caliber 5.45x39
was looking at an ak style rifle,gun shop owner said it was .223 cal,but i noticed this caliber stamped on the side. a .223 would not chamber,and the 7.62x 39 was way too big.barrel size was comperable with .223 but as i said round would not chamber. anyone heard of this caliber and if so how easy and costly are these rounds,thanks pete
pete
pete
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Cartridge for the AK-74. 0 -
They run about 2.50 for box of 20 around me, and its a loud little booger. What do you mean easy? 0 -
Standard Russian Military Cartridge adopted in the late 70's, for the Kalashnikov AK 74 Rifle. The ammo is being imported in quantity and sold for around $60 @ 500 rounds. 
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5.45 x 39
5.45 x 39.50 mm; 5.45 mm M74
Development:
Soviet ballisticians are known to have been experimenting with reduced calibres prior to 1939, but such work was abandoned during the war years. It is presumed that this work was resumed in the 1960s as the American development of the 5.56 mm cartridge became known, resulting in the adoption of this round in 1974. The existence of this calibre in Soviet use was not known in the West until 1978 and specimens of ammunition were not obtained until late 1979.
Description:
This round is of conventional rimless bottle-necked form, somewhat fatter and shorter than that 5.56 x 45 mm round. The case is of lacquered steel and a stripe of red laquer seals the case/bullet joint. The Berdan primer is of brass and there are two fireholes in the primer pocket. The streamlined bullet consists of a mild steel core filling about two-thirds of the gilding metal envelope, and a lead plug about 3 mm long in front of it. The extreme 3 mm of the tip is hollow.
Specifications:
Round Length: 56.50 mm Case Length: 39.50 mm
Rim Diameter: 10.00 mm Bullet Diameter: 5.59 mm
Bullet Weight: 3.435 g; 10.75 g for round Nominal Charge: ----
Muzzle Velocity: 900 m/s Muzzle Energy: 1,383 J
The 5.45x What?
While the 7.62x39mm cartridge, and the AK-47 and AKM which chamber it, are well known here in the U.S., the same cannot be said for the 5.45x39 and the AK-74. Even though the 5.45x39 replaced the 7.62x39 in Russian service way back in 1974, many shooters are still unfamiliar with it. One of the reasons for this of course has been the lack of available rifles in this chambering.
For a time, Romanian AK-74s in 5.45x39 were available in the U.S. Despite this, the cartridge remains little known outside the former Easter Bloc. This is slowly changing though, as people take note of this fine little cartridge.
Recently Alexander Arms introduced a well made 5.45x39 AR upper that both looks good and shoots well. In addition you can finally get a real Russian made 5.45x39 Kalashnikov -- the Vepr II.
5.45 x 39 mm M74;
The Soviet 5.45 x 39 mm round was introduced into service in 1974 in the AK-74 assault rifle, an updated version of the AK-47. The round, which replaced the 7.62 x 39 mm round then in Soviet service, was likely developed based on Soviet observation of the American 5.56 x 45 mm round in Vietnam.
The Russian military-issue 5N7 specification 5.45 mm bullets are a somewhat complex full metal jacket design. Some people have said that the Russians were concerned about the lower energies of the bullets and designed them to cause more damage than might otherwise occur.The bullet's core consists mainly of a length of soft steel rod, cut to length during the manufacturing process to give the correct weight. There is a hollow air space underneath the bullet's thin copper jacket ahead of the steel rod core. The base of the bullet is tapered, to reduce vacuum drag (a so-called boat-tail bullet) and there is a small lead plug crimped in place in the base of the bullet, ostensibly so that the thin copper alloy jacket material can be stamped in place in the proper tapered shape. The lead plug, however, in combination with that air bubble in the point of the bullet, has the effect of pushing the bullet's center of gravity very far to the rear, and the hollow air space under the point of the bullet makes the bullet's point prone to bending to one side when the bullet strikes anything solid, unbalancing it. Most authorities in the West believe this bullet is designed specifically to tumble in flesh, tremendously increasing the severity of the wound.
When shot into 10% ballistic gelatin at 4?C (the standard simulant for human flesh, in the field of ballistics), the bullets always begin to tumble, sometimes less than 2" (5 cm) from the point of entry, and usually tumble end over end two or three times before coming to rest at a depth of 12" to 16" of penetration (30cm to 40cm); it may also move in a curved or even zig-zag path through the gelatin block as it tumbles. In combat in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and since that time, the 5N7 bullet has earned a fearsome reputation for creating horrific wounds.
With the 5.45 mm bullet, the tumbling produced a maximum wound expansion twice, at 100 and 400 mm of depth. With the 7.62 mm bullet, the maximum wound expansion also occurred twice, at about 300 and 400 mm. The average width of a human trunk is 400 mm.
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http://forums.gunbroker.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=567120 -
kinda worries me that the shop owner would have sold it not knowing what caliber it was... 0
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