[benEzra]

Do any U.S. ammunition manufacturers make decent 7.62x39mm ammo using the Hornady VMAX JHP, or any decent lightweight JHP? If so, do they use hard mil-spec primers? (Some U.S. made ammo is reportedly more prone to slamfires due to too-soft primers.)

I've got plenty of Wolf FMJ and JHP and Norinco FMJ, but was wondering if there's anything more "premium" out there that isn't prone to slamfires.

I don't reload, so that's not an option for me.

[NMshooter]

Are you looking for varmint specific ammunition or something else?

Best defensive ammo in that caliber that I know of is the Winchester 123gr. soft point, do not know how it reacts to being chambered in an AK or SKS though.

[Bigfoot]

Maine Cartridge Co. loads it. http://ammunitionstore.com/Images/Ammo/A002.15.htm

A great alternative is Sapsan/Ulyanovsk 8M3 HP if you can find it. It frags out to 100M. Thier russion factory went on strike last year and it dried up but they are a major ammo maker so it should be available sometime. Here's a pic of a gel test. http://www.snipersparadise.com/tsmag/june2000.htm

Here's the box, 3/4 down the page, green box with owl. http://mywebpages.comcast.net/jfreeman246/ak_rifle_ammo.htm

It might also be found in the older plain white box with blue lettering, just make sure the headstamps are 96 or newer. The pre 96 bullet didn't frag, or mushroom either for that matter.

[benEzra]

Are you looking for varmint specific ammunition or something else?

Best defensive ammo in that caliber that I know of is the Winchester 123gr. soft point, do not know how it reacts to being chambered in an AK or SKS though.
Basically I was looking for something that would fragment VERY quickly with limited penetration, sort of the 7.62x39mm equivalent of the 55-grain .223 JHP.

The only thing that worries me about the Winchester ammo is that I've never heard whether or not their primers meet eastern bloc milspecs as far as hardness goes. I don't want to shoot soft-primered ammunition in a gun designed for hard primers, for numerous reasons.

I guess I just need to email Maine Cartridge Co., Winchester, and Cor-Bon and ask about their primer hardness in 7.62x39mm...

[Sam Cade]

benEzra: Soft primers would only be an issue in guns wih floating firing pins.
Romanian and Egyptian Aks have floating firing pins.
Veprs and most chinese Aks do NOT have floating firing pins.
All SKS have floating firing pins except for very early Russian production.

[JA]

The bird on the Sapsan boxes is some type of hawk or eagle native to Russia not a owl.
The only slamfires I have had were with my handloads using Remington primers. Which switching to Winchester and CCI primers stopped the slamfires.
I have shot many boxes of Winchester Super-X,Winchester USA,Remington, and UMC ammo without a single slamfire in my SKS's and AK rifles. I have talked to a couple of people that have had slamfires with early production Remington ammo. One was a co-worker's friend that didn't clean the cosmoline from his new Chinese SKS very well before firing it. Once the bolt was disassembled and thourghly cleaned he had no more slamfires. But being "gun shy" of the Remington ammo because it slamfired he only shot Winchester ammo after the rifle was cleaned. So I really can't say if it was the Remington ammo or lack of cleaning that caused the slamfires.
The first hollow point ammo imported from Russia had flat base bullets and the lead core being so far foreword in the bullet jacket didn't leave much of a cavity in the hollow point. These bullets preformed like a fmj bullet,that is zero exspansion. In 1997/98 depending on the mfg. the hp bullet was changed to a boat tail design that used a longer bullet jacket. Early flat base hp on the left,boat tail hp on the left.

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/9206/russianhpbullets9bc.jpg


The lead core was not as far foreword in the longer boat tail jacket resulting in the hp cavity being twice the depth to the lead core. While the larger cavity doesn't result in the exsplosive exspantion like a US made varmint hp bullet due to the jacket being thicker copper plated steel instead of thin copper. The post 1998 Ulyanovsk hp bullets do fragment pretty good when they hit water jugs.

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/2338/ulyhp0hc.jpg

[Gewehr98]

Why not try either MagSafe or Glaser Blue? They both fragment very quickly.

[The Grand Inquisitor]

You should also look into getting an AK in 5.45x39.

The mujahedin nicknamed 5.45 the "poison bullet" because of its terminal ballistics.

[benEzra]

Sam, mine's a Romanian, so I have to be careful of that.

JA, thanks for the info. I'm going to pick up some American ammo and try it at the range (maybe two or three in the magazine until I can get a sense of how hard the firing pin is hitting the primers during cycling).

Why not try either MagSafe or Glaser Blue? They both fragment very quickly.
Price. I'd want to shoot enough to verify reliability and accuracy, then keep a couple mags of defensive ammo, and rotate it periodically. MagSafes and Glasers are super, but in quantities of a couple hundred rounds, very expensive.

You should also look into getting an AK in 5.45x39.
Would love to (it's on my wish list), but a few boxes of ammo for my 7.62x39 are a lot cheaper than a brand new rifle. :neener:

[beerslurpy]

5.45 doesnt fragment, and its legendary lethality is a myth that has been debunked by fackler for over 20 years now.

I beleive the study is called "wounding potential of the AK-74 assault rifle." It comprised a gelatin and live pig study at close range. Various extremity and torso wounds were produced on a sedated pig, and the wounds were dissected afterwards.

They found that hits to the liver caused massive trauma, but no other organs experienced tissue damage beyond the small permanent wound channel created by the path of the bullet.

The simple fact is that hydrostatic shock is an ineffective mechanism of wounding and incapacitation compared to fragmenting projectile. The AK74 was called the "poison bullet" because its lethality occurred as a result of untreated wounds that became infected. The mujahadeen didnt have medivac and Walter Reed waiting for them after a battle.

[JA]

Don't be alarmed by the dents in the primers as even mil spec ammo will have a pretty good size dent in the primer from the firing pin when chambering a round.