7.62x39 fans

[Badgersmilk]

Looks like several on-line vendors are offering this at 29.99 a box.  Priced rediculously!  But that IS a .310" diameter bullet Hornady is now offering in loaded ammo!!!  Hopefully they start offering just the bullets by themselves!

Given the look of those steel cases, it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out they pulled FMJ bullets from a $4 box of steel cased ammo, punched in V Max bullets, and multiplied the price to make a few hundred percent profit.

Backwoods home (I think Mosad Ayoob) suggested readers try this same thing for this caliber few months back.  This is the first I've seen a bullet of this quailty offered in .310" though.

http://www.tacticalgunfan.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=553&Itemid=1

[ccd]

Hornady offers(ed) 223/5.56 ammo in steel cases in their Practice line of ammo for gov agencies. The 7.62x39 is just a logical extension of that. Hornady has offered those bullets to reloaders for a while IIRC. Also Cabelas has intermittently offered 7.62x39 ammo in the recent past with red plastic tips in bulk amounts, I just don't remember them stating specifically that they were from Hornady, I just assumed they were because the polymer tips were red in their pictures.

[Badgersmilk]

.223 is trendy enough that there isnt anything that's NOT available for it.  Ballistic tip .310" bullets are something at least I havent seen before.  You can load 7.62x39 with .308" bullets, and that's what Ruger spec'd their mini-30's for.  It's just not ideal for every other 7.62x39 weapon in the world (bone head move on Ruger's part IMO).

The ballistic tips are near perfectly suited for semi-auto's IMO (no deformation of the bullet tip from the action).  Winchester offers very nice brass cases, Remington has brass cases for this caliber as well.  The Rem UMC ammo is a decent enough deal since it CAN be reloaded.  The Winchester cases are superior in quality though.

[david86440]

I saw a segment on one of the shooting shows when Hornady introduced the 7.62x39 ballistic tip and said they had contracted with a Russian (Wolf?) firm to load these for them due to current ammo supply situation they weren't able to produce them here.

It was my understanding that the bullets have been available for reloading.

[yankeefist]

my favorite by39 ammo is even steeper- cor-bon's 123 gr barnes x 

but in my opinion a much better projectile

https://www.dakotaammo.net/shop/product_info.php?cPath=23_160&products_id=312&osCsid=049647cdc2035c4d9f5cecd7d25ae68e

and they are available lose

[Sponsor]

[Badgersmilk]

Apparently those are REALLY GOOD!  Wish I had the $$ to try them.  I "roll my own" with Speer 123gr. "Hot Core" SP's.  The quality of the Speer's is a little disapointing, but I've also got some Hornady SP's that arent too bad looking.  

At least in my guns, anytime I fire SP's I can fire one round, then manually eject the next round and see a dent in the Soft Point where the bolt pushed the shell into the feed ramp (polished ramps dont seem to help to much).    That's why I only load ballistic tip for my AR10, and would LOVE to get about 500 of the ballistic tip Hornady bullets to load for 7.62X39.    

Even some bolt guns do that.

In a pinch (it'd have to be a REALLY bad pinch for me), you can get away with loading .308" bullets at the cost of accuracy and velocity.  Not the strong points of the 7.62x39 to begin with.  

[Badgersmilk]

I've got a e-mail into Hornady Customer Service about these bullets.  Some have told me they are using their .308" bullets and labeling them to match closer to caliber spec's at .310" on 7.62X39 box's.

The proper spec. is actually .311811"...  I checked my Speer bullets - .311", my Hornady SP's - .309-.310".  Though the Hornady's "look" better, that doesnt appear to be the case!


(copied from another site):
The rifle is a CZ527 carbine topped with a 3x9x40 redfield accutrac scope. The bore measures .300 land to land and .3105 in the grooves

The ammo was loaded with 150 gr Sierre soft points 10 rds of .308 and 10 rds of the same bullet sized .311. Cases were Remington CCI 400 , The powder was 23.5grs of Re-7 with a COL of 2.310

It was about 65 degrees today with a light varible breeze of 15 mph

Shot string 1
.308 bullets

1851
1826
1852
1827
1846
***************
Shot string 2
.311 bullets

1935
1904
1937
1912
1925
****************

Shot string 3
.311 bullets

1953
1888 !?
1915
1932
1925
***************

shot string 4
.308 bullets

1852
1855
1869
1844
1873

Why this is all a "big deal" to me...  Tolerance stacking is NOT something I want to get into when hand loading!

[Hazcat]

I assume you are talking fps in the above post.  How is the accuracy?

[Badgersmilk]

More or less the same with either.  I was disapointed to see the CZ bolt gun only making 2" groups at 100 yards!  At least I feel better about passing on the Remington version of that same gun now (exact same gun, just re-labeled).

[tombogan03884]

BM, your concerns are fairly irrelevant as the tolerance on bore diameter is considerably more than the +/- .0015 you are describing. When I was at T/C (maker of some of the most accurate barrels available, thats why S&W bought the company ) the tolerance on bore diameter was +/- .008 that means that a .308 barrel could measure between .300 -.316.