30 cal. in 7.62x39?

[Gallahad]

I've been looking at bullets (for reloading) for 7.62x39, and have discovered that there are not many out there. I took a 30 cal bullet i was using in 30-06 reloads, and it could not be pushed into the bore of my sks. seemed as tho it was the right size. sks ammo is supposed to be .311 dia. 30 cal is .308.  I would have thought the 30 cal bullet would have pushed into the rifleing fairly easily, but it looked like a good bullet for the gun to me.  I hope I'm not asking a really stupid question, but can you use 30 cal bullets when reloading 7.62x39? :lol:

[stimpylu32]

The short answer is yes you can load 30 cal. /.308 bullets in a 7.62x39 round .

The fact that you could not push a bullet into the bore does not suprise me , the diffrence is .003 , Thats not much .  :eek:

In the case of an SKS you will not see much of an accuraticy diffrence between the .308 and the .311 .

Hope this helps  

[steve4102]

You can use .308 bullets in your SKS.  Your rifle will tell you if it likes the .308 or the larger .310, .311 bullets.  I use the .308 Sierra's in my Ruger Mini-30, much better accuracy than the .311's.

  Here is some .310 and .311 to choose from.

  http://www.midwayusa.com/ebrowse.exe/browse?TabID=1&Categoryid=7561&categorystring=9315***652***675***9016***

[knight0334]

Ruger uses a .308 bore on their Mini-30 due to better availability of .308 bullets.   My RCBS 7.62.39mm dies has an extra expander plug for conversion between .308 and .311.  The dies also have a slip of paper stating that Ruger and a few US manufacturers use .308. That would be why it shoots the .308 better then the .311 in your Ruger.  

Some US manufacturers used .308 with their 7.62x39mm, where as the foreign manufacturers use the .311.

You can use .308 in the SKS .311 bore, but accuracy may be off.

[R.W.Dale]

My CZ 527 carbine Shoots both bullet diameters equally well, the bore on it sluggs out to .310  You should try some of the 125gr nosler ballistic tips.

[Robert]

You should not be having any trouble with up to 150 gr bullets if seated to the proper depth.  You might want to check and make sure that the brass was sized properly when re-loading.  Are you taking all the proper steps for sizing and re-loading, or are you just pulling bullets from factory ammo and replacing?  I have used Heavy 200 gr Hornady round-nose bullets with light loads.  The Hornadys round-nose bullets have a long taper that starts at the cannelure, so these are a great option for any caliber firearm that you want to load with larger heavier bullets than is normally used for that firearm.  However, these bullets will not be MOA...they will serve nicely for 'hunting loads' within 100 yds with 'fair' accuracy.  I have loaded them down to 4-5 grs of Red Dot powder and they are extremely quiet.....what I call the 'Poor Man's Whisper'.  6.0 grs is still fairly quiet yet packs a pretty good punch.  In fact, this past year, I bought a NEF 7.62x39 barrel for a project gun for experimenting with these kind of loads...works excellent, and I don't have to worry about fouling up my gas-ports in the SKS if I am using heavy cast bullets.  7.62x39 is a great diverse cartridge and can be a lot of fun.
  One other thing....I also shoot 7.62x25 pistol, had some 85 gr .308 XTP's and loaded some of these for the SKS, never did get to try them on yotes, but I bet they would be devastating.