7.62x54R...questions....

[Colin]

My buddy has one of these rifles and wants to start handloading for it...Now, I've read a little about this cartridge and from what I gather it can be similar to the .308 (pressures permitting, I'm guessing). Now a couple of questions....

Can standard .308 diameter bullets be used or do I have to use .310 caliber bullets for optimum performance.

Also, does anybody know of any all copper .310 caliber bullets for the handloader?

Any suggestions would be great.....

 

[Antelope_Sniper]

THe 7.62 x 54R fits squarly between the .308, and the 30.06. There is some limited loading data avaliable for the 7.62x54r, and most of it is inline with the .308. What rifle is it chambered in? Owning 5 of these, I can tell you there is a huge variation in the quality of the rifles. I'd start conservative and work up.

You can load .308 bullets. Some rifles will shoot them well, some will not. If the rifle doesn't like the .308, move up to the .311 bullets. Both Speer and Sierra make .310-.311 hunting bullets.

 

[Colin]

Thanks, I do not know the make of the rifle, I have never seen it...being in central California, we are limited to lead free bullets. I found the Barnes .310 123gr Triple Shock, so I may go with these...Are you saying that I can use .308 Winchester info to develop loads for this round??? If so, this may be easier than I thought.

I see most bullets for .310 are in the 100-130gr range, are these the best choices in bullet weight for optimum performance on deer sized game? Or, would it be wise to step up to the 150gr .308 caliber bullet (accuracy permitting) or will that cause pressure problems. As I imagine the pressure will be an issue if this is an older rifle.

 

[Antelope_Sniper]

Let me look at my books tonight, but as I recall, the data was very close to .308 loads. I've bought the dies, but haven't loaded for it yet. Most of my books list some European powders I don't have, so I remember thinking I would start with some conservative .308 data, with lighter bullets, and powder that I know very well. I'm sure Pop would run a quick load for you!

 

[FOTIS]

This might help a little

http://7.62x54r.net/

 

[1Shot]

I have a great deal of experience hand loading for the 7.62X54R. I will start by saying that I have never seen a single rifle in this caliber that will shoot a .308 diameter bullet. Most of the bores need either a .311 or .312 diameter bullet. You will need to slug your bore to find out which one it needs. Get you some .315 diameter muzzle loader lead balls and remove the bolt of the rifle and drop one down into the chamber with the rifle in a vice with the muzzle pointing down. Take the metal cleaning rod that came with the rifle and place a piece of wood on top of it and use it to drive the led ball into the bore with a hammer. Tap the ball as far into the bore as you can with the cleaning rod then take some 6 inch pieces of hard wood dowel rod and drop them into the chamber end and place the cleaning rod behind them and continue tapping and adding dowel rod pieces until the slug comes out the muzzle end. With a caliper measure the high spots on each side of the slug that the groves made. If it measures .310 to .3105 use a .311 diameter bullet. If it measures .3105 to .3115 use .312 diameter bullets. If it measures over .3115 get rid of it and find you another rifle because it won't shoot with jacketed bullets.

Most of these rifles want heavy 174 to 180 gr bullets to shoot well.
Here is the most accurate load I have ever found for these rifles that shoots in every rifle I have ever tried it in. I have 7 rifles of different models in the caliber.
50 grs Accurate 4350, CCI 200 primer, a case made by Prvi Partizan, Wolf Gold, Winchester, Grafs are all made by Prvi. If your rifle needs a .311 bullet for paper punching use a 174 gr Sierra Match King or for hunting use a 180 SP from Sierra OAL 3.000 . If you need a .312 bullet use Hornady's 174 RNSP OAL 2.790 . With all loads use a Lee Factory Crimp Die on them. This is important for best accuracy.
You can go to www.surplusrifle.com and go to the forum section and then go to the Russian Mosin Nagant thread and at the top of this page there are some stickies. In these stickies you will find something like Non-Bubba accuracy tuning for the M/N 91/30. It works. I have a M/N 91/30 that will shoot under 1" 5 shot groups at 100 yards with the stock open sights that I did the turning work on. These guns are a blast to fool with and they are dirt cheap.

 

[Antelope_Sniper]

Like one shot says, they are shooters. My Fin 39 will shoot 1" with the 147gr russian military stuff. It doesn't like the heavy stuff. Thanks for the tip on slugging the bore. I have one that keyholes the 180gr Norma factroy loads at 25 yards. I imagine it's one of those large bores you mentioned.

