7.62x54R overkill

[Aaryq]

Howdy folks. If you haven't noticed, I've been doing a lot of 7.62X54R related posts. I bought an M44 and I have many questions about it. This question is about overkill. I own an M44 in very good condition (odernce the 10 day waiting period is over I'll give you a range report) and I want to know what's overkill for this cartridge and what's not worth it?

I know that an M44 with any commercial loads is overkill for prairie dogs.

I know that an M44 with any commercial load won't work on an elephant.

I don't reload yet so I have to buy commercial loads.

What is overkill for a 7.62x54R and what is underkill? I I want this to be my multi purpose rifle but I want to know what you would consider overkill and what you would consider this rifle inadequate for shooting?

 

[trueblue1776]

Commercial loadings are extremely limited. Prvi makes a 147gr load, the rest are 180gr for the most part, with Barnaul making the 203gr monster.

Hit a prairie dog with an M44 and you are nothing short of magical.

Use it for what you would use a 180gr .30-06 for. Wolf Gold Line is the best factory ammo I know of, aside from Norma ($$$$) and Lapua ($$$$$).

 

[Ohio Rifleman]

Definitely "overkill" for prarie dogs. Not really "underkill" for anything unless you plan on elephant hunting. It's pretty much a 30-06, so if you can reliably and humanely nail it with a 30-06, the 7.62x54R should do you just fine.

Oh, and I just got my M44 not too long ago too. My dad was astonished at the tooth-rattling, bone-jarring muzzle blast. FUN!

 

[Onmilo]

In my mind there is no such thing as overkill and underkill.
Dead is dead.
Since the object of Prairie dog hunting is to eradicate a pest critter, exploding them with the most violent bullet seems to be all the rage.
If you can hit them with a 7.62X54 carbine nobody is going to laugh for long.

Some places that offer dog hunting do limit caliber because of ranging cattle and other livestock that may end up victim to errant bullets though.

Honestly I would personally consider another rifle and caliber for the purpose of prairie dog hunting and believe it or not, your 7.62X54 caliber rifle using armor piercing machine gun cartridges is more than capable of killing an elephant, it has been done.

Soviet PK and PKM 7.62X54 caliber machine guns have been used as favored tools of poachers for killing elephant and rhino in the bush.

 

[Mot45acp]

"I know that an M44 with any commercial load won't work on an elephant."

Its all about shot placement

 

[Ash]

If elephants have been taken by 303 British, 7.62x54R would be as effective. Perhaps not wise, but doable.

Ash

 

[Hoppy590]

7.62X54r can take most anything on the american continents. would i use it as my first choice? Probibly not. but i dotn feel undergunned for zombies

 

[Aaryq]

What commercial load would work the best for Moose? What range would you choose to hit this moose? I don't want to be killed by a moose.

 

[W.E.G.]

Is it even possible to actually HIT a prairie dog with any of the rifles usually chambered in 54R?

I'd say 54R is UNDER-kill for prarie dogs.

 

[trueblue1776]

Aaryq-
The Wolf Gold Line SP's are great, I would not hesitate to use them on moose.

 

[Cacique500]

I don't want to be killed by a moose.

Are there that many moose in Southern California?

As others have said, it's basically a 30-06 round so any of the normal critters you would take with a 30-06 will be just as dead with a 54R.

Remember any surplus ammo you get will be corrosive...no big deal to clean and there are plenty of threads on how to do it.

My M39's almost always go to the range with me for plinking...makes a nice noise when it hits the gong at 200 or 300 yards.

 

[Hoppy590]

Is it even possible to actually HIT a prairie dog with any of the rifles usually chambered in 54R?

Finn's easily.

 

[KiltedClaymore]

the m44 is great for prarrie dogs. FIX BAYONETS!!! CHARGE!!!!!

 

[Ash]

Of course, in Finland, the 7.63x54r is not legal for moose hunting as the 30 caliber round is deemed too small. Several wildcat cartridges evolved that involved larger diameter bullets in the 54r case.

Ash

 

[Cosmoline]

What commercial load would work the best for Moose? What range would you choose to hit this moose? I don't want to be killed by a moose.

The moose isn't going to do a death charge. They don't require a lot of lead to kill. A neighbor of mine got a bull with a 150 grain 7.62x39. Many people use .270's. The old saying is a Moose takes about a minute to die no matter what you shoot it with. They have a really large heart/lung zone and are a lot easier to bring down than many smaller game animals. The hard part is finding your target moose and getting to it. Then the REALLY hard part is getting it out of there. It's an enormous animal with more meat than a whitetail hunter can easily imagine. But shooting and killing it is pretty straight forward.

Personally I'd go with one of the heavy Normas for moose just because that's pretty much exactly what they were designed for and they're extremely well made cartridges using premium bullets. Yes, a 200 grain Russian load will probably be just fine but it's a pretty primitive SP bullet. A moose isn't something you get to hunt every day, so spend the extra and get the best.

 

[Cosmoline]

Of course, in Finland, the 7.63x54r is not legal for moose hunting as the 30 caliber round is deemed too small.

Where did you hear that? The 6.5 Swede is extremely popular for moose (they say "elk") all over Scandinavia. The wildcats arose for other reasons, as detailed in the Lapua load manual. IIRC the 8mm wildcat was invented because one gun maker had a bunch of 8mm bullets lying around.

When shooting elks, the bullet in the cartridge has to weigh at least nine grams and the hit energy has to be at least 2700 joules at a distance of 100 metres, measured from the mouth of the barrel (E100>2700J) (Metsästysasetus 16 §). Shotguns and shot cartridges cannot be used for shooting elks (Metsästysasetus 18§).

https://www.uta.fi/FAST/FIN/SPORT/at-elk.html

So that's a 138 grain cartridge hitting with about 2000 ft. lbs. at 100 meters.

