7.62X39-Red Headed Step Child In The AR World

Yes sir, I'm guilty of it too!

I have owned X39 AR's since 2005, but only thought of it as a 100yd solution to the pitiful 5.56 for hunting deer and hogs.

I've had reloading dies for over 10 years and just recently decided to break them out so I could load for this little red head!

In the last month I have come to the conclusion as to why it's not respected more. Poor quality loaded ammo!

I have 3 AR's chambered in this caliber. One is a16" barrel, X3 digital NV, piston driven upper so it's zero'd at short range that will soon be wearing a can. Another one is also 16" and piston driven, but wears a scope. I just upgraded my old reliable 20" X39 to a RH side charge and full floated 15" key mod HG.

Well the two later have both been out to 200 yards with my hand loads! Wow what a surprise, both rifles shot extremely well...especially with me being on the trigger!


This is the 16" at 200yds.


The bullet impact to the left was a scope adjustment...the hole to the right was me being me! But again at 200yds.

MV on these is over 2300fps with CFE BLK powder.

I had to see what it would do at 400yds and shot a 5 into a nice 6" group! Sorry no pictures...too lazy to walk back down there!

So I now have a lot more respect for this little Red Head!

A 7.62x39 lightweight bolt gun has it's place as well.

What's your load?

I will have to check my notes, but I will post it once I get home.

cheep plinking ammo and poorly feeding magazines were the bane of this caliber years ago, both of those can be fixed.

AR's for hunting all seem to fall into a "niche" and there are "groupies" that swear by 1 caliber or another and people always start the "cartridge wars" -- the x39 seems to often be grouped in with the "30-30" as a short range brush busting gun, but loaded properly it can be a viable option for some.

as far as accuracy in AR's, it has improved dramatically over the last 10 years or so-- good quality barrels, adjustable gas systems, free float hand guards and excellent triggers have all helped in recent years--AR's can now be had in everything from 22lr up to 300wsm, 300wm, 338 LM etc

"Cartridge Wars" this barrel w/bolt fell victim to that roughly a year ago. I was turned on to the 6.5 Grendel in the spring of last year. Turned my bull barrel 5.56 into a Grendel. I liked it so well that my 20" 7.62X39 became my 20" Grendel.

I tried to sell it but no takers, so I bought the "stuff" to build it back again. After scoring a bunch of AR stuff inan estate sale the 20" Russian received some up grades (side charge and key mod)...sure am glad no one grabbed this barrel!

Almost forgot...
CFE BLK 29.5GR AV. 2326 SD 11.... I forget what the ES was....

Having owned too many X39 rifles to even come close to remembering over the years, I had always relegated them to the roll of Blastin' and to see how fast I could empty a crate of (back in the day INCREDIBLY cheap) ammo in the shortest amount of time.
Boy was that fun. And foolish, but, hey, I was young, dumb and full of.....myself. Yeah, THAT'S what I was gonna say. HAH!
Back on point, the AK and SKS platforms were generally designed to sling lead in battle and with the hopes of overwhelming an adversary by sheer numbers and volume. Remember the word "volume."
Accuracy, per se, wasn't really factored in IMHO outside of the fact the rifles WERE expected to perform and allow a shooter to hit his target at reasonable (?) combat ranges.
Consequently, guns were pumped out by the gaZILLIONS and consistency wasn't much factored in. Just having the rounds chambered, fired without killing the operator and having the projectile sent downrange with an acceptable accuracy was the norm. Not the Warsaw Pact equivalent of competition at Wimbledon.
Barrels were cranked out by the God only knows HOW many and precision given only a passing thought.
So the platforms (AK & SKS) weren't built with an eye towards Sniper duty and, thus, they didn't have a a lock on truly accurate delivery or one-hole groups. And the ammunition construction showed that philosophy and the word "accurate" wasn't really used in the same sentence to describe platform or ammo.
It was all about VOLUME.
Then came the bolt gun and the folks who began to experiment with extracting much (!) better performance. After many missteps and the gnashing of teeth, several gun manufacturers got the combo or barrel length and twist rate figured out then started to develop a TRUELY accurate projectile and things started to change.
Reloading brass was long in coming back in those dark ages but, eventually, Berdan gave way to a modern primer, powders were factored in and VIOLA!
The 7.62X39 now "can" be a reasonably accurate cartridge delivered by a decent launch system.
Used with consideration to range and game, it provides a decent Bring Home The Bacon (or venison) with regularity these days and as shown by the OP, accuracy CAN be had with a little determination, grit, hard work at the development stage and reloading bench and tenacity to make things Just Right.
Gone are the days of $100.00 Tuna Tins ammo, two to a wooden crate, so blastin' for the sake of blastin' isn't as prevalent these days. After all, kids college funds, a mortgage, Wife Unit kept happy and all the other myriad of daily life vie for those too-few shooting dollars, to say nothing about the truly CHEAP ammo that has gone the way of the Dodo bird I'm sad to say.
But, Yessiree, with the right gun and barrel, well-built ammo and glass, the X39 CAN be a force to be reckoned with.
Now if only I could latch onto a railcar filled with all those crates of ammo I mentioned and another railcar loaded with the $100.00 SKS's or even the $150.00 Russian AK rifles I would be a Happy Puppy.
Sorry for the trip down Memory Lane. I appreciate your allowing an old and dilapidated disabled Veteran to air out the cobwebs inside his noodle.
Now all you Young'ins keep posting your exploits and pictures so I can continue to live Vicariously through your exploits.
God Bless, Be Safe and........
Overnout

HARPERC said:

A 7.62x39 lightweight bolt gun has it's place as well.

