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Bench Topicsby John Haviland

Handloading the 7.62x39mm

My rifle buying may have reached a new high (or low, depending on your

outlook). I rationalized the recent purchase of a CZ 527 Carbine 7.62x39mm as necessary to utilize the six boxes of .310- and .311-inch bullets and a couple of pounds of powder I already owned. That reasoning has worked out quite well, and I’m somewhat dismayed I waited so long to buy a rifle in 7.62x39mm Russian.

Autoloading rifles, such as the imported SKS, are by far the most popular rifles and carbines for the cartridge. At best, these guns are precise enough to shoot 3- or 4-inch groups at 100 yards. There is little sense investing the time handload-ing only to see a rifle spray bullets across an area like a hose watering carrots in the garden, but handload-ing for the cartridge in a bolt ac-

tion is well worth the time. Various handloads shoot pretty well through the CZ, even though it weighs only a couple of ounces on the light side of 6 pounds and wears a thin, 18.5-inch barrel.

For years foreign surplus ammu-nition was so cheap barely anyone reloaded the 7.62x39. Most of that supply has dried up. Russian com-mercial ammunition was all that was found locally. The TulAmmo and

Sierra .30-caliber, 110-grain hollowpoints shot accurately from the CZ 7.62x39, despite being .003 inch narrower than the CZ rifle’s .311-inch bore.

Federal ammunition (left) is assembled with brass cases suitable for reloading; the two imported cartridges with gray steel cases are unacceptable for reloading.

Hornady 7.62x39mm dies come with two expander balls for sizing the inside case neck diameter to hold either .308-, .310- or .311-inch bullets.

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Wolf cartridges cost 46¢ per round. I got ripped off, though, because a friend says he buys those loads for about 29¢ each at the big box store across town. That is a pretty good bargain, as a jacketed bullet for re-loading costs about that much. These two brands shoot about 2-inch groups at 100 yards from the CZ, but their steel cases are unsuit-able for reloading.

Most American ammunition is made with brass cases suitable for re-loading. The CZ commonly shoots Federal 123-grain Power-Shok soft-point loads under an inch at 100 yards. However, those loads cost over $1.00 a shot.

With those Federal cases, some new PMC cases begged from Lee Hoots of Wolfe Publishing and a set of Hornady Custom reloading dies, I set to work handloading the 7.62x39. The Hornady sizing die comes with two expander balls for sizing the inside case neck diameter to the proper diameter to hold .308- and .311-inch diameter bullets.

Bullet OptionsThe CZ’s bore measures .311 inch between opposing grooves, but the bores of many American rifles, such as the Ruger Mini Thirty, measure .308 inch. That’s to take advantage of common .30-caliber bullets. Federal Power-Shok 123-grain softpoints measure .308 inch in diameter, so the loads can be safely fired through both diameter bores.

Hornady lists its bullets for the 7.62x39 as “7.62 Cal.” with a di-ameter of .310 and Speer “303 Cal” with a diameter of .311 inch. A friend said regular .30-caliber bullets shot accurately through his CZ rifle, so I loaded and shot some. They

shot just as accurately through my CZ’s .311-inch bore as the slightly larger diameter bullets. Those dif-ferent diameters and brands provide a lot of bullet options for the little 7.62.

The Russian is no longer-range

This group was fired at 100 yards with Hornady 123-grain, .310-inch Spire Point bullets and W-680 powder.

The 7.62x39mm CZ shot accurately with handloaded bullets of dif-ferent diameters. These bullets shot well (left to right): Speer 125 TNT (.308), Hornady 123 Spire Point (.310) and Speer 125 spitzer (.311).

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cartridge. At their relatively mild velocity, once bullets from the car-tridge reach 200 yards, they plunge like a rock off a cliff. Sierra 110-grain bullets at slightly over 2,511 fps should be a good choice for small game and varmints. Hit-ting on aim at 100 yards, they drop nearly 7 inches at 200 yards. Heavier 123- and 125-grain bul-lets with a muzzle velocity of 2,300 fps drop only an inch more. The Nosler 125-grain Ballistic Tip has a sleek shape, and with a velocity of 2,460 fps it drops about an inch less than the Sierra 110-grain bul-let, but an inch of drop either way at 200 yards is splitting pretty fine hairs.

The 7.62x39 is commonly re-ferred to as somewhat less power-ful than the .30-30 Winchester. My CZ shoots Sierra 150-grain pointed bullets at 2,190 fps, while Sierra 150-grain flatpoint bullets leave the muzzle of a 20-inch, .30-30 barrel at about 2,300 fps. Both bullets have about the same trajectory out to 200 yards. The pointed bullet does catch up to the flatpoint and even slightly exceeds it at that distance.

PropellantsWinchester 680 was the powder on hand that forced me to buy the CZ

rifle. It has given the highest veloci-ties and about the best accuracy of all the propellants tried, but I’m out of luck once my meager supply is burned up, because 680 was discon-tinued 30-some years ago. Accurate 1680 is similar to 680, and data in various reloading manuals shows comparable powder charges and ve-locities – but darned if I can find any 1680.

Fortunately, other powders work nearly as well. H-4198 and Reloder 7 were the best paired with 110- to 125-grain bullets. Relatively slower burning powders, like H-322 and VV-N130, provided the highest ve-locities with 150-grain bullets. All powders listed in the load table pro-duced uniform velocities, with ex-

treme velocity spreads for three shots ranging between 15 and 30 fps.

HandloadingThe 7.62x39 is a battle cartridge de-signed to positively cycle through an autoloading firearm. The result is a case body with a relatively large amount of taper. That taper resulted in quite a bit of case neck stretching after firing Federal factory loads and new PMC cases with reloads. After cases were trimmed to a length of 1.518 inches, loaded, fired and sized again, their necks stretched no more than other cases, such as the .30-06 or .30-30 WCF. Still, I prefer to trim cases each time after they are sized, because it’s just as fast to run cases through an electric case trim-mer as it is to measure each one with a micrometer to make sure it is not over maximum length.

No peculiarities to reloading the cartridge come to mind. So far I’ve loaded the Federal and PMC cases six times, and they are still going strong.

I’m also attempting to think of more purposes for the Russian car-tridge to further justify buying the CZ rifle. Its economical reloading cost and mild recoil have made it a great plinking and practice car-tridge. The rifle is about the same weight and length as a Winchester Model 94 .30-30 carbine. So I have loaded a batch of cartridges with Hornady 123-grain Spire Points and W-680, waiting for this fall to hunt whitetails in the river bottoms.

These bullets were shot while developing handloads (left to right): Sierra 110 (.308) hollow-point, Speer 125 TNT (.308), Nosler 125 Ballistic Tip (.308), Sierra 150 spitzer (.308), Hornady 123 Spire Point (.310), Speer 123 FMJ (.311) and Speer 125 spitzer (.311).

Three good powders for loading the 7.62x39 include W-680, H-4198 and RL-7. Too bad W-680 was dropped years ago.