That's a good link btw and explains a lot of their peculiar customs. They have lines of shooters and people beating the moose out of the woods! The cozy cabins and elaborate lifeguard style stands would make any bug-assaulted Alaskan hunter slogging through the endless boreal jungle envy them.

I do wonder about this though:

Nowadays the discipline inside the hunting clubs makes it impossible for anyone to continue hunting when intoxicated.

I think that's a bad translation. It should read "nowadays the discipline inside the hunting clubs makes it POSSIBLE for anyone to continue hunting when intoxicated."

 

[Mr White]

Your M44 will make a good gun for deer, hogs, elk, bears, and most any other North American game animal.

When hunting elephants with an M44, and I cannot emphasize this enough, shot placement is everything.

I know guys who hunt grounghogs with a .308 using low recoil loads. The only reason 7.62x54 inyour M44 ywould be overkill would be because you'd need shoulder replacement surgery after a day of shooting p'dogs.

The nice thing about hunting deer with your m44 is that if you can get a shot within 30 yards, one shot will kill AND roast the deer all at once! You'll love the fireball!

As for ammo, when I got my M44, I picked up a few hundred rounds of Sellier & Bellot 180gr soft points. They're a helluva lot cheaper than Norma, they prove to be accurate enough for hunting and they kill deer dead enough for my needs.

 

[Ash]

"Where did you hear that? The 6.5 Swede is extremely popular for moose (they say "elk") all over Scandinavia. The wildcats arose for other reasons, as detailed in the Lapua load manual. IIRC the 8mm wildcat was invented because one gun maker had a bunch of 8mm bullets lying around. "

Rifles of the White Death by Doug Bowser, Page 114 regarding wildcat loads.

"Finn sportsmen have necked up and necked down the 7.62x53r cartridge case into several very efficient wildcat cartridges. The following cartridges are very popular in Finland in converted Mosin Nagant rifles. Especially the 8,2 and 9.3mm versions because the Finnish government made it illegal to hunt moose with a caliber smaller than 8mm..."

 

[Misfire99]

It's my opinion that to shoot the m44 well you need to reload to reduce the muzzle flash. The old surplus rounds are made to fire in the 91/30. The 91/30 have a much longer barrel. When you shoot these rounds in an m44 the bullet has a great deal of turbulence as soon as it leaves the muzzle. This reduces accuracy. I shoot the 7.62x54r a lot in both the 91/30 and m44. As well as the finn m39, m38 and svt40. I put a Russian muzzle break on one of my m44s and the accuracy improved dramatically. The muzzle break reduced the turbulence that the bullet must pass through improving the accuracy. One of these days I will workup a load for the m44 to reduce the muzzle flash. That muzzle flash is just wasting powder. If you are going to reload the 7.62x54r you must slug your bore. The Finns are spot on .308 but the Russians can be anywhere from .311 to .316 or greater. When I reload for the Russian rifles I use 303 Brit bullets and for the Finns I use 30 cal bullets. The Russian knew that their bore sizes were allover the place. If you pull some light ball surplus ammo you will find that most of the bullets are a jacketed hollow base design. This allows the skirt of the bullet to expand and fill the bore improving accuracy and muzzle velocity.

 

[rangerruck]

i would use it from coyote, up to elk moose, or black bear, especially with the 205 bi metal loads.

 

[Cosmoline]

because the Finnish government made it illegal to hunt moose with a caliber smaller than 8mm.

Well I won't argue with "White Death" Doug. But assuming that was the case at one time, it doesn't appear to be now. And certainly even our much larger alces alces gigas can be taken with a 54R. They go down pretty easy, and pack out real hard.

 

[Spiggy]

barnaul 203gr softpoints will pretty much take down anything on the wrong end... same with hungarian SYT, but you cant use SYT in socal without fear of setting something on fire.

Wolf Gold/Privi is good, the insanely priced boxes of hornandy, norma, and lapua are good too

 

[Ash]

Oh, I most certainly agree in the effectiveness of the round. Honestly, I have wondered what the thinking was behind the banning. The 204 grain round should do all it needs to do against moose.

I also defer to a more current knowledge about what the Finns can use today. Hunting laws are among the most fluid laws around and it would make sense that the less-than-8mm rule would be dropped.

Ash

 

[The Annoyed Man]

I'm not an M44 guy, but I enjoy reading these threads. Very interesting stuff. Apropos this discussion, THIS SITE says that "Some most intrepid professional ivory hunters shot elephants with full-metal jacketed bullets of 6.5 x 54 mm Mannlicher cartridges, since the low noise level of a rifle didn't scare the elephant herd to escape or attack, and accuracy of rifle allowed clean kills with well-placed brain shots." I would imagine that, if elephants can be taken with a 6.5 x 54 mm Mannlicher cartridge, they can also be taken with a 7.62 x 54 mm R cartridge.

However, all of that aside, isn't a M44 more appropriately used as a pack howitzer?

 

[ojh]

Of course, in Finland, the 7.63x54r is not legal for moose hunting as the 30 caliber round is deemed too small.

That is old information. Today, the law law says nothing about caliber. It states that for moose, either the bullet must weigh at least 9 grams and have at least 2700 Joules energy at 100 meters, or if the bullet weighs 10 grams or more, it must have at least 2000 Joules at 100 meters. These are easily met with the 7.62x54R. 6.5 Swedish is also a legal for moose in Finland.

I've just got my very first hunting lisence and had to study these things...