Reloading

[steve 1]

Has anybody reloaded the 7.62X39 cartridge, and did it improve the shot group?

was the improvement worth the extra effort? I know the AK is a spray and pray type of wepon, but Im wondering if some one had tried. I know that at todays supplus amo prices, I won't save any money. Just thinking about a few hunting rounds.

 

Another dumb question. What is the "Ball" about in amo that is called Military Ball amunition?l

[avatar 4]

Has anybody reloaded the 7.62X39 cartridge, and did it improve the shot group?

was the improvement worth the extra effort? I know the AK is a spray and pray type of wepon, but Im wondering if some one had tried. I know that at todays supplus amo prices, I won't save any money. Just thinking about a few hunting rounds.

 

Another dumb question. What is the "Ball" about in amo that is called Military Ball amunition?l

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Many years back did some reloads w/ lapua brass and IMR 4227 powder. Can't remember if the bullets were .310 or .311. They were 120ish grain FMJ's so not to great for hunting though. Definite improvement in groups. With a heavier grain bullet should do you fine for hunting within 50 to 100yds.

 

I believe the ball means plain old FMJ as opposed to tracer or other special purpose stuff. Ball my be a term carried over from the old musket loading days but I'm not sure.

Edited March 27, 2005 by avatar

[IndyArms 10,186]

That is EXACTLY correct.

 

BALL just means AMMO... basic AMMO...nothing fancy.

 

and yes, it is a carry over from the days when you SHOT A BALL....

 

 

 

[Tokageko 8]

With good quality soft-point hunting bullets, you should be good out to 200 yards, assuming you/your rifle are capable. Handloading should improve your groups, but I can't geuss how much for a number of reasons. What I can say however is that pretty much any commercial hunting bullets are going to be better quality than Military FMJ. If it's commercial FMJ, who knows? I had heard a while back on here that the Wolf 7.63x39 FMJs had a hollow cavity in the nose, much like in the 5.45x39. In theory, this should improve lethality, but I don't know for certain. I can say that Wolf is better than Chinese mil-surp. Groups went from 8 inches to 4 inches with that change.

 

As far as reloading for target shooting, I believe Sierra is making .311" match bullets now, but I forget the weight. You might have better accuracy with those. I have tried reloaded ammo, but I don't remember if there was much of a difference in groups sizes though. I want to say it was better than the Wolf, but I'm not sure by how much. Hope that helps

[ASSASSIN 1]

Hi

 

I reload for my 7.62x39mm and i use lapua brass with speer 123/125 g fmj bullets and the group size has been cut in half , i use a minimum powder charge as there is 1/2 grain difference between min and max powder charge for the propellant i use. i find it well worth reloading although it is more expensive than buying factory/wolf fodder. i have used some standard military bullets but the results were crap , worse than wolf , use a good .310/.311 bullet and its worth it for the superia accuracy.

 

 

all the best

 

assassin

[steve 1]

Thanks for the information. I may try some higher quality factory loads first, and see how well they work before I start hand reloading. A new sporting goods store opened up near me and they have good prices on components and, a good selection of brands. I Have'nt had a good excuse to start reloading since I stopped hunting with my fathers 30-06, (hunting in shotgun only county now). But now that I own a rifle and a handgun .44 mag I think it may be worth it.

Thanks again

Edited March 30, 2005 by steve

[J A 0]

Back in the day when rocks were still warm and dinosarus roamed the earth........I have been reloading 7.62x39mm since the late 1980's to load Hornady 125 grain soft point bullets for deer hunting. Brass cases were rare/exspencive and soft point ammo was not imported or loaded in the USA at the time. Loosing about 1/3 of the brass cases in the weeds every time I went shooting it didn't take long for the 200 once fired brass cases to get real low working up loads and testing them. A friend suggested that I pull the bullets from Chinese surplus ammo and seat the soft point bullets. Well this worked great the sp ammo shot to the same point of impact as the surplus ammo. The best part was that I didn't have to spend 30 mins after shooting with my ass in the grass hunting for brass.

Fast forward to the late 1990's. Chinese ammo had been banned since 1994 so I had to use the cheap Russian ammo to seat sp bullets in but it gave poor accuracy. The powder charges were inconsistant in the Russian ammo varing by up to 1.6 grains. So I weighted the powder charges of 10 rounds and dumped the powder in my powder measure. Then charged the cases with the average powder weight of the 10 rounds. Loading a Sierra .311" 125 grain sp bullet cut groups down to 2" at 100 yards in my scoped Saiga rifle.

The best thing about the steel cases is I can shoot them and forget about them.