30Kern cast bullet cartridge

[Wolfdog91]

Anyone mess with it any ?


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[waco]

Never heard of it.

[Mk42gunner]

Kind of hard to tell in the picture, is it basically an improved 7.62x39?

I am in the beginning stages of plying around with the .30 BR.

Robert

[charlie b]

My next barrel will probably be a .30BR.

[dtknowles]

30 BR is what I chose.

Tim

[charlie b]

Kind of hard to tell in the picture, is it basically an improved 7.62x39?....

Yes, from what I have seen. The PPC series (.22, 6mm, 6.5mm, .30) came from the .220 Russian which came from the 7.62x39. The 6.5 Grendel shares that history as well.

The PPC cartridges all had longer necks. It starts getting confusing after that since the PPC has spawned a bunch of wildcats, which the Kern seems to be another. Are they 'Improved" PPC or 7.62x39? I think that's just semantics since all of them came from the AK round.

[leadhead]

I have a Remington XP 100 chambered in .30BR that I shot in handgun silhouette years ago
and it was very accurate and I won the Internationals in 1998 in unlimited class with a 80x80 shooting cast bullets (RCBS 30 165 gr).
I don't remember how many shoot offs I had, but it was quite a few.
You won't be disappointed by going to that caliber.

[M-Tecs]

https://bulletin.accurateshooter.com...er-ballistics/

[dtknowles]

If more was better we would be shooting .308

[405grain]

I've never heard of the 30 Kern, but it looks like a 30 caliber 7.62x39 improved. About a decade ago there was some discussion going around on a few gunsmithing forums regarding any benefits to blowing out and improving the 7.62x39 case. It turns out that any marginal improvement that might take place in that small of a case wasn't worth the effort. I own two Mauser's in 7.62x39, and both of them use .308 barrels. Technically the 308/7.62x39 is a wildcat, but that's about as close as you can get to splitting hairs. Realistically, if you want to build a rifle on a cartridge like the 30 Kern, use a Lapua specification 7.62x39 reamer on a .308 barrel and then you will be able to reap all the benefits of cast bullet accuracy while being able to use 7.62x39 brass and reloading dies. (even small primer brass) The reason that people don't associate the 7.62x39 with accuracy is because of the rifles that it is commonly chambered in. (AK's and SKS's) In a quality bolt action, and with good handloads it is surprisingly accurate.

Edit: Even though with some effort a 7.62x39 can be made a lot more accurate, all those guys shooting a 30 BR will still be doing better than you. A lot of thinking and experimenting went into the 30 BR to optimize it as a superior benchrest cast bullet cartridge. Other cartridge can make impressive shots, but most often it's the 30 BR that gets to go home with the trophy.