Hunting with an semi-auto AK-47

Not. A. Thing.

Great for hogs.

I hunt occasionally with a FEG side folder and a Sako M92S, regularly with a (thumbhole stock, non-'sporterized', if that matters) Saiga .308. Nothing unusual about that.

Not counting the Saiga rifles how many people hunt with an AK?

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I have no idea how you'd begin to compile that information. Somewhere between thousands and millions, but accurately narrowing it down would be tough.

Some states arbitrarily restrict semi-autos from hunting, so there's a whole state's worth of hunters who don't use AKs due to no fault of the gun. Some have magazine capacity limits for hunting which make using an AK slightly inconvenient (unless someone wants to track down 5-rd. mags).

Then there are many parts of the world where the Kalashnikov is by far the most prevalent weapon so that's what everyone uses for hunting -- which would greatly skew any question of whether that gun was the most appropriate choice.

Here's an article on AKs in hunting from Grand View Outdoors: http://arshunt.com/Coyote2012/Coyote2012/15/0#&pageSet=15&page=0

I don't have an AK, but I have an SKS I have done a lot of work on, I would gladly use it for hunting, especially for events like thick brush and river bottoms. If I had to loan a rifle to a friend for deer hunting, I would let them have it with no reservations.

whm1974 said:

Have any other hunters given you crap about what you are using?

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Rarely. When they do, I point out that their bolt action guns are just as 'military' as the AK, the only difference being 40 or 50 years. If they still can't see what's wrong in their attitude, I politely ask them if the timespan between different designs give them a privilege of hypocrisy. Last line of verbal 'defense' is a concise lecture of the military design history of various bolt action types, especially Mauser action favored by many old school purist hunters.

Most hunters are smart enough to understand the difference between fact and fiction, and even many of those who aren't, tend to keep their opinions to themselves.

Yep. I love to point out to people that not only is my 1917 Enfield an actual rifle designed and manufactured with the intent of killing people. It's high-powered, long range, and it is even extended capacity, because the mag well was made for .303, but rimless 30-06 fits one more in. why should I hunt with such a generator of carnage?

my sks and ak 47 are my favorite hog guns.

Yes! Roughly equivalent to a lightly loaded .30-30 in a lever-action rifle. Hmmm...carbine sized fast-action repeater firing an intermediate .30 caliber cartridge...sounds like a winning combination for most game American hunters shoot at.

I don't like the AKs, but not for the caliber. The ergos on most EBRs, AK included, SUCK. Getting to the safety is an all day job. Can't carry the gun at the balance point one handed. With any sort of long magazine, shooting prone can be a challenge, not that I shoot prone much, just sayin'. And, the things weigh a ton.

I much prefer the SKS for old eastern block milsurps. I mean, I REALLY prefer my Remingtons and my Savage, but as milsurps go, the SKS tends to be a bit more accurate than most AKs. I've seen AKs that couldn't shoot 6MOA. I've yet to see an SKS that couldn't shoot 3 MOA and mine shoot about 2.5 MOA with 154 Wolf. The safety on the SKS is right there by the trigger, easy to get to quick and can be disengaged very quietly when that's needed. I have ambi safeties on mine as I shoot left handed. On my hunting SKS (I have a 16" carbine that I tacticooled), I have a 5 round mag so that I can get my hand around the gun at the balance point. I have a Choate camo stock on it to give it a bit more LOP. I cut the silly bayonet lug off it as it seemed to want to grab every piece of brush when I was still hunting heavy brush. The sight, like on the AK, sticks up, too, but it was always the bayonet lug that was making noise for me. Mine are Norincos and the stocks were SHORT. One can sporterize OR tacticool the SKS with the aftermarket and I think the rifle turns out a lot more suitable in sporter form for hunting than it does in tacticool mode for assaulting the beach at Normandy, but the tacticooled one was a just for fun project, folding stock, 20 round chi com mag. One thing, too, the SKS has a crappy trigger, but my rifle came with a crisp trigger which, on Norincos, I found when I was ordering a lot of these things about 1 in 10 had a decent trigger, the rest were creepy to the max.

