Choosing between options for hunting

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
7.62x54R has plenty of power, no doubt.
But, IME, the accuracy from sample to sample is highly variable, and the production was in many
different factories in different countries (Westinhouse, Remington in the USA, Sestroryetsk, Izhevsk, Tula in
Russia and some in France. And they were built in peace time, and war time.
Huge variations in how accurate they are. An accurate version will be entirely adequate. But
my M38.....good to maybe 50 yds, the bbl is no prize. But I have another 91/30 that is a really
good shooter. My Finn M39 is a tack driver, I have shot 1" groups at 100 yds with some Soviet
surplus target ammo.

I imagine and hope that this rifle wouldn't have been chosen if it wasn't one of the more accurate ones.

Bill
 
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Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Power isn't the limiting factor. It's going to be the specific rifle and operator. It's in there with the 7x57, 8x57 and 303 British. Cartridges are enough for most anything in the lower 48. But if it's Uncle Eds Mk4 "tree-oh-tree" that he shot with surplus corrosive ammo back in '56 and hasn't cleaned it since then...we all know how that goes.
 
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462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
I don't know how much it affects accuracy, if at all, but many of those commie rifle were back bored, because of cleaning rod damage.

Bill,
My M38 was a comfortable handling carbine -- more so than a Winchester Model 94, for instance -- though Bulgarian milsurp ammo (187-grain?) made it the most ear and shoulder punishing rifle I've ever shot, and the only rifle I don't regret selling.
 

CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
My sole variant of the M/N genre is a very nice little Romanian M-44 carbine. I removed its pivoting fascist-stabber, and carried on from there. Throat is almost .311", grooves are .310". It is blasty little beast with milsurp ball ammo, but the Lee C312-185 works pretty well through it, sized at .311" and sent with 16.0 grains of 2400. 10-shotters with this load can do 2.5" at 100 yards, maybe 2.25". I haven't seriously pursued jacketed loads for the thing yet. I do have 60 rounds of Tula 154 grain soft points in the ammo locker, and those go into the magazine when the carbine goes along as a truck rifle in bear country. I have fired 40 of those, and in 5-shot groups they ran in the 1.5" to 1.75" range at 100 yards. It's not F-class benchrest-capable, but it will do for dissuading evildoers and malefactors both 2- and 4-legged. Its bore is in very nice condition.
 
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Pistolero

Well-Known Member
Yes, the M38 is hyper loud and a real kicker, especially with the common "heavy ball" ammo. And mine
is back bored, and is no great shakes for accuracy. It should find it's way down the road, actually.
Al, that is plenty good accuracy for any normal rifle application, IMO.

I actually think that back boring is likely to increase the recoil. Think about it....there is a little
annulus there with about 30Kpsi or so (more?) pushing on it for a fraction of a second...towards your
shoulder. Small area, but BIG pressure. I need to run some numbers on that to get a guesstimate
of the pulse force.
EDIT:
Yikes! I figured a half way reasonable estimated area for the area of the new muzzle down inside the
shell when they counterbore, got 0.071 sq inches. Multiply that times 30,000 lb/sq inch and
get a force of 2140 lbs. This for a VERY shot period and is damped out by the mass of the
rifle,but it DOES account for why my counterbored M38 is a kicker. Even if the muzzle pressure
is only 10,000 psi, the peak force for a few milliseconds is over 700 lbs. That does NOT mean
that the net resultant is 700 lbs, but the area under the force-time curve, even as a very narrow
spike, will be a substantial extra thump.

Bill
 
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Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
I don't know how much it affects accuracy, if at all, but many of those commie rifle were back bored, because of cleaning rod damage.

Bill,
My M38 was a comfortable handling carbine -- more so than a Winchester Model 94, for instance -- though Bulgarian milsurp ammo (187-grain?) made it the most ear and shoulder punishing rifle I've ever shot, and the only rifle I don't regret selling.

Someday for fun and some really cool bruises, try an M-95 Steyr carbine in 8x56R Mannlicher with factory German surplus ammo. Gives a whole new appreciation of OUCH! 205 grs at 2400fps out of a short stocked, 20" barreled, 6.5lbs steel butted rifle. Really gets your attention.
 

BHuij

Active Member
I actually tried back a year or so ago to work up a HV load with the Lee 185gr bullet. Did 60 full velocity loads in a single sitting. None of them shot worth crap, and I immediately purchased a rubber butt pad when I got home. Don't think I've ever bruised my shoulder so bad.

With the LV loads, my rifle does pretty well. We'll see how it holds up when the softpoints arrive. I do believe that the barrel, although loose, has excellent rifling and is still capable of good accuracy.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
I keep a number of .310 diameter Hornady 125gr bullets around here.
both FMJ and SP types.
the 'kids' get the big gun fun without the big gun pain, and they ain't too bad for deer and the like out to 200yds or so.
 

BHuij

Active Member
I actually think that back boring is likely to increase the recoil. Think about it....there is a little
annulus there with about 30Kpsi or so (more?) pushing on it for a fraction of a second...towards your
shoulder.

I believe milsurp 7.62x54R pressures are closer to 45k PSI.
 

BHuij

Active Member
Okay, so I'm sitting on 50 freshly annealed, sized, trimmed, chamfered, and deburred 7.62x54R PPU cases, and 200 150gr Speer Hot-Cor bullets (.311).

I'm leaning towards picking up a pound of 4064. Any reasons why I should go with something else?

I'm also finding approximately zero official load data for 7.62x54R with these Speer Hot-Cor bullets. That said... I'm finding some good 303 Brit ones. As long as I start low and work up slowly, is that load data going to be an okay stand-in?
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
just use Hornady or speer bullet data.
I use 4064 in my 30-06 with 150's it works great there, it's useful all the way down to the 223 case.
 

Gary

SE Kansas
I have a OLD can of 4064 that I will use to make up some loads for my 30-06, maybe today. Nothing but rain here so setting in the shop sounds good to me.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
Muzzle pressure, Bhuij. Not chamber pressure. Pressure applied to that little
annulus at the front, contained in the counterbore of the barrel for a fraction of a second.
 
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Pistolero

Well-Known Member
4064 has been a very accurate powder for me in many different cartridges in the same
general range as the 7.62x54R.

Bill
 

Spindrift

Well-Known Member
Found some 7,62x54R data with 150grs (hornady RN) bullets in Lyman 49th. If your Speer bullet has a crimp groove, I would suggest starting with the bullet seated to the groove.

8729
 

BHuij

Active Member
I had my first 5 rounds loaded using .303 Brit data, but as I suspected, I'm well withing safe ranges here, and not too far off the mark, just a little lower than I probably would have started otherwise. Thanks for posting this though, appreciate it. If I don't get decent results in my first ladder test, it's because I'm loading too light.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
see that starting IMR-4895 data?
that is my 303 Brit. and 308 Winchester load,,, usually minus roundabout 1/2gr..
it goes medium fast in the 303 and semi fast in the 308 but the bullet does the job when it gets there.
it also works just fine in the 7.65 Argie and few other cases along those lines.
 

CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
That Romani M-44 was an impulse buy for $80 some years back. Not the most elegant arm inside the gun safe, but the little monster is fun. About lever-gun-30/30-accurate, but considerably more powerful at full value. With the 150-154 grain bullets, it runs in the 308 Winchester/30-06 M1 Garand performance range. And we know that "The 30-06 is never a mistake". :)
 

BHuij

Active Member
41.5 grains ended up giving me my best groups. I think 2.5 MOA can be improved upon, so I'm going to do one more ladder reaching out in small increments in both directions from that 41.5gr load.
 

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