so the wife wants to hunt with the mini 30, I reload and would like advice on bullet choice?

plab

I would say Hornady. With that being said though, I saw several different types of factory soft point ammunition when I last visited a Sportsmans Warehouse. Remington, Federal blue box and Federal Fusion, if I remember correctly. Also had Winchester and Sellier and Bellot.

I've got dies for the 7.62x39, but don't think I'd bother these days.

In the '90s I hunted with my Mini 30 a couple years. There wasn't much soft point ammo available then. I loaded the Hornady 130gr Single Shot Pistol bullet. I took one buck with it, hit him twice, once broadside a bit far back and the second quartering away at the rear of the onside rib cage. Both were pass-throughs and did a good job wrecking his plumbing. I sold the gun to my nephew and loaded him 50 rounds with the 125 gr Barnes XBTs. He's taken 2 deer with it and both were bang-flops.

If it's .308 bore, I'd load 125gr Nosler BT's.
If it's .311 Bore I'd load the 125gr Sierra spritzers.

built a custom Mexican mauser for my nephew in 7.62X39


ran 125 gr sierra's in it.. kills deer just fine

The 7.62X39 is in the same class as a 30-30 and should be in terms of performance similar as well which is pretty good for deer sized game

would like to see Ruger chamber the American Predator in the 7.62 x 39...

I'd buy one of those.

How bout one in 6.8SPC?

That'd be interesting too, just not as cheap to shoot. I believe the SPC would be a dandy cartridge for the compact version with a youth length stock.

What powder you folks recommend?

A while back I painstakingly loaded some Hornady 123gr SST's over AA1680 for my AK. With great care it would do 3 MOA with a cold barrel, and Minute of Jihadi with a warm barrel

A light bolt action in the caliber would be pretty interesting, though...

Does your sponsor, BSA Optics, make a "sweet SPC" scope, or better yet, a "Sweet Russian" for the 7.62x39mm?

Seems like Reloader 7 and 1680 were the powders I used when I loaded for one.

I had one of the distributor run Ruger 77mkII Ultralights, with the boat paddle stock.

Seems like I loaded the 125 grain Sierra for it too.

A Ruger American Predator in 7.62x39 would be damned nice.

The Mini-30 we had wouldn't keep all its shots on a pie plate at 50 yards. Too bad, it was a neat little riffle.

Just for [bleep] and giggles, I killed mule deer for a few years with a Weatherby Varmintmaster I rebarreled to the .308X1.5". Basically, the round is equal to the 7.62X39.

I killed twenty or more deer with the round and used the 130-grain Speer SPFN. Literally every buck was a bang-flop.

Cheers,

kd

There's some Zastava mini-mausers being imported now, which are fairly reasonable in price.

Same here. Always wondered why no one took that idea and ran with it.

CZ has a 527 Carbine in 7.62x39, also, that has a SST and is nice, short and light. I'm a little CZ poor at the moment, but I'm still thinking about buying one. Heck, one more won't hurt anything.......... loaded right, with RL-7, 1680, 680, 4198 or something similar is a dandy little cartridge. I'd use the Hornady, if I bothered to load for it. With all the cheap foreign ammo around, I doubt I'd worry much about loading for it. Buy a couple of boxes of factory ammo for hunting, and plink with the ball stuff.

I just bought a new CZ 527 carbine in a 7.62x39 this AM off of GunBrokers. It is really fascinating reading on the internet about all of the ammo, primers, cases and bullets that may or may not work in this rifle. Because I bought it just for the pure hell of it, I am planning on trying all sorts of stuff to satisfy my curiosity about this little round and rifle. I�ll certainly pass on my findings�CP.

should work, Kevin a guy I hunt with killed a deer with those mild steel soft pointed silver bear bullets in an SKS. I did not have the heart to tell him while we gutted the little buck that they would not work on deer.

Doesn't Hornady list a 123 gr. zmax, for like dirt cheap, stick that in the ribs of most any deer and it should hit the deck.....

Don't know about the Zmax stuff but Hornady used to make a .310" 123 gr. SP bullet; it was stock # 3140. Don't know if they still list that one but I've still got some from 14 years ago when I dabbled around with loading for an SKS. Toyed with the idea of using it on deer in a rifle zone as long as I limit myself to 5 rounds but never got around to it. I've got too many other things I wanna use. Mostly ran RL-7 powder and had trouble reaching the velocity of the mil-surp stuff but it would have been accurate enough for a woods rifle. If I had a decent bolt gun in 7.62x39 I would try it for sure.

Because Remington launched it and screwed the pooch, just like most cartridge launches they have their hands on.

With the SPC II in a Ruger you would think it would be a real good seller. I'm loading 85gr e-tips right now for my AR. 2900 fps sure doesn't suck.;)

125 ballistics worked like normal bullets in my nephews AR in x39. Don't recall what he runs for powder though but I don't care for Bts normally... this round is slow enough the 125 works like it should IMHO.

