Practical Dope on the 7.62X39

[badbob454]

any new heavy boolit loads for the sks ?

[10x]

any new heavy boolit loads for the sks ?

Check this thread
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...LeveRevolution

[badbob454]

wow 10x thanks for this i found a new load

[10x]

wow 10x thanks for this i found a new load

Thank Larry Gibson more. He did the hard work...

[badbob454]

yes, larry is the bomb !

[groovy mike]

Has anyone worked up a load for the 140 grain cast bullet from this thread http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...-Spitzer/page6 ?

I'm having decent results with 25 grains of IMR3031 but I bet there are other powders that will work too....

[Hueyville]

Have been loading cast for 7.62x39 combloc rifles for years. Most have been in steel Berdan cases because the local indoor range and public rifle range give me all the steel cases they pick up as were pitching in trash. Unfortunately the Obama ban on products made with Russian government interest has made it near impossible for me to find the proper short Berdan primers for x39. Still have plenty and can still get 7.62x51 Berdan primers.

Luckily had a good many brass case, boxer primed cases put back and found a deal on a 10,000 count lot of once fired brass boxer primed. Whether steel or brass house rule is to load 100 rounds per week of 7.62x39 with cast bullets. 50 go into strategic reserve and 50 go to work where have my own indoor private range with maximum 60 foot range. Customized a group of six Russian made SKS's years ago doing triggers, adding rubber butt stock pads to increase length of pull, Trijicon night sites, reliability work and other tricks. The one shoot cast through have been doing an endurance test and now over 2,000 rounds of cast without cleaning or failure to feed, fire or extract.

Use the common 160 grain Lee cast bullet mold, wheel weight alloy because have tire shop that gives me all their wheel weights free and aluminum gas checks. The aluminum checks when purchased in 10,000 count lots are dirt cheap. Used Reloader 7 for years but inventory depleted and have a significant supply of Accurate Arms 2230 that was purchased a decade ago. Try to keep 10 to 15 years of components in inventory to support my 500 round per week average round count. Thus when loading, usually shooting ammo based on price a decade or more earlier. Have fresh batch of Reloader 7 but until get through all the 2230 will keep using the old stock. Based on price tags of primers and powder a decade old, free wheel weights and cheap aluminum checks, current cost to load hovers around eight to nine cents per round. Cheaper than any rimfire I can find except the hundreds of bricks with 8.99 and 9.99 price tags still piled everywhere around me.

I shoot my load through my SKS's and AK's all the time. Also shoot cast through my M1a's, 6.8 spc II and 30 caliber AR's and more. My combloc rifles actually group better with my cast loads than surplus ammo. Every week intend to keep loading 100 x39 rounds and saving half then shooting half. Seems to be a good system since have enough presses to keep one set up for x39 year round. If you can get the right primers, learn to load steel if don't already. I am not going down the road of modifying large rifle primers then using super glue to make sure they stay in cases when fired.

[armoredman]

10,000 brass cases? I think Id swoon if I had that many - some of my brass has so many extractor marks on them that it's hard to read the headstamp!

Speaking of loads, anybody ever tried a 100 grain bullet? LAGS gave me some I hadn't gotten around to trying...available powder is H-335, AA 1680, IMR 3031 and some Reloder 7. Suggestions?

[LAGS]

Try 25 to 30 gr of the reloader 7

[hansej04]

Hi everyone! I stumbled on this thread while researching reloading for an AK47 with cast bullets. For my first post, I'm going to do something very helpful to all of us! Looking for load data, I decided to compile all the loads I saw in the 10 pages of this thread in an excel document, collecting information about the bullet weight, powder, powder charge, gun used, whether the gun cycled, accuracy, and some other helpful information about the loads, such as the lead alloy (and extrapolated hardness) used, the bullet mold, how far cases were thrown, and whether was leading. I sorted these loads by bullet weight and then by the speed of the powder used and the amount of the powder used. I hope this data is helpful to everyone here looking for load data! Just as a disclaimer, I want to remind everyone that using unpublished data has its risks, and that you load at your own risk. I wont be held responsible for any error or dangerous load that I added to my dataset. I am linking the dataset as a pdf. You'd have to print the 4 pages off and line them up to make any sense. *NOTE* Compressed charges have a "c" after the grains of powder. If the link does not work, let me know. Here's the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz3...ew?usp=sharing

[hansej04]

Hueyville, what charges are you using with the wheel weights and gas checks? When i started looking for data I was planning to do large scale "strategic" storage like you are, so I want to load rounds that will perform nicely in terms of velocity and accuracy, while still loading them on the cheap (I'm a broke college student in an expensive hobby). I'm not expecting mil-spec performance out of these rounds in terms of velocity (especially since I'll be loading 160gr lee like you), but I want at least 1700fps (preferably more) without sacrificing accuracy too much.