The Hornady volume 4 has load data for the 7.62x54R. The data is for .308 bullets, and is much close to 30.06 powder volumes then .308 powder volumes. I'm not sure I'd feel very comfortable with this data with bullets of a proper bore size. Since Sierra make proper diameter bullets, I'd probably check a Sierra Manuel.

 

[1Shot]

Colin: I forgot to tell you in my other post that you will need to lengthen the front sight post of the 91/30's to get your POI to come down so you will not shoot about 6 or 8 inches high at 100 yards. That is the battle sight setting for these rifles. The web site I gave for www.surplusrife.com in the Russian/Finnish thread of the forum in the sitickies section will show you one way to do it. I have found that where it will allow you to drive the sight post out I just replace the post with a cut offfinishing nail the same diameter but longer leaving the head of the nail as the stop and tap some lead shot behind it to hold it snug then when at the range I file it down to my desired POI. If the sight post will not come out I drill it out. Beware it is very hard metal.

The only manuals that I know of that uses .311 or .312 bullets in the data for the 7.62X54R is the Accurate manual and the Hornady Seventh edition manual. Be aware that in the Hornady manual they list a 174 gr FMJ bullet as .312 diameter, it is not. It is .3105 diameter, it says it right on the box and that is what they measure out as. Most places that sale them also list them as .312 but they are not. The RNSP 174 is .312 diameter. Believe it or not you can use the data listed for .308 bullets and it will be lighter loads than those listed for .311 or .312 bullets. You are pushing the same weight bullet down a larger bore than the .3075 the .308 data was tested in so you get less pressure. The 7.62X54R will do anything velocity wise that a 308 Win will do and more in some cases. The right bullet & powder combo and those long barrels of 91/30's and you equal or exceed a 30-06.

Antelope_Sniper: Try the load I gave in the above post in your 39 Finn. It really is a tack driver in mine and it shoots right to the sights all the way out to 1200 meters in my rifle. I was blowing peoples minds one day when a friend invited us to an old strip mine area to shoot where we could shoot a mile if we wanted to. There was a rock the size of a pick-up-truck cab that he painted a white circle 36 inches tall on. We backed off 1288 yards by rangefinder, to a flat spot we could shoot from. When the wind was perfectly calm I could nail that white circle with my 39 Finn almost every time. Over open sights that circle looked smaller than the head of a pin. I set the sight on 1200 meters and held a 6 o'clock hold. At 1000 yards I could hit a 2 foot square piece of steel from prone almost every time. These rifles will shoot. Of course so will the M-96 Swedes , K-31 Swiss and 1903A3 Springfield.

 

[Colin]

OK. First, Thanks for all the info everybody.

My buddy that owns this rifle knows very little about guns, so this is what I could get out of him. "The barrel has been shortened and re-crowned. The bolt has been modified to work with a scope and a synthetic stock added." K, so it's been sporterized, I get that....what I don't quite understand is the other thing he told me.....

"The rifle has been modified to shoot heavier bullets."

What could they have done, besides adding a new barrel? Did they strengthen the action in some way to deal with any added preasure??? Any ideas???

 

[1Shot]

He is probably talking about what the the Finns did to all the captured Mosin Nagant rifles they took away from the Russians. They lengthened the throat area a little so that they could use what was called Heavy Ball ammo, bullets around 180 to 212 grs or so and marked the barrels with a D. These rifles have a 1 n 10 twist so they will handle most any weight bullet from 125 to 200 gr bullets very well. I would get a set of RCBS dies because they come with two expander balls. One is for use with .308 bullets and the other is for use with the proper .311 or .312 bullets. Most other dies expanders are for .308 bullets and you will crush the neck of your cases trying to seat .311 or .312 bullets in them. Like I said earlier most 7.62X54R rifles like 174 to 180 gr bullets best.

The stock that he has on that rifle is most likely an ATI brand. They have a kit that comes with a scope base you have to drill and tap to put on. It also comes with a new bolt handle that requires cutting the old bolt handle off and drill and tapping of the bolt body and attaching the new bolt handle with a screw that by the way has a habit of coming loose after a few shots. Many people have this handle welded on.