Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 7.62 X 39 FOR HUNTING?

For 10 straight years my brother-in-law and I hunted a southern NY apple orchard. Choice of firearm was the Ruger Mini 30 7.62x39. Ammo was the Russian 123gr & 124gr hollow point. Each year in august we would drive to NY and visit the Thru-Way in Walden to purchase our licenses and apply for 2 each anterless permits. That gave us 6 tags for the season. 2 buck tags and 4 anterless tags. The season always started the Monday after the 15th in November. By Tuesday our tags were filled. Some years the land owner would give us 15 pest controll permits. I still have my Mini 30 stainless. Haven't used it in years. Last NY hunt was November 2004. I need to take it back out and put it to good use.

Ken

125 ballistic tips for my nephews x39.... works good.

Both the 7.62x39 and the 223 with 60gr NP's are IF rounds. They work very well IF:
Shot placement is good.
Range is not to far, anything over 100yds in my experience.
The animal is not too large. Over 100 pounds and the first two IF's become very, very important.

The big selling point here is the low recoil, great but...
The low SD of the bullets used, generally around 125gr for a 30 cal. limit penetration on anything other than a deers rib-cage. The low velocity can cause some squirrely things to go on with even soft bullets at ranges over 100yds, like no or minimal expansion on rib-cage hits and failure to penetrate on shoulder bones.

So, IF you are hunting whitetails at ranges under 100yds, probably from a tree stand and can waite and carefully pick your shots, it'll be a reasoned choise, but there are better options out there.

I wasn't terribly impressed with either the Rem 799 stock or the Zastava action.

The thin barrel made it hard to find a suitable hunting or varmint load. Skinny barrels are usually finicky. Two other things: the trigger didn't smooth out after many hundreds of shots and I did not like the small bolt handle. Actually, the size of the bolt handle was the thing that made me sell it.

I considered messing around with the bedding, but would have needed to rework the trigger as well. I was tired of fighting to get the thing to group, so I made it go away.



If I was to buy another 7.62x39 bolt gun, I would get a Savage. It has a 308 barrel and the bolt handle is not as tiny as the mini Mauser. Obviously, this is a personal thing. One thing's for sure, when I was using this in the winter, that baby bolt was hard to work with gloves on!

The tool at hand a couple of times on a hog hunt has been the X39. The largest I've shot was right at 300, thick shields, and 125 ballistic tip. 75ish yard shot through both lungs, made it about 75 yards maybe, probably less come to think of it. The longest shot was a coyote on the other side of 500.

While I am picky about what and where I shoot, the x39 is 30-30 performance imho and for 200 pound and under deer, out to 250, not problems at all.
As to picking shots, well I do that with ANY round I have. I'd rather let em walk than make a bad shot. I will admit though my options for deadly shots at longer ranges and larger animals increase with the size of the gun, but moving from the x39 to the 308 or 06 doesn't do much for me, moving to 300 and 338 mags does.

I have not found the X39 lacking in anything we shoot deer/hog wise out to 200-250 yet, though my nephew( its his upper) is not the best of shots at times, but he muffs em with a 300, x39 and a 22lr so his issue is not the round but the indian.

I wouldn't even consider the 7.62x39. It isn't even on the radar. Accuracy, bullets, and guns chambered are less then ideal. For true low recoil the 223 with good bullets is a murderer. If 223 wasn't legal and I wanted the same kind of performance the 300 Blackout (300 Whisper) would be the next choice.

me neither, I would not go out and buy a 7.62 x 39 to hunt with. If I was cash strapped it would be a pawn shop 30-30 instead. If I had one and thats all I had I would use it. I do believe folks should own at least one in their life, I have one, its shoots just fine, the russian mild steel ammo penetrates stuff better than a 5.56 except maybe the 70 grain TSX which is also quite good but still does not have the momentum a 123 grain has. In the woods for deer a 5.56 is just fine. If you got it use it, get some copper bullets and not the mild steel bullets, if you don't get a 30-30 your 10 times better off.

I've taken a 6 point whitetail with an SKS at less than 100 yards, and it performed perfectly. I'd agree with those that say it is good for deer and such inside 200 yards.

Your SKS was a dud. I have 4 and scoped or with a reddot sight I can generally wear our a 3" x 5" index card at 100 yards without a flyer for 20 rounds or more using handloads.

US made 7.62x39s, Rugers and Savage rifles, use a .308 barrel. There are plenty of good bullets for that diameter. Reloadable brass is generally cheap too.

I think the big trouble with this cartridge is that almost everyone thinks of it only for use with an SKS or AK.

