there. My wife is his medical provider. She doesn't talk to me about patients but he brought it up to her in front of me and as they were talking it was pretty obvious she'd seen it on xray and was concerned about it. I'd ask her more about it but won't tell me anything so I'll ask him next time he comes over. A lot of that fmj stuff has exposed lead in the back. I'd be concerned about that.

Actually I'll just try to call him right now and ask.

Bb

Was thinking of necking the 6.8 SPC case to 30 cal with a 20 inch barrel in a 6lb rifle including scope. I'd like to run 140's at about 2600 fps. but wouldn't be able to get there with the 6.8 case. Need about 36 grains of powder. No decent 140's made anyway.

NICE! Now that's encouraging, Tyrone!

Waiting on a Ranch in 5.56x45mm with AR magwell as a companion piece. Looking forward to seeing how 223/556 with a Gold Dot or Fusion (or Barnes TTSX) compares to 7.62x39

SKS w/4X Red Star scope. Remington factory SP ammo. Small doe at ~135 yards. One full penetration double lung shot, doe ran 25 yards then DRT.
Notes: I have owned two SKS rifles, two CZ 527 rifles, one a carbine, the other a CZ527 American, and fit a .308” bore barrel in 7.62x39 to my Ruger 77 switch barrel action.
I have enjoyed the cartridge enough to where I now own a Ruger No.1A in 7.62 x 39.
I have enjoyed hand loading for the ‘commie’ round, and have gotten great accuracy even out of the SKS surprisingly enough.
I like to tinker, so I took some Norinco steel cased ammo, carefully pulled the FMJ bullets out, leaving the original powder charge in place, then seated Speer 123 grain game bullets in place of the removed (same weight) FMJ bullets. Crimped them in place with a Lee Factory Crimp die, and then went deer hunting without concern of loosing any good grade brass cases ejected 50 feet away in the brush.
I started hand loading in 1968. Playing with the x39 in recent years has been as much fun as any other round (and there have been a BUNCH!)
I’ve been keeping the Ruger No.1 unfired so far. However these posts may have convinced me to taking it out of the safe and getting it dirty…😆

We’ve killed several deer and turkey with a Ruger American ranch in 7.62x39. I feel like I bought one of the first ones, when they were new on the market. Mainly run it suppressed using factory Hornady SST rounds, but I haven’t seen those on the shelves for a while. I think it was a great rifle for my girls to learn with and a great truck gun that packs a little more wallup over the .223 Rem.

Do you find it a more decisive killer than the 223, ChanceD?

Yes, for sure! We’ve shot several deer with the .223 loaded with 62gr Barnes and although they’ve all died, they have all ran off. We’ve had a several animals drop in their tracks using the 123gr. SST’s. In the 7.62x39.

Sample of one each from this past season. Approximately same distance. Top was with 123 gr. Hornady SP, bottom was with 62 gr. TBBC. Same results, DRT.