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View Full Version : 7.62x39 PP Boolit size



Lionel Allen
04-05-2020, 01:03 PM
I've got a couple days at home to muck around, so I'm playing with my Norinco 7.62x39 bolt action rifle.
Gotta love Chinese quality control as the bore is around .317 diameter.
I've Beagled my 311041 mold to about .314/.315 and taken up the rest of the diameter with two wraps of paper to get me to .317.
Not too sure exactly how large the chamber is, but I've got some cerrosafe waiting at the Post Office for me to pick up tomorrow.
Now, my question is, how tight should the paper be to the boolit? I have a push through sizing die that runs at .317, and I might be able to get a little larger on the beagled mold for a bit tighter squeeze from the paper.
I'm playing around with subsonic ballistics (6 grains TrailBoss) which was fairly accurate with dry paperpatch, but mediocre when I lubed some loads with 45/45/10. I think I'm getting inconsistent patch release with the lubed boolits, and I'll load a few more later today to try out (Lucky that my range is right out the front door).
I have a couple of other molds that I can try, but I have to go to the pain of Beagling them, and I don't want to spend $ on a new mold right now, but if I did, it would do double duty with my oversized .303...
opinions?

Harter66
04-05-2020, 04:42 PM
I feel your pain . I have a nearly 8×39 ........ It plunks a fired case with a .323 sized 325-175 Lee seated . The throat will actually shoot that one so sized but not well , the throat is actually .320 but the leade is long and accommodates the fat bullet . The rest of the barrel is .3165×305 .
I wrapped a 200 gr spitzer custom 30 cal at .312 and wrapped in 2 laps of green bar paper and sized .318 . Because Wolf Gold and Brown Bear with .310 bullets shoot about 12" at 75 yd I'm happy with a 1700 fps load that shoot 3×5 group from an SKS fed from the magazine .