Should I start reloading 7.62x39?

[Capn Jack]

Saving Money By Making My Own Bullets

After saving money by casting bullets out of my old SCUBA diving weights, I decided to try and beat the cost of copper gas checks, (aprox. $35.00k) for my cast bullets and bought a gas check cutter. $100.00

Right away, I found it was very difficult to make the cutter work in my RCBS jr. press, so I bought a 1 ton Arbor press from Harbor Freight for $50.00

The Arbor press was great, but the cutter kept falling over, so I had to buy some oversized drills and bore a socket in the press anvil to hold the cutter. $25.00

Now for material: My local Sears has .014 aluminum flashing 50'x6". You can special order it from their supplier, for $40.00 a roll. Cut into 3/4" wide strips, that's approximately 800 strips per roll.

By being careful, I can punch 8 GC per strip giving me 6,400 gas checks per roll. That's a savings of almost $5.00.

At this rate I'll only have to shoot about 6,400 .459 cal., 325gr. bullets (275lbs of lead) to amortize the cost of making my own gas checks.

After that, THEY'RE FREE !!!

Now I've been thinking about saving even more money by buying a.....

Oh! Can't forget the cost of Kevlar gloves and a box of Band Aids for handling the cutout scrap material. That stuff is like Razor Wire.

There's also the saving I made by buying a .22lr adapter for my wife's 9mm pistol. ($250.00) Now, I can save a lot on the cost of 9mm....which I don't "buy" anyway....Range brass is free !

 

[Capn Jack]

Oh, I almost forgot. I also reload 7.62x39. The hardest thing about that is finding, "Boxer Primed" brass and .311 dia. bullets.

 

[RVTECH]

No / Minimal affect to shooting enjoyment during ammunition runs/blights.

Yep, I always enjoy reading when the uppity, self-righteous types say, 'Well, I don't reload because I shoot X amount of 1000s of rounds competing and can buy it cheaper' etc.

OR I had a friend who once told me 'I'd rather shoot than waste time reloading'

Well, with regard to the first I knew one of these types who ran OUT of ammo during a shortage and couldn't find any and I asked him, ' Ya still think reloading is a waste of time'?

Friend # 2 (out of .223 during a shortage) basically 'begged' me for some .223. I gave him a 20 round box of reloads and left it at that....

 

[orygun]

OTOH, and Having owned an SKS I don't really regard them as an 'enjoyable' gun to shoot - kinda 'rough around the edges' , not the best accuracy and 20+ LB triggers don't help but if all you want to do is to rip 'em off mag dumps, well then buying the cheapest ammo is probably the better way to go.

This is my opinion of owning an SKS.

I already reload, so yes I purchased dies and a few hundred new brass cases. Also some bullets and an appropriate cast bullet mold, just in case

Have not yet loaded for the cartridge though. The SKS is really hard on brass plus I still have a big bunch of Norinco and a half case of Wolf to shoot up first, as well as a few hunds other misc imported ammo. I do have a 7.62X39 AR upper that would probably benefit from handloads though

Shoot the Wolf. Keep the Norinco.

 

[Ifishsum]

Shoot the Wolf. Keep the Norinco.

Any particular reason? The Norinco is soft point and really starting to corrode at the tips. My inclination would be to shoot that first? TY

 

[P7M13]

Any particular reason? The Norinco is soft point and really starting to corrode at the tips. My inclination would be to shoot that first? TY

Lead oxidation doesn't dramatically affect the accuracy of the bullets. It's just ugly, nothing more.

OR I had a friend who once told me 'I'd rather shoot than waste time reloading'

And hear him howl when the prices start climbing during a panic.

I started reloading in the '80s because back then, making only minimum wage, it was the only way I could afford to shoot.
In the late '90s and early 2000's, it was the way I could save money when I was shooting thousands of pistol rounds each month.
Come the panic of 2012 - 2014, the only people I knew who could shoot were reloaders, and the ones who ran our of powder were f#cKd.
I now reload for 31 different cartridges. Three of them are wildcats and while there are places you can order the ammo, it's > $5 per round or more.
So now I've come full circle -- I have enough ammo to shoot out all my rifle barrels, I save a ton of money reloading bottle necked cartridges, and my ammo tends to be more accurate than what I can buy in the store. The problem I face now is finding time to either shoot or reload.

So back to my original post, if you don't already reload, it's best not to start. Just buy factory ammo instead.
For why you wouldn't want to start:

• It's a time consuming part of the overall shooting hobby that's not for everyone
• Attention to detail, thought and care are a must
• If you do like it, it's a complete rabbit hole
• Overall, you don't save money, because you end up shooting a heckuva lot more, and spending a lot on gear. To give you an idea, just in gear (presses, dies, tooling, etc), I probably have over $10K invested.

