Hunting big game with AK47

[surfinUSA]

I use an SKS to hunt pigs with. I use Remington soft point ammo. The only change I made to the gun was to install a Williams fire sight up front and peep rear. It also makes a great backup to my other gun, a sporterized 8mm yugo mauser.

The SKS has become a real popular deer and pig gun in many places in the South.

I would think the AK would work ok. But for me I like the longer barrel on the SKS and the convenient location of the safety.

 

[eliphalet]

"A hunter should not choose the cal, cartridge, and bullet that will kill an an animal when everything is right; rather, he should choose ones that will kill the most efficiently when everything goes wrong"
Bob Hagel

I just happened to read this elsewhere.

 

[surfinUSA]

I believe a hunter shouldn't attempt to rely on caliber to make up for poor skills. All a more powerful gun does in most cases is destroy more meat.

 

[JesseL]

Clearly, anyone hunting with anything less than a 20mm cannon is an unethical hunter.

 

[R.W.Dale]

Clearly, anyone hunting with anything less than a 20mm cannon is an unethical hunter.

A 20mm can be a bit light for those off angle shots, true professionals (magazine writers) recommend nothing less than a 105mm firing HE, with this you should be good out to 500yds or so,beyond that a 155 is needed to pack enough downrange punch to cleanly take medium skinned game

 

[marksman13]

Roger that Krochus, and anything over a thousand yards should be shot with a 155mm HE with a charge 8 red bag sitting behind it. Hate for the damn deer to get away. You could also try the WP round to kill, clean, and cook the beast in one swift motion.

 

[Gewehr98]

I wouldn't say that.

I doubt that someone who has a room full of guns is going to take an AK deer hunting. A Saiga yes, an SKS sure, but not a military-configuration AK. I think pistol grips are a liability, not an asset, in the field.

At last count, I have somewhere on the far side of 200 boomsticks in my collection. Last fall, I took a Wisconsin whitetail with my sidefolder AK and 125gr softpoint handloads. One shot in the breadbasket, and he was down. As for the pistol grip, I'll have to remind myself about the whole liability thing, because it caused me no problems, and I gave it nary a thought when I squeezed the trigger.

Why did I use the AK instead of my usual Browning BAR, Remington 700 BDL, Winchester 94, or BSA No5Mk1? Because of folks like Zumbo, and the unbelievably hypocritical hissy fit that some have over learning that the AK works just fine in the whitetail woods. Myself, I wanted to prove the naysayers wrong, and I was pleasantly surprised by the results. I may take a Kalashnikov out into the woods this coming fall, too. I'll use it for supplemental doe tags.

BTW, I have a family friend who is a DNR game warden. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't too upset to see an AK in his district - far from it. It's no different to him than were the fellow carrying an old Winchester or Marlin levergun. He's more worried that the hunter isn't carrying, or doesn't have, the proper hunting license. Poachers make him mad.

Honestly, sometimes the "stigma" attached to a gun extends only as far as those who would continue to propogate the myths. Those who do so often forget that their beloved tools for harvesting game are little more than spiffied-up variants of a previous generations' battle weapons, "good for hunting people". Oh, the shame.

 

[amprecon]

To not take your SKS or AK hunting where/when it's legal because of the negative media or opinions of others, then they have beaten you.
If your states' hunting laws state that your firearm is not illegal to use, then take it hunting if that's what you WANT to take, be d*mned what anyone else thinks about it.
They merely do what any other semi-auto rifle does, they just look different, no more, no less.
Some of us cannot afford the high-dollar rifles that others can, the venerable SKS may be the only affordable choice some may have to harvest their game with, to chastize them for using what they can only afford is downright rude and not decent behavior.

I have an AK, along with my more traditional "hunting" rifle, and would not hesitate to use that AK hunting under the applicable conditions.

 

[tinygnat219]

I tell you what though, I tend to be nervous of the folks who go deer hunting with AK-47s with the full banana clip or the 75 round drum mags. Past experience has shown that they are there more for the spray and pray than anything else.

 

[JesseL]

I tell you what though, I tend to be nervous of the folks who go deer hunting with AK-47s with the full banana clip or the 75 round drum mags. Past experience has shown that they are there more for the spray and pray than anything else.

Have you actually seen people do that? I don't even know where using more than a 5 round magazine is legal.

I tend to be nervous of the folks who take a 300RUM or such out for Texas whitetail, thinking this will negate their lack of skill and let them get away with 600 yard shots.

 

[R.W.Dale]

I don't even know where using more than a 5 round magazine is legal.

It's legal here in Arkansas

But I agree with you, those people taking 800yd potshots with a .396 ultrabigblockunbeltedpetitemag worry me much more. That and people who use buckshot. Every hunting fatality I read about in the paper seems to amount to someone getting their ticket punches by a single stray 00 buck pellet

 

[tinygnat219]

VA has no limit on the magazine size for the rifle. Up until just last week, it was illegal to not have a plug in the shotgun so you were limited to 2 in the mag, one in the chamber. Wierd, I know...