7.62x39 question.

[Billybob123]

OK I am a newbie to casting boolits. I have just done buckshot and that's it. I have an SKS and am curious if you can get reasonable velocity out of a cast boolit for a rifle. I believe the milsurp ammo is pushing around 2300fps MV and was looking to see if it is possible to get a good cast projectile that will have reasonable accuracy and velocity out to 200 yards for deer sized game.

[rattletrap1970]

I would suggest doing a search for "7.62x39" and "SKS", there are a couple rather lengthly and informative articles on this site about loading for that cartridge.

Here's one of them:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?13453-Practical-Dope-on-the-7-62X39

[35remington]

I would suggest a 150-160 grain cast bullet at the 1900-2000 fps range for deer hunting as it is capable of producing better accuracy than the 125 grain "cheapo" Russian and Chinese fodder.

Said by a guy who does just that with his SKS. I would suggest a bullet like Ed Harris's 160 grain Lee bullet with a little larger meplat produced by trimming it slightly in length with a file. This will produce better accuracy than driving a lighter cast bullet faster. Tried this also and prefer the Lee bullet any day of the week. At such velocities 150 yards is your maximum, but that's no real handicap. With lighter bullets, due to accuracy constraints with cast in my rifle, 150 yards is still the limit so no gain with lighter bullets.

Obtaining these velocities requires a caseful of H4895 or appropriate amounts of RL7 or H/IMR 4198. 1680 works fine as well. See the appropriate manuals online for charges.

[Billybob123]

Thanks for the info Remington.....looking at the suggested thread and trying to digest the info. It appears that casting for rifles is a trite more complicated than casting buckshot...LOL