The Truth About Wolf 7.62x39

[yesit'sloaded]

There have been a few threads about accuracy and performance out of the 7.62x39 cartridge recently. I just want to explain why shooting Wolf steel cased ammo doesn't give you any idea about your accuracy. I sat down at the reloading bench today and pulled the bullets and powder out of five rounds of 7.62x39. Here are the results.
Bullet Powder
1 123.2 grains 24.3 grains

2 122 grains 24.7 grains

3 121.2 grains 24.4 grains

4 123.4 grains 24.6 grains

5 120 grains 24.4 grains


Shooting ammo like that there is not way in heck you can get good consistent groups. I am not going to say Wolf is terrible ammo because you only pay four bucks a box of it and I have never seen Wolf 7.62x39 kaboom a gun.

 

[jackdanson]

Yep, it is what it is, cheap plinking ammo.

 

[W.E.G.]

For the distance you will likely fire that ammo, the vertical dispersion caused by the 0.4 grain differences in powder charges will be insignificant.

Nobody is using Wolf as long-range ammo are they?
I'd hate to drop a 7 on the 600-yard target because of that kind of inconsistency.

Thanks for working up those numbers though.

 

[yesit'sloaded]

Note the 3.2 range in bullet weight over five rounds. An entire box could have a much wider range.

 

[W.E.G.]

Noted.

 

[HJ857]

We had a similar thread about a year ago. Myself and at least one other fellow pulled a much larger sample of Wolf Black, Brown Bear, Silver Bear and Golden Tiger and found similar variances on all brands. Another notation is that neck tension on the bullet is also widely variable with some that nearly fall out and some that seem that they'll never come out.

I think the dispersion over the five rounds you sampled are pretty typical and you won't find anything greatly different if you sampled more rounds.

 

[ar10]

The vast majority of Wolf ammo goes through some type of Semi-automatic rifle. They don't need accuracy. I think Wolf knows than.

 

[cracked butt]

The consistancy isn't very good at least by numbers. What I'd be even more concerned about is the stuff you don't see- How concentric are the bullets? How consistant is the jacket thickness. Being that its cheapo ammo from a country with poor quality control, I would assume the worst.

 

[kcmarine]

It's Russian ammo, designed to cycle through rifles that would probably still fire if you poured gunpowder and rocks down the barrel and pulled the trigger.

It's cheap, though...

 

[dewage83]

that would probably still fire if you poured gunpowder and rocks down the barrel and pulled the trigger.

.... YA so who needs accuracy?

 

[MCgunner]

The 154 grain soft point Wolf out shoots the 123 grain stuff I've fired in my SKS, probably the rifling or something, but it shoots 2.5 moa which is half to 1 moa better than most of the 123 grains stuff does in the same SKS rifles. It's pretty consistent, too. I sorta like it and the price is fantastic. I do reload, but I just don't like reloading for this caliber if I can get cheap ammo instead that will do the job. Ain't like I'm going to load match grade stuff and get sub MOA from a 75 dollar SKS.

 

[Shear_stress]

Using those numbers, you get a mean powder weight of 24.48 grains with a standard deviation of 0.16 grains, and a mean bullet weight of 121.96 with a standard deviation of 4.25. Using the "68-95-99.7" rule (assuming a normal distribution) we can estimate that 95% of the powder weights will be between 23.99 and 24.97 grains and 95% of bullet weights will be between 117.7 and 126.2 grains. So, you can expect about 1 round per box to have a powder weight and/or bullet weight outside those ranges. Actually, the powder figure doesn't all that bad. The bullet weight range (about +/- 4%) figure may not even make of a difference to the average shooter if the weight is distributed evenly.

The numbers don't seem shockingly bad, but will probably get a lot of laughs from the bench-rest shooters. How does other commercial ammo stack up?

 

[ThomasT]

Shear Stress said it. How does other commercial ammo stack up. As far as the Wolf goes i seem to remember reading several different shooters saying that it outshoots the federal 7x39 loads.

I've shot a couple hundred rounds, mostly plinking and it has all gone off and busted the rocks i shot it at. Most of my shooting has been in the hundred yard range. I wouldn't have any problem hitting a deer in the vitals.

If i want super accuracy i have other guns for that. Out of my SKS's and Mini-14 i think its just fine for what it is.

 

[Anteater1717]

How does Remington UMC and Winchester Metric, stand up?

 

[wally]

Wolf is crap, y'all need to quit buying it so the price will go down.

--wally.

 

[kcmarine]

I agree, wally. You guys with the Mini- 30's and CZ bolties stop buying it. The last thing us AK and SKS owners is to see you guys tear up your guns... we'll take the difficult, dangerous task of firing this stuff cheap and in the hundreds of rounds

 

[R.W.Dale]

How does other commercial ammo stack up?

I haven't pulled any ammo but when sorting Remington cases for my Benchrest 7.62x39 the extreme spread is well over 10 grains 10 $^*@ grains it blows my mind that a case so small can have an extreme spread that large.


Pull the bullets and preform the same check on a box of American ammo before you trash the Russian stuff.

 

[chris in va]

Only problem with Wolf is my CZ carbine doesn't always set it off. Even with a new firing pin spring from the factory.

 

[ar10]

I'm not bashing the Russian stuff, I think it'll work great in the AK type weapons. What I don't like is that stuff they put on it and having to pick it up off the range.

 

[Funderb]

huh.

Well, I'm going to keep shooting it anyway.

 

[ar10]

Only problem with Wolf is my CZ carbine doesn't always set it off. Even with a new firing pin spring from the factory.

You're not alone. The guy shooting next to me yesterday had the same problem shooting his "Yugo". My CZ didn't have a problem shooting the Wolf but it was hell cleaning it afterward.

 

[John G]

Interesting study. Still, my cheap WASR fired 300 rounds of the Golden Tiger stuff on the 4th. Accuracy was good enough for watermelons, bowling balls, and water-filled jugs. I'm happy.

 

[Poor East Texan]

I'd have to go out to the garage and open the safe to be sure.

But when two buddies and I went to the range with my Norinco SKS, one buddies Russian SKS and the other buddies ??? SKS we used 123gr FMJ Wolf in all of them. It's been at least 5 years since we did it.

All the rifles hit paper. But no matter which of us used which gun the Norinco was the tightest shooter.

NO FTF or FTE was experienced....

 

[KINGMAX]

Thousands of rounds

I have shot up thousands of rounds of WOLF through my 2 AK's and YUGO SKS. I can't ever really remember having an issue w/ any WOLF ammo.

I once purchased a box of 1000 rounds of a 'match type', sorta light blue finish and the bullet had a nipple end to it. I cannot remember if it was the BEAR or the WOLF on the box???? Has anyone else seen that type???? It shot some of the tighest groups through my favorite AK.

 

[XD-40 Shooter]

I've been shooting Wolf out of my SKS for years, haven't had any problems at all. With the 122 grain FMJ stuff, I get about 4" groups at 100 yards, from a bench. Given the design parameters of the rifle, I'm ok with that.