 

[monks]

I would recommend not reloading and that's coming from someone who does reload. In my experience reloading for anything clip fed and semi-auto is extremely tedious unless you have a progressive reloading setup and those cost real money. Case in point I reload 45acp, usually once a year on a Dillon square deal press. It works great. I recently single stage loaded 300 38 specials and I was ready to scream by the time I got through it. I thought the ammo would last a while in my new revolver but I've already shot half of it. I think with the cost of components I'll just buy some range loads for that pistol when they go on sale. I probably shoot more 9mm than anything except rimfire and I just buy it by the case when it's on sale. I can't justify the savings for the time I would spend loading for that caliber.
As far as 7.62x39, I have the dies and some brass but I haven't tried to reload anything yet because I found some s&b ammo that my bolt action really likes so Ibought a bunch of it. If I want to plink I'll just get the cheapest steel case I can find for it which is cheaper the. Today's powder and bullet prices. Maybe component prices will drop at some point and make the hole thing more economical but until then I'll just keep watching the bimart ad.

 

[orygun]

Any particular reason? The Norinco is soft point and really starting to corrode at the tips. My inclination would be to shoot that first? TY

Quality of manufacture. Shoot the crappy stuff first, save the good stuff.
While I never had an issue with the small amount of Wolf I shot in 7.62x39, others did and the 45 ACP I had was the worst ever.

 

[jkor]

I have two AK rifles in 7.62x39 and eventually I'm going to run out of the affordable ammo that I bought a couple years ago. The cheapest I see on AmmoSeek is now 46 cents a round. I have never reloaded ammo before, but maybe I should buy some brass cased 7.62x39 and learn to reload? Are bullets, primers, etc. available for 7.62x39? How much money can I save if I reload?

Thanks for any advice!

One advantage would be if you wanted 7.62x39 loaded with anything other than FMJ. One thing I find difficult with 7.62x39 is, many rifles that fire them tend to destroy the brass after one use (every century arms us made ak I have used)
I have settled on reloader 7 and 123gr bullets. It definitely does not save money though.

 

[CJ997]

Hello all,

I have some experience reloading 7.62x39. I've reloaded 123 gr plated bullets and SP's.

Once fired brass is pretty easy to come by. PPU, Belom, and Igman all make good boxer primed brass cases. You also have Winchester, Hornady and PMC as well (just watch out for small primers on Winchester and Hornady). I wouldn't recommend Norma though. S & B's makes really good brass, but you have to uniform all of the pockets as they are very, very tight.

I've ordered about 1000 cases of once fired brass from Capital Cartridge and recommend them. I received no berdan primed cases and only a handful of small primer cases. Nothing terribly dinged up either (just the usual AK dings, which are usually not too much of an issue if you run them through a SB sizing die).

The bullets are the problem. Not many to choose from, and not cheap either. You have a fair amount of SP's to choose from, but FMJ's are pretty limited. I mostly load for my Ruger Mini-30 and American, and question how well a SP would run in my AK.

My $.02
Chris

 

[ksjayhawk]

Buy in bulk once a year and shoot through it as you need it. You can often find sales on spam cans and bulk boxed for 500-2000 round at a time. That will be far more cost effective than buying reloading gear and supplies and trying to recoup the costs 100 rounds at a time (often at only a few cents in savings per round at bulk ammo prices).

The only reason you should reload for that small a volume is if you enjoy it in and of itself. There are benefits in that, from learning a new hobby to making yourself some really nice loads that work perfect for your setup. But people are often under the impression that taking up reloading means you can shoot more because you have more ammo on hand and more more money in the bank, and that simply is not the case for 99% of reloaders. Yes there are some people who hunt deals, cut loads and are willing to sink every second of free time they have to save 10-15 cents a round over bulk ammo, but 1. I am of the strong opinion that those days are over and the only guys saving any decent amount of money on reloads are operating on borrowed time from dwindling pre-inflation stocks and 2. most people do not enjoy reloading that much, so buying 20k primers, 40lb of powder and enough brass and bullets to go with it all at once to keep the prices down simply cannot be justified. For your shooting rates that is practically a lifetime supply, but that is also the only way to really save money on the hobby. And that is before we consider that those kinds of bulk sales on reloading supplies seem to be a relic of the past, which wraps around nicely back to point 1. Yet you can still find decent sales on ammo if you know where to look.

I'm not saying don't reload, I am just saying set your expectations and don't think you are trading time for money. You are trading time for enjoyment and enhanced capability. If you really get into reloading you will spend far more money chasing some aspect of it or other. There is a very deep rabbit hole here for those so inclined.

Agreed!! Reloading is very much a hobby now and no longer a lesser expensive option. I reload X39. And have a stash of supplies from general hobby accumulation. Today's prices: using H4198 25.5 grains ($60/Lb) = 22 cents per load. 123GR FMJ's ( if you can find them) 25 cents per projectile. Large rifle primers 4 cents per load.

So you are at 51 CPR Before finding brass to stuff, which averages 12 cents per case (once fired) when available

There are plenty of deals here on NWFA for 40-50 cpr for factory loaded ammo.

The afore mentioned "rabbit hole " of reloading is very real. But It's also definitely a great time occupier during our colder and swampier time of the year in the PNW. Then we must wait for the one maybe two days per week that the weather agrees with our days off to test out our bench toils at the range.

 

[Nosferatu]

I reload to make custom tuned ammo specific to my rifle and needs. I could buy loaded ammo cheaper (and do for some things).

If you're just interested in turning gunpowder into noise, reloading may not be for you.