What's your load?

Click to expand...

I've told this story in an older thread, but back in the 80's I worked in a gun shop. A frequent repeating conversation topic that I had with one of the owners was the ideal KA A-Zone (aka "Hiking short, steep hills with a rifle") bolt action hunting rifle. A critical constraint was off the shelf ammo, no reloading. When the first soft points in X39 arrived that sealed our caliber selection. In those days the Tikka was the smallest action we knew of and finally arrived at one of them in X39 with a slim stock (what would now be called a "Mountain Stock"), 3 rnd blind mag, and a 2-7x Leupold would be about as light of a rifle as we could build. Neither of us could afford to build it at the time.

Fast-forward to now. Mike has passed away (RIP), but Howa offered their Mini in X39 with a light weight barrel contour. When Brownell's ran them on sale I decided that I could afford to build it as an experiment. Currently it is a little over 6lbs. and isn't likely to get much lighter w/o an injection of cubic cash. The little that I've shot it has me convinced that it is an accurate little thing and it is fun to shoot. After plinking with it at his range one day a serious hunting friend has expressed interest in taking it along for a short range rifle on his next big hunt. I'm in the middle of pillar bedding it now. Once bedded I'll shoot it for group size and try to find what it likes in hunting ammo.

That rifle inspired me to try a X39 upper build. I've only been able to find 16's and one 18" barrel. If there's a source for a good, off the shelf 20" X39 AR barrel I'd like to know of it. My 16" upper and 18" upper both work well. My first 16" didn't and it took some doing to get it to run. Now for plinking I'm more likely to grab an X39 upper than I am to grab the 5.556 upper.

ntsqd said:

....When the first soft points in X39 arrived that sealed our caliber selection. In those days the Tikka was the smallest action we knew of and finally arrived at one of them in X39 with a slim stock (what would now be called a "Mountain Stock"), 3 rnd blind mag, and a 2-7x Leupold would be about as light of a rifle as we could build.
................Currently it is a little over 6lbs. and isn't likely to get much lighter w/o an injection of cubic cash. The little that I've shot it has me convinced that it is an accurate little thing and it is fun to shoot. I'm in the middle of pillar bedding it now. Once bedded I'll shoot it for group size and try to find what it likes in hunting ammo.......

Click to expand...

Putting similar together, waiting for it to get back from restocking. Started with a Ruger Compact Rifle-2-7x Leupold....I need to get serious when it gets back, but has shot well for the kids so far.

The improvements in bullet selection should make it a legit hunter. The 130 Hammer's should do most of what such a rifle is intended for.
CorBon was making a 150 grain soft point advertised at 2300+, but I bought what they said was the last of them, if they didn't try another run.

I also have a x39 Upper but have had problems with finding suitable magazines. What type do you use and where can they be found? thanks

The problem, from what I've read, is much past 10 rounds the large taper of the case starts to cause problems with the mostly straight magazine body of the typical AR mag. It is the reason that the Rock River Arms lowers for this caliber employ a more AK shaped magazine. I *think* it was "majorpandemic" who opined that C-Products and AR Stoner mags were the only ones worth using in this caliber. I've bought both in 10's and they work fine. Excepting the "Magageddon" week this State limits us to 10's anyway, so can't help with higher capacity mags.
My C-Products mags came from Midway, but it looks like RRA carries them as well:
https://www.rockriverarms.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_ID=1812

I've been using the AR Stoner 6.5 Grendel mags with great success. The 6.5 Grendel is after all based on the 7.62x39 case. Many guys and gals are using X39 brass to 6.5 Grendel cases.

Well this is some interesting discourse indeed! Loading for the rattle guns can be fun. I have a YugoM70 b1 (Zastava O-Pap) and a Yugo SkS and actually eked MOA out of both of them @ 100 yards. I was pleasantly surprised by this. A few years back, I bought a box of 500 Hornady "Zombie Max" boolits and mixed them up with some IMR 4198 (24.0g) and some WLR large rifle primers. Oh yeah, and would you believe Lapua brass? Anyway, this has proven to be quite fun. I never really appreciated the build quality of these rifles until I started reloading for them and found out what could happen if you gave them a little "love" and stop feeding them the $4.29/box stuff that a friend of mine (now departed) used to refer to as "Camel Sh#T".

Yep I used to shoot the cheep steel case stuff in both of my Yugo SKSs and you were lucky to keep your shots on a paper plate at 100 yards. I decided to do a little reloading and found that a Lapua case (only brass boxer cases I could find) full of H322 and a Hornady .310 diameter 123 SP would shoot sub MOA at 100 yards and that is with open sights. This bullet made a good close range in the thick jungle swamp of NC deer bullet.