I shot this one in Maine last year with a Mini 30. Out of admittedly a very small sample of deer that I actually shot, this was the only one that dropped in it's tracks. As far as reloading for the Mini 30 goes I would and do, just shoot the cheap Russian ammo for fun and practice and keep a couple boxes of good American soft points for hunting. My mini throws my good brass way off.

Just be aware that the cheap, imported surplus is .310/.311 for the most part. American made 7.62x39 uses .308 diameter bullets. Some rifles will be finicky about what they digest.



I had a mini-Mauser, but disliked it after using it for awhile. Norinco FMJ and Federal SPs managed 1 1/4 inches @ 100 yd. The others, all topped with hunting bullets, Win, PP, Igman and PMC shot 1.5 to 2.5 inch groups. The skinny barrel was to blame, paired with the stock. I tried bedding and shimming, but it didn't seem to help much. The Rem 799 (Zastava) looked pretty, but shot lousy. Handloads or factory, it didn't like any of the ammunition.

123 Hornady SPs, 125 Sierras were 1 3/4 inch groups. Benchmark gave me some 1.5 inch clusters, but I wasn't really happy with any of them.

I did better with 150s. They grouped slightly smaller. Velocities were around 2000 fps.

One last thing: if you reload for this cartridge, watch which case you use. I tested six brands. Winchester had the most volume; Lapua the least.

Example: 125 gr.Lapua bullet, 28.5 gr. AA1680. OAL of 2.200 inches.

Win. cases were filled to 86% and produced about 50kpsi. Lapua cases were filled to 99% and produced about 68kpsi. Follow the recipe from your manual carefully.

The 7.62x39 should be more successful than it is. Outside of the US, it is more popular. I tried to get a Savage in this cal., but was told that being in Canada put me toward the back of the line. This cartridge is the cat's ass for eastern deer and coyotes.

I have the CZ 527 and an AR with a Colt upper, both in X39. I have tried 6-8 different bullets in both and have yet to find one that didn't perform adequately. They range from the Hornady 123 gr SP p to 150 gr FMJ for plinking. Both .308 and 310 were included and I couldn't really see much difference in accuracy. The loads settled on for each rifle stay around 1.25 MOA and often better. I also have a cast bullet load for the CZ that shoots under 2MOA.

So far, I haven't been lucky enough to have an opportunity at a whitetail while carrying one of these, but feel pretty confidant either will do the job when that time comes.

CZ makes one

jack

I don't know, but based on CZ's reputation, their rifle will probably outperform the Zastava.

I've got both the Cz and the Rem 799.

I really like these little rifles. Both are .311 bore. The Hornady load works fine in both. Privi, Tula, Wolfe, Winchester and several other euro loads work fine, as well.

I've taken 3 or 4 does with the 799, all bang/flop, of course they usally do, when shot in the head. The last was about 145 yards, right under the ear.

Good luck finding any Accurate 1680 or WC680. I think you would have a better chance of picking up Pixie Sticks with your buttcheeks.

I have some stashed but after I load 7.62x39 again the barrel will be dry. It is absotively the best I've used with 123-125 grain soft point Hornady bullets in my mini 30.

http://www.jgsales.com/7.62x39-s-b-123gr-sp-ammo,-20rd-box.-p-4356.html

I would buy this Sellier and Belliot ammo and feel well prepared.

My brother-in-law and I hunted a New York apple orchard with just our Mini 30's. He wouldn't let me bring any other caliber. He always told me to pack the " Little Gun " as he called it. Ammo was 122 gr, 123 gr and 124 gr Russian Hollow points Lead Core Bullets manufactured by Barnaul. For 10 years straight we hunted this orchard. The hunt season always started on a Monday (at that time) and we headed home on Weds with a full truck. We each had 1 buck tag and 2 anterless tags. We also managed to receive pest control tags from the owner so we could get away for a week-end from Jan 1st to March 31st. We donated the meat to various soup kitchens.

Mini 30 - 1 Blue / 1 Stainless (mine) 60+ Deer in 10 years between the 2 of us. 30-30 power at it's finest in a little carbine. If my brother-in-law was still here today I know we'd be right back at the orchard with our Little Guns.

Ken

Yep, I've had both and the CZ is head and shoulders above the Zasttav.

I bought 300 rds of this ammo for use in my CZ527 carbine and it has performed pretty well, but for hunting I prefer either Federal or Remington's softpoint ammo.

The S&B ammo is brass cased, but the bullet has a mild steel jacket with a copper or guilding metal plating and in my experiments it penetrated deeper and expanded less than either the Federal or Remington SP's. Velocity was higher, though at around 2,400 fps for the S&B versus the low to mid 2,200 fps range for the domestic stuff.