Yeah, you can hunt with an AK. The caliber, if 7.62x39 is certainly more acceptable than the .22 calibers, but I don't consider the AK all that desirable for the application. All in all, when I go hunting with a rifle, I normally get serious and take a real hunting rifle. This season I was stuck in my travel trailer waiting to close on the house and all my stuff was in storage except my SKS/ammo and my .357 lever carbine. I hunted with both, but took a 9 point with the SKS. In 20 years, it's only the second deer I've shot with an SKS. When I bought 'em, it was mostly due to the price. At 75 bucks for the rifle and 115 for the carbine, I HAD to have 'em to play with. The rifle is usually just my knock around truck gun, but it can do the job, so can the AK if you just HAVE to use one.

No doubt about it the AK platform is accurate enough for hunting within slug gun range, and the 7.62x39 is capable of taking deer class game without any issue, so there is nothing wrong with it. But the AK will never top my bolt guns for hunting, with my any one of my bolt actions I can reach out and touch them past 400yds if I need to, with an AK I would be lucky to hit the hill they were standing on at that range, and if I did luck up and did actually hit my target the 123gr 7.62x39 only retains the punch of a 9mm at that range and is well below expansion speeds.
An AK is also considerably bulkier and heavier then any of my bolties which is simply unnecessary to say the least.
The Russian Communist government had little concern for ergonomics and it shows in their firearms (see Mosin-Nagant) Russians are good at three things crude, awkward and highly effective the AK is all of the above.
Only "advantage" the AK has is semi auto fire and 30 round mags (which are not legal for hunting in many states) and the semi auto advantage is questionable as well seeing as some of us have hunted for many years and never needed a running followup shot. I could make a case for it for hog extermination though.
So IMHO AKs won't be replacing current hunting rifles anytime soon, but they certainly are up to the task for most of us, heck I might try it myself once just for kicks.

AK and SKS rifles are very common for brush hunting around here.

...and why aren't we counting Saigas?

AK's are fine hunting weapons. The 7.62x39 is a lot like the 30-30, so they can be used for the same range of game that the 30-30 can. The range is a bit extended in favor of the AK, because of bullet construction, but the rifles are not quite as accurate, being semi-auto and with the bore axis issue discussed below, limiting the range back down to about the 100 yard mark that is traditional with the Winchester 30-30.

I believe that when fired level, the stock relative to the bore axis means the bullet hits the ground at 150 yards, making it a "safer" gun to use in many respects than some of the traditional deer rifles. Just food for thought.

...and why aren't we counting Saigas?

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No idea... They are the same action and same caliber, effectively the same gun, certainly Fienstien thinks so.

The Saigas looks like a tradital hunting rifle.

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Huh... My Saiga .308 looks real AKish... and I hunt with it all the time.

My first Caribou and my oldest daughters first caribou were both with the same Chinese .223 Type86S AK look alike.

Neither Caribou knew that they would die any differently than if shot by a different rifle in the same caliber ~~LOL!!~~

Just curious which ammo you guys who hunt with SKS and AKs are using. Mine don't seem to like the 154g soft point stuff at all. They feed the FMJ fine but I'm not one to use that for shooting game.

Either handloads (Barnes Triple Shock X, Hornady Interlock) or modified FMJ:s nowadays. Handloads for edible, medium-sized game and FMJ:s with about 1/8th of an inch ground away from the tip for varmints. Sometimes Wolf 123gr JHP, but it's fairly difficult to come by.

What burns me is that quite a few people I haved argurge with about this have Mini-14/Mini-30 rifles. And they tell that the AK is "no good" and it was "designed to kill people".

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You know there are a lot of things that correlate between you and the people you hang out with, you need new friends.

What burns me is that quite a few people I haved argurge with about this have Mini-14/Mini-30 rifles. And they tell that the AK is "no good" and it was "designed to kill people".

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The mini 14... Isn't it based on the M14 action? I mean isn't it in fact a scaled down M14 and wasn't that designed to "kill people" too? Personally, I do not care what someone else's opinions are. The AK is not a brand, it is a design and that design has been put together by good manufacturers and slammed together by not so good ones. So to dog the AK as being any one thing in particular is to paint with a wide brush.

I use what I have, what I can afford, what I like, and what is appropriate for the setting. I have used 9mm carbine and other pistol caliber carbines before and have had to live with people's strange opinions... Interesting that few camp debates occur over why someone would use a 300 winchester mag / 7mm mag / or 338 winchester to hunt hill country white tail deer.