Shooting 7.62x39 thru .308 dia bore?
I'm got a short chambered Remington 700 barrel coming that has been rethreaded for small ring Mauser. I have a intermediate length Turk action that I'm going to mate it onto. I will probably end up chambering it too .308win but have got to wondering if 7.62x39 might not also be an option? It seems that I remember reading somewhere that some of the commercially made and sold rifles for the 7.62x39 are built on the .308dia barrels and that they shot just fine. I am also aware that the 7.62x39 bullet is supposed to be actually .310" dia. So my question is do any of you have any first hand experience with shooting the .310" bullets thru a .308" bore? Thanks
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I don't think it would be an issue as long as there is bullet movement before engaging the bore. I once read P.O. Ackley said pressure required for bullet swaging is trivial compared to chamber pressure. I would be leery of trying much of that tungsten core AP stuff but ball ammo should be fine.
I have a friend that shot thousands of rounds of 9mm Sten gun ammo in his broom handle in 30 Mauser. He was Marine Corps sniper in Korea and people were shooting at him. That broom handle saved his life several times. He showed me several of the elongated bullets he recovered.
I know a different guy that will shoot 45ACP in a 30-06.
I'd rather have the 308 Winchester.0 -
I've shot .310-.311 through a .308 bore but found it wasn't very accurate. In this specific instance it was a bolt action 7.62x39 with a .308 bore. Generally, the 7.62x39 is low enough pressure that it doesn't give problems through a strong bolt action-just not the best results. 0 -
I've never personally tried it.
FWIW, supposedly most domestically loaded 7.62x39 actually uses .308 bullets. The Russian made stuff uses the nominal .310 or .311 bullets. SAAMI spec for 7.62x39 is 45k psi pressure. SAAMI spec for .30-06 is 50,00 cup and for .308 its 62,000 PSI. So yeah, 7.62x39 does run at lower pressures than the more usual .308s.
When they first came out the Ruger mini-30s had .308 barrels and special barrel throats. Some of the AR-15s in 7.62x39 use .308 barrels. Also, I'm pretty sure you can buy a chamber adapter to run 7.62x39 through both .308 and .30-06.
Bottom line, in practice people do run 7.62x39 through "conventional" .308 barrels all the time, and you're not going to "blow up" your gun doing this.
Biggest real-world drawback I'd expect with this is just somewhat increased barrel wear.
In terms of accuracy, well. . .you can't expect great accuracy from the Russian steel case stuff in any case.
If you're running American made ammo, its probably going to have .308 bullets and in fact may be MORE accurate from a .308 barrel. And of course if you're loading your own, you can just use appropriate .308 bullets if you like.
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quote:I would only consider the 7.62X39 if you were going to reload for it, if not you would be better suited with a 308.
That sort of depends on the "why" of this project.
I kind of take the opposite tack. To my mind the point of creating a bolt action rifle in 7.62x39, I think, is mostly to take advantage of cheap steel case military type ammo. IE, so you can fire a "real" but non-shoulder busting centerfire caliber more for your dollar WITHOUT having to reload. If you're already going to the trouble of reloading with .308 caliber bullets (ie for increased accuracy), then you might as well just stay with .308.0 -
I load the 7.62X39mm using 0.308 inch Nosler 125 grain Bullistic Tips and Sierra 125 grain SPs in a Mini-30 and a custom Ruger 77 stainless. I have measured the bore groove diameter and they both check out at 0.308 inch. The Mini-30 I got as in a trade and I know it had a lot of Soviet Bloc and other 0.310/0.311 bullet diameter ammo through it. The Mini-30 shoots accurately with my reloads. The custom 77 shoots more accurately. The only thing I have noticed is that the fired case necks are oversized and can not be stuck into a Wilson case gauge to check their case headspace. Thus, I believe the oversized neck part of the chamber is to mitigate any high pressures due to a too tight a fit of the 0.310/0.311 inch bullet ammo when fired in the 0.308 inch barrels. 0 -
I had a Ruger Mini-30 with a .308 bore that never had a issue digesting surplus ammo, but accuracy was so poor I sold it, it was 4 times as expensive as a SKS as well as boing less accurate, less reliable and slower to reload.
I would only consider the 7.62X39 if you were going to reload for it, if not you would be better suited with a 308.0 -
I did do a few things to the mini-30 before I shot it and reloaded for it. Yea, I too hear all the stories about those inaccurate Minis but decided to see what was possible.
1. Looked it over and didn't see anything wrong with it mechanically.
2. So cleaned it really good (i.e., bore, chamber, gas piston, etc.)
3. It had a stainless steel barrel so I used Flitz polish with an ox-yoke butterfly patch with their jag to polish the barrel rifling and chamber
4. I believe I also lapped in the rings with the Wheeler Engineering kit
5. Reloaded Sierra and Nosler 125 grain bullets into Lapau cases that were trued and trimmed with IMR 4198 and Fed 205M primers
6. Shot accurately 1 inch at 50 yards with a scope - LOL
7. Got tired of chasing the brass so I blocked the gas port and made it into a manual repeater - stays cleaner and less time wasted0
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