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

I don't have any...yet...but I'd greatly enjoy hearing yours if anyone would like to share.

What have you hunted with the 7.62x39? What load did you use, and how was the performance?

I’ll be following this one as well. Just picked up a lefty mini Mauser so chambered. Seems like it ought to be a great still hunting rifle.

Right on mart! A Zastava?

Its a Ruger American Ranch here. Looking to try both the 123gr TSX and 120gr TTSX (for 300 BLK) on game. This year I took my deer with 6.5x55.

But I'm really looking forward to trying the 7.62x39 as well. And on bigger than deer if its what I end up holding and the range is short.

Yes. A Zastavas. Nice little rifle and still in the cosmoline. It was pre owned by a neighbor who never got around to shooting it.

Always kind of longed for a ranch rifle in 7.62x39. I have one rebarreled from 223 to 6x45.

Good luck with it and your hunts.

Great! They look like a real peach. That Ranch rifle sounds nice too.

Thanks and enjoy as well!

Piles of hogs with a suppressed 7.62x39 AR with thermal. 125 Wolf sp, 8M3s and Hornady SSTs. Upward of 5-600.

WHOA! Now there's some data points! How do you find the lethality/penetration with that load? When youre not knockin them in the head or spine at least lol

Switched to the 7.62x39 when I got tired of chasing brass. Some kills over 200 but most +-100. Hogs aren’t to hard to kill but it did do a very good job. Only the first hog or two would be neck shoulder junction then it would be a free for all with the runners. As long as the range was kept under 150 yards or so I saw no difference between them and the 6.8 or Grendel. Kids killed a few deer with the SST. At the end before we lost the fields I had pretty much switched to the Wolf Performance 125 sp. Cost and the fact that it tended to put them down so I could move on to others was the reason. We were on extermination duty so it was put a bullet into every one if possible.

Boy do I miss those days.

"Whoa!" once again. Wow. Well that pretty thoroughly answers it will kill deer size stuff very capably. Interesting to hear its no different from 6.5 Grendel out to 150 as well, as I've been looking at energy tables and agonizing over a couple hundred foot/pounds tops and whether I'd have an exit with 7.62x39 lol.

I can see why you'd miss those days! That's incredible.

I don’t much worry about ft/lbs. I just grab what I think would be fun to hunt with at the time. Killed all my deer for a few years with sub when they made suppressors legal in my state. Killed quite a few deer and hogs.with 158xtp 38sp, 240 cast and hp subs 44sp and 45acp in suppressed rifles. Put it behind the shoulders and they don’t go very far.

If you can find them the Hornady 123 sst would be my chosen load. They only do around 2250 if I remember correctly but they always shot small groups and killed well. I’m from the south and our deer normally top out around 200 but have killed some 300lb+ hogs.

Also just guessing but I would think think you would be able to hand load to be in the 25-2600 range in the bolt guns. With where you are from the Barnes would be a good choice.Never handloaded the 7.62x39. I always used it to keep from having to handloads for what we were doing. As the range extended I pulled out the 308 with handloaded 168 AMax. Was my favorite big hog medicine but for hunting the fields at night it didn’t really matter.

Sounds pretty hard to go wrong with that, if you have to reach out there!

I'm liking the idea of the 7.62x39 as a rifle I could, but don't *have* to handload for. Fun to try different combos and stuff, shoot them for groups if I feel like it. Lots of steel case plinking ammo left...but I certainly won't be shooting as many animals with it as you did!

A set of 50 rounds of hunting ammo should last a good long time.

Betting you're right on with the speed too. Some pretty wicked velocities with CFE BLK especially. Ordered up 2 cans to go along with the Barnes bullets. Hoping for 2400-2450 fps from the 16" barrel of the Ruger Ranch.

Thanks for the confirmation on what it can do. It wouldn't be my preference but I'm pretty confident that with good shot placement or waiting for a good presentation, it'll do for moose at short range.

Good luck and post up your results.

I thought about hunting with my AR chambered in 7.62x39 a couple years ago, but never did. None of the shots would be over 50 yards, as we run a bait stand at times. While I would love to shoot a black bear with it, I ultimately decided against it. I only had to be reminded one time about the grizzly boar that came up and shook the tree we had the stand in. We were 14 days past grizzly season, or I’d of unloaded the .300 WM I had that day. Talk about a pucker factor.

I have lived in the lands of & or near the planes of South Dakota. Roughly 8 years ago I purchased 2 CZ 527's in 7.62 x 39. Some will understand others will be baffled that neither 7.62 x 39 have been shot by me in their original configuration.

Since purchasing those CZ527's in 7.62 x 39 I have re-barreled one to 6.5 Grendel that made a fine deer rifle. Then 2 years ago That rifle was re-barreled again to 6mm ARC. Again a fine deer rifle that I was offered my nicest whitetaii, to date. This nicest deer I have had a opportunity at was a beautiful 5ish year old 160" 4 x 4 brute taken at 254 yards in November of 2021. Bullet of choice for that hunt was a 108 grain Berger Elite hunter. Impact was a high shoulder shot. Actually low spine impact. That deer simply collapsed at the shot & was finished.

This last fall that same rifle was my deer rifle of choice. Took 2 does opening morning, each at roughly 100 yards.

So as of yet I have not chosen to shoot either of those rifles in 7.62 x 39.

Ho-lee.


thanks! Will do!!

I started my sons, 3, with a custom mini-mauser in 7.62x39 and my youngest shot his first deer with it, a doe. I liked it so much that I bought a Ruger 77, Zytel stock, in same chambering. I found the cartridge to be a great overall camp gun and it often rode on the rack of my ATV while doing chores any time of year. I was also a loaner when anyone visited and didn't bring a rifle. The Ruger had the only used scope I've ever bought, a Leupold 6x36 that never lost zero, no matter how many bumps on the ATV or overall rough handling. I consider a perfect Whitetail rifle for young hunters, out to 100 yards.

Oh those look like fantastic rifles!

Hope someday I see one and its not priced out of reach. Stainless too eh?

I have a Ruger American Ranch and a CZ 527 carbine in 7.62x39. Awesome rifles. I have a mini-30 so the mags are interchangeable between the two Rugers. The CZ likes the steel case stuff, but the Ruger has no issues with it either.

Cool! Make any meat with them?