denton
Member
A couple of technical points...
My SKS won't shoot heavy bullets accurately. If you are going to rely on a 7.62x39 for protection, it's worth checking to see if that's a problem with your particular rifle.
Hollow points work well for game with handguns where velocities tend to be low and you need some mechanism for getting bullets to open. In rifles, hollow points are used to decrease drag for target shooting. Out of a rifle, hollow points are a poor choice for game. They open too much and too fast, and penetrate poorly. FMJs do not open at all. Both FMJs and hollow points and are much less effective than soft points on game at rifle velocities.
Flat nosed bullets seem to perform much better than most people expect on game. Out of my 30-30, my bullet of choice would probably be a 170 grain lead flat point at around 2000 FPS.
The kinetic energy of a bullet out of a 44 Mag is not all that different from the energy of bullets out of 5.56x45 or 7.62x39 rifles.
The 7.62x54R is in the 308 to 30-06 class for power.
My SKS won't shoot heavy bullets accurately. If you are going to rely on a 7.62x39 for protection, it's worth checking to see if that's a problem with your particular rifle.
Hollow points work well for game with handguns where velocities tend to be low and you need some mechanism for getting bullets to open. In rifles, hollow points are used to decrease drag for target shooting. Out of a rifle, hollow points are a poor choice for game. They open too much and too fast, and penetrate poorly. FMJs do not open at all. Both FMJs and hollow points and are much less effective than soft points on game at rifle velocities.
Flat nosed bullets seem to perform much better than most people expect on game. Out of my 30-30, my bullet of choice would probably be a 170 grain lead flat point at around 2000 FPS.
The kinetic energy of a bullet out of a 44 Mag is not all that different from the energy of bullets out of 5.56x45 or 7.62x39 rifles.
The 7.62x54R is in the 308 to 30-06 class for power.