On handloading the 7.62X39 - I've had my rifle for a few years, but have only loaded for it one time. I used Hornady's 123 gr SP, Winchester brass, Accurate Arms 2200C powder and CCI primers.*Beware of using Winchester ammo or Winchester primers in the CZ 527 - the CZ firing pin spring lacks the oomph to reliably ignite the Winchester primers.

I loaded about 1 grain below maximum and got decent velocity measured in the upper 2,200 fps range and fair accuracy of around 1 1/4" for 3 shots. Both the Federal and Remington were MOA or better, so I've got more work to do on this load.

The CZ 527 is a very handy rifle for woods hunting. I use cast bullets in mine and had a 165 FNGC mold made for deer hunting. The only problem is I've never had a shot at a deer when using it. It's pure destruction on armadillos though! This is the largest animal I've shot:

*Beware of using Winchester ammo or Winchester primers in the CZ 527 - the CZ firing pin spring lacks the oomph to reliably ignite the Winchester primers.

[/quote]

I contacted CZ USA about this and they sent me a stronger firing pin spring so the problem went away.

The hard thing with the Mini-30 always seems to be accuracy and inappropriate use more than anything else. This is not a long range rifle.

I remember a thread on the 'Campfire years ago about the SKS. The problem isn't that the SKS makes a bad deer rifle, but you team up a (in those days) $50 SKS and ($.10/round) ammo and you get a sprayer. By the time you get the bugs worked out of the SKS and feed it reasonable ammo, the cheap goes away in a hurry, and what you end up with is somewhat less than a 30-30. The same is true of a Mini-30, only you don't have a cheap rifle to start with.

Bullet choice? I'd try a 130 Speer for starters and H4895. If that does not float your boat, I'd try a 150 grain 30-30 bullet.

If you use the Mini-30 as a close-in deep woods rifle, you will usually find it fits just fine. If you start lobbing stuff at deer across a wide field, it is not going to work as well. Somewhere in your searches you should be able to find a load that gets you a 2" group at 50 yards

I hunted for about four years with a Ruger M77 in 7.62x39 and used Winchester white box and took several deer and a bunch of coyotes with it no problem.

I contacted CZ USA about this and they sent me a stronger firing pin spring so the problem went away. [/quote]

I called them about the problem, too and they told me to either send in the bolt and they'd upgrade the spring under warranty, or pay for new spring and they'd send one out to me to install. I haven't gotten around to either yet.

Song dog/Wolf?

I have one of the early Mini-30s mostly for around the ranch. It's like a semi auto 30-30 equivalent, but with better down range ballistics due to using spitzer bullets.

It's been very ammo sensitive, some factory rounds shoot about 12" groups, and some will shoot under an inch. My reloads shoot under an inch using 125-150gr ballistic tips.

The ballistic tip is a good choice for hunting as the low velocity favors a bullet that opens fast.

If they shoot ok, I'd recommend to just use Win White Box 125gr soft nose rounds as the simple solution for hunting, there is not really any performance benefit to be found at the bench, and that load is more than adequate for medium game.

The round is just as capable as the 30-30.

well I loaded some 125gr nosler ballistic tips and some sierra 125gr SP put 'em on top of 27grs of imr 3031. headed to the range this week with my crony .. I'll post my results

thanks all
plab

I think 3031 may be too slow for top velocity. Mr. Richard Mann sent his results to me after he did an article on the CZ527, which showed Rx 7 to be the best out of all he tried.

3031 is too slow to achieve top velocities. It may produce acceptable groups however. It all depends on what you'll be using it for.

1680, Re 7, 4198 and even 4227 is where you'll want to be.

For 150s, 3031 might work. Benchmark did well for me in some tests with the heavier bullets.

Anybody try W296?

Hodgdon shows some decent velocity with H335 and 123's. Nothing with 296, or with Lil'Gun. They would seem to be too fast. And 296 might even be risky to try, as generally they recommend fairly tight load ranges for it & H110 (the same powder).

I bought a Ruger 77 Compact last year just before deer season and I could not believe how well it shot - I had several three shot groups at 100 yards that were right around 1/2" (with factory Federal 123 grain soft points). I killed a turkey and a buck with it last hunting season and it performed just abut like my .30-30 has on game .....meaning that turkey and venison were pretty good eating

PennDog

Yes I've tried it in my AK with 125gr NBT's. I wasn't impressed with the groups. I had better results with a case full of H335.

range report:
average velocity was 2098 with 39fps deviation. accuracy was pretty good about 1"@75yds with either bullet. I looked for a can of 4198 today. no luck. I got some 4227 I'll give that a try

thanks all for the advice

plab

I have an old bolt I converted to 7.62x39 years ago. I have killed deer with it with no problems. The old statement "Same as a 30-30" is silly. I still have two 30-30's and have shot dozens of others. The only one even close to the accuracy of my gun was an old Savage 340. Here is my deer load: Remington .308 150 Grain SPCL, H4198 24.0, 2.200 OAL

Killed any hogs with the 7.62x39?

I have. All less than 100 yds., all one shot.