What do you all run for steel case ammo in your ak or sks?
What functions best? What is the most consistently accurate? What is the cleanest?
Also, how do all of you feel about the 154 grain ammo? What is the heaviest bullet you could hand load in 7.62x39mm?
You get 10 people in the same room, ask your question,
And you will get 25 opinions.
This is my experience, others will have different experiences...
AK-47 is a lead slinger,
It was designed to 'Pattern' instead of precisely place bullets.
Short barrel combined with sloppy, loose tolerances make for a built in inaccuracy.
Older, Soviet built AK rifles had a steel block reciever, with a threaded in barrel.
A more rigid receiver, with a precisely placed barrel made them inherently more accurate,
But mass produced, sloppy tolerance rifling in a short barrel still made them inherently less accurate.
The AK was designed to have a stamped sheet metal receiver, which flexes during firing.
Any flex in the receiver will hurt accuracy.
Sheet metal receivers have a barrel block pinned (Riveted) into the front of the receiver, and repeated shooting loosens the rivets, elongates the holes in the sheet metal.
Again, a barrel that moves around in the receiver will never be accurate.
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The longer barrel versions of the SKS can be fairly accurate, mostly due to barrel length and longer sight radius.
Again, steel receivers make for a more accurate rifle.
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'Factory' 7.62x39mm ammo is all over the place,
There doesn't seem to be any 'Standard', including for military production.
Run through a chronograph, ammo out of the same box, same lot number, same date of manufacture,
The muzzle velocity will vary 500 FPS in a lot of cases.
That's small potatoes at 100 yards, but at 500 yards, that's a huge deal since the bullet is slow to start with.
Ever wonder why no one produces ballistics tables for the 7.62x39mm IMPORT rounds?
It would be pointless...
The other thing I've noticed,
Bullet weights (when pulled) are all over the place.
Bullets from the same box will be +/- 10 Grains, sometimes more, from the posted weight.
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I do know some people with reasonably accurate 7.62x39mm rifles,
They hand load their own ammo,
They have replaced barrels, built barrel trunnion blocks that extend farther into the receiver,
Or they started with a steel block receiver in the first place,
They have replaced the barrel with one that is longer, and has reasonable chamber and rifling.
I have a reasonably accurate 7.62x39mm rifle,
It's an AR-15 platform with 20" Colt barrel,
And I mostly hand load my own 'Accurate' ammo.
It's still not a 'Tack Driver' and never will be because of the round itself.
Big, slow, oddly shaped bullet doesn't lend itself well to long range or accurate shooting.
The round/firearms you are talking about were designed for one thing,
Lousy conditions, hitting a man size target *Somewhere* at under 300 yards.
The 'China' versions for the US civilian market were even harder to get shooting reasonably,
Even sloppier tolerances, and put together with sub-standard steel to start with.
There is a reason you DO NOT see an AK or SKS (or vairants) hitting the 10 ring or in competitions...