Well, a few things are in order, I think, to perhaps help clarify the situation:

First off, I bought a US made 7.62 x 39 AR Barrel (which I assume to be .308 & not .311 dia., as many AK barrels are) for less than $100 delivered to my door, I can build the upper & bolt for at or a bit less than the going rate on an SKS, although really, money is not the issue here. The reason is because this may serve as a backup hunting carbine for deer in the 150-165 pound class (165 is a pretty good size here in SC, two does I shot last year went 101 & 118, respectively) at under 200yds. 200 is the longest I will ever shoot anything here, and really, it more likely be half that.

I too think that if I use quality ammo (Like us or S&B Boxer Primed fodder), not imported junk of questionable bullet diameter and powder consistency/composition, then it should be OK. Not primary, as I have 270 & 308, but there if needed.

A word or two about AK's and SKS's. I have some familiratiy with the SKS, it is actually not a bad gun, but man, is that trigger pull heavy! That really limited choices past the antiquated sights make it tough to use. The AK is actually a great rifle, nothing bad to say, but you do have to remember it was designed so that people who did not know how to read could be shown how to use it, and another thing often overlooked is that Russian tactics of the time were that the SQUAD, not the person, fired at the target, so accuracy was less important than it is to us. So I think that both as a result get a much worse rap than they deserves

LMAO. I was waiting for someone to bring up the Blackout. It's slightly less powerful than the 7.62x39. Somehow the Blackout is a good choice but the Russian is a bad one.

i think the new rugers are .311 or so they say if you ask them.

Well I must just be lucky as I have killed many types of game with my CZ 527 M Carbine in 7.62 x 39 bolt gun. It has the prettiest piece of Turkish Walnut and a set trigger. Iy's topped with a Leopold 1-5 x 20 VX II scope, with Warnke quick disconnect rings! I have killed many deer and wild pigs , as I like to call them. The biggest was a nice black boar, 300 lbs plus! Shot a coyote once after one of our dogs too. This is a sow I shot on the run @ 100 and some yardsone shot a little far back, but only went 25 yards! [img][IMG]http://i559.photobucket.com/albums/ss33/otiscampbell62/sow.jpg[/img][/img]

My Remington 799 was actually quite accurate (1 MOA) with Wolf 154 gr softpoints. As much as I loved the idea of the gun, I could never really warm up to the rifle itself. The stock was clunky and the action didn't always feed smoothly. Even so, I shot the rifle a lot, just because ammunition was so inexpensive. The complete lack of recoil was nice too.

My deer camp compadres stoke their SKSs with 154gr Wolf and use them with great results on deer drives. Complete penetration is the norm on broadside and slight quartering shots. Again though, ranges are usually less than 70 yards, often MUCH less.

Scott, even though it is a re-invention of an old cartridge, albeit slightly less powerful, it's better 'cause it's NEW....

Did you notice any expansion with the 154gr Wolf?

I shot a box of it in my CZ and it really liked it but wondered how it would expand on game.

Sorry, I never recovered any bullets from the deer that were shot. They showed enough trauma that I'm fairly certain that the rounds weren't simply penciling through.

I was curious about the comparisons made to the 30-30. In an ultra scientific ballistics test, I fired a few rounds into a clay embankment. Did the same with my dad's 30-30 and 150gr Fed Powershok.

They both expanded well and penetrated to similar depths, but the 30-30 expanded a little more and penetrated a little deeper.

It was definitely not a perfectly controlled experiment and I'm not suggesting that it is definitive in any way. Just a fun day shooting and digging bullets ouf of the clay.

Cor Bon loads a 123 gr TSX in the x39. If that isn't deer medicine I don't know what is. It even shot 1.5 MOA from one of my AKs (gasp!) with a 0x red dot sight. Complete pass throughs with the deer I've shot.

I recovered one bullet from the two deer that I shot with the 154 gr Herters, that bullet had expanded to about the diameter of a penny. I never weighed the bullet, but it still seemed as if it had some good mass left in it. This was a 4-5 point dink buck at approx 120 yards at a slight quartering away angle, went about 40 yards and piled up. Left a fair, but not fantastic blood trail, of course was only bleeding from one hole.

The other deer fell within sight, smaller doe. No bullet recovery, and since she fell in sight I walked straight to her and didn't pay much attention to any blood trail.

I've got one of the Rem 799, 7.62x39.
After some tweaking and bedding it is one of my favorites.
I use the Winchester 123 gr. hp's.
I've taken several deer, hogs, yotes and bobcats with it.
Ranges from 10 to 175 yards.
Deer and hogs that are chest shot never travel over 20-30 yards.

I don't take, what are in my opinion, marginal shots, EVER. With any rifle.