[10x]

Hi everyone! I stumbled on this thread while researching reloading for an AK47 with cast bullets. For my first post, I'm going to do something very helpful to all of us! Looking for load data, I decided to compile all the loads I saw in the 10 pages of this thread in an excel document, collecting information about the bullet weight, powder, powder charge, gun used, whether the gun cycled, accuracy, and some other helpful information about the loads, such as the lead alloy (and extrapolated hardness) used, the bullet mold, how far cases were thrown, and whether was leading. I sorted these loads by bullet weight and then by the speed of the powder used and the amount of the powder used. I hope this data is helpful to everyone here looking for load data! Just as a disclaimer, I want to remind everyone that using unpublished data has its risks, and that you load at your own risk. I wont be held responsible for any error or dangerous load that I added to my dataset. I am linking the dataset as a pdf. You'd have to print the 4 pages off and line them up to make any sense. *NOTE* Compressed charges have a "c" after the grains of powder. If the link does not work, let me know. Here's the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz3...ew?usp=sharing

You may want to check Larry Gibsons work
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...volution/page2

[russs]

hansej04,Thanks for the work on the chart. I have read this whole thread twice and that really pulled things together.

[iMigraine]

Finally slugged my barrel end on my Russian SKS. The diameter on my micrometer measured .3095. For some reason I was expecting it closer to .311.

[nekshot]

Their standard is to be different! I take a once fired shell and see what booit I have that fits snugly into shell and still chamber. I use LVR almost exclusively and usually if boolit is over 160 grains all will be well! A good thread on Junior's load by Larry Gibson is good solid info.

[pakmc]

I use steel Russian and brass cases for my Chinese SKS and my two palmetto 7.62x39 uppers the palmetto uppers are quite accurate, that said, I do have a supply of berdan primers. I can reprime most "normal" euro cases. from 6.5x55 up to an including 8x56R. steel. it a bit of a pain to clean up the steel cases. the rims get smashed up and some of them must be filed down to work in my palmetto uppers. I use a "cold chisel" slightly smaller than the primer. I flatten the end and round it like the inside of a primer. I drill about half way through the primer with a bit slightly larger then the firing pin hole. but the case in something(I use a .45 Lc. die with the Lee recapping pin backwards with the case just resting on the reversed end of the decapping pin. I drive the decapping pin into the primer at about a 55% angle. If you use a long alignment tool to make your chisel all you do then is a twist of the rist and out pops the old primer. clean out the primer space, and I use a Lee auto primer to seat the new berdan primer. (I use the steel cases durning the winder when it's too cold to go shoot. and yes, I brought about 10,000 berdan primers about 10-12 years ago off GB. I still have about 7,000 of them. I reloaded 6.x55, 7.5x55,and 8mm mauser, 7.62x39, 7.62x54R, and my 8X56R steyrs. any thing smaller than .45-70.

[Filroy77]

I couldn't find a catagory that fits my question but it's for reloading my SKS.

Are Berdan primers available? I have a lot of M67 brass and would like to reload. I've heard you can convert them to boxer but don't know that process. Any help is appreciated.

[iMigraine]

Haven't tried but this place sells tools to convert Berdan to boxer primers.
RussianReloads.com

[Filroy77]

Haven't tried but this place sells tools to convert Berdan to boxer primers.
RussianReloads.com

Thank you, I'll give em a try.

[Retumbo]

Finally got my reloads out. As accurate as Chinese surplus. Lee's 155 grain bullet, COWW, gas checked and Alox coated. Sized to .311

24.5 grains IMR3031. Fun to shoot. Shot through 1" of plywood and a 8" dead ash tree. Only was able to recover two bullets. The rest went right through the tree. Gas checks were found between the plywood and the tree. Target was a 50 yards