7.62x39
Yugoslavian version of the 7.62x39 cartridge, named M67. It has a flat based fully lead core projectile.
Type	Rifle
Place of origin	Soviet Union
Service history
In service	World War II to present
Used by	Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, People's Republic of China, North Korea, Vietnam, South Africa, Finland
Wars	World War II, Afghanistan and later wars
Production history
Designed	World War II
Produced	World War II to present
Specifications
Case type	Rimless, bottleneck
Bullet diameter	7.90 mm (0.311 in)
Neck diameter	8.64 mm (0.34 in)
Shoulder diameter	10.01 mm (0.394 in)
Base diameter	11.25 mm (0.443 in)
Rim diameter	11.30 mm (0.445 in)
Case length	38.65 mm (1.522 in)
Overall length	55.80 mm (2.197 in)
Primer type	Berdan
Filling	SSNF 50 powder
Filling weight	24.7 gr
Ballistic performance
Bullet weight/type	Velocity	Energy
123 gr Spitzer	710 m/s (~2329 ft/s)	2010 J (~1478 ft·lbf)
Source: Chuck Hawks[1]

The Soviet 7.62x39mm rifle cartridge was designed during World War II and first used in the SKS carbine. The cartridge was likely influenced by a variety of foreign developments, especially the pre-war German GeCo, 7.75x39mm experimental round,^[2] and possibly by the late-war German 7.92 mm Kurz ("Kurz" meaning "short" in German). Shortly after the war the world's most recognized assault rifle was designed for this cartridge: the AK-47. The cartridge remained the Soviet standard until the 1970s, and is still by far the most common intermediate rifle cartridge used around the world.^{[citation needed]} Its replacement, the 5.45×39 mm cartridge, is slightly less powerful but is more controllable in fully automatic fire due to the lower recoil. The change was in part a response to NATO switching from the 7.62x51mm cartridge to 5.56x45mm NATO.^{[citation needed]} Download high resolution version (1600x1200, 389 KB)Bunch of Yugoslavian 7. ... Yugoslavia (Jugoslavija in the Latin alphabet, Југославија in Cyrillic; English: South Slavia, or literary The Land of South Slavs) describes three political entities that existed one at a time on the Balkan Peninsula in Europe, during most of the 20th century. ... Not to be confused with the Warsaw Convention, which is an agreement about airlines financial liability and the Treaty of Warsaw (1970) between West Germany and the Peoples Republic of Poland. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... This article is about firearms projectiles. ... The percussion cap or primer was the crucial invention that enabled firearms to fire in any weather. ... A grain is a unit of mass equal to 0. ... Metre per second (U.S. spelling: meter per second) is an SI derived unit of both speed (scalar) and velocity (vector), defined by distance in metres divided by time in seconds. ... Feet per second is a unit of speed; it expressses the number of feet traveled in one second. ... The joule (IPA: or ) (symbol: J) is the SI unit of energy. ... The foot-pound force (symbol: ft·lbf) is an English unit of work or energy from the English Engineering System. ... “CCCP” redirects here. ... Rimmed, centerfire . ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... The SKS is a Russian semi-automatic carbine, designed in 1945 by Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov. ... A carbine is a firearm similar to, but generally shorter and less powerful than, a rifle or musket of a given period. ... 7. ... Avtomat Kalashnikova model 1947 g. ... The Soviet 5. ... This article is about the military alliance. ... NATO 7. ... U.S. Military 5. ...

History

The original Soviet bullets are boat-tail bullets with a copper-plated steel jacket, a large steel core, and some lead between the core and the jacket. ^{[citation needed]} The cartridge itself consists of a berdan-primed, tapered (usually steel) case which seats the bullet and contains the powder charge. The taper makes it very easy to feed and extract the round, since there is little contact with the chamber walls until the round is fully seated. This taper is what causes the AK-47 to have distinctively curved magazines. While the bullet design itself has gone through a few redesigns, the cartridge itself remains largely unchanged. A boattail bullet has a bullet heel that reduces to diameter that is less than the largest diameter of the bullet. ...

7.62x39 ammunition has typically been inexpensive, one of the least-expensive centerfire rifle ammunition on the market at just over 10 cents a round for high-quality imported Russian brands and now 17 cents a round for quality imported ammo after a sharp price rise on mil-spec ammo in this caliber in early 2006,^{[citation needed]} though as of late 2007 it is reaching the 20 cents per round level in the US. It is cheaper than most handgun rounds and even some expensive target .22 rimfire ammunition. However, in 2005/2006, prices began to soar (almost doubling in the US) due to the United States placing a massive order to supply the fledgling Afghan and Iraqi armies.^[3] Even so, as of Jan. 2007, it remains one of the least-expensive centerfire rifle ammo on the market.^{[citation needed]} This cartridge has endeared itself to shooters in spite of its limited ballistics, which are analogous to the .30-30, because of the many inexpensive good semiautomatic rifles available for it, the availability of inexpensive ammunition, and because of its minimal recoil.^{[citation needed]} .303 in. ...

M43

Although the new cartridge represented a great leap forward from previous designs, the initial bullet design was flawed.^{[citation needed]} The complete solidity of the M43 projectile causes its only drawback—it is stable even in tissue and begins to yaw only after traversing nearly 30cm of tissue. This greatly reduces the wounding effectiveness of the projectile against humans. Dr. Martin Fackler noted that the wounds from the M43 round were comparable to that of a small handgun round using non-expanding bullets.^{[citation needed]} Unless the round struck something vital, the wound was usually small and healed quickly.^{[citation needed]} The word yaw can refer to: Yaw, the name for the Levantine god of chaos, rivers, the sea, and tempests; Yaw, an aeronautical and nautical term which indicates how far a craft is pointing away from its direction of travel due to rotation about its vertical axis. ... Dr. Martin Fackler is an eminent battlefield surgeon and one of the foremost experts in the field of terminal ballistics. ...

M67

In the 1960s the Yugoslavians experimented with new bullet designs to produce a round with a superior wounding profile, speed, and acuracy to the M43. The M67 projectile is shorter and flatter-based than the M43. This is mainly due to the deletion of the mild steel insert.^{[citation needed]} This has the side effect of shifting the center of gravity rearward in comparison to the M43. This allows the projectile to destabilize nearly 17cm earlier in tissue. This causes a pair of large stretch cavities at a depth likely to cause effective wound trauma.^{[citation needed]} When the temporary stretch cavity intersects with the skin at the exit area, a larger exit wound will result, which takes longer to heal. Additionally, when the stretch cavity intersects a stiff organ like the liver, it will cause damage to that organ.

However, without fragmentation, the wounding potential of M67 is mostly limited to the small permanent wound channel the bullet itself makes. While a fragmenting round (like the 5.56x45 mm) might cause massive tissue trauma and blood loss (and thus rapid incapacitation) on a lung or abdominal hit, the M67 has a greater chance of merely wounding the target.^{[citation needed]} 5. ...

Chinese steel core

Chinese military-issue ammunition in this caliber is M43 style with a mild steel core and a thin jacket of copper or brass. Contrary to common belief, the use of steel was a cost saving measure rather than one to increase the penetration.^{[citation needed]} Additionally, mild steel is not sufficiently hard to grant unusual armor penetrating capability.^{[citation needed]} Despite this, Chinese ammunition is currently banned from importation in the US due to the fact that there are 7.62x39mm caliber handguns and the ammunition is an armor-piercing handgun round under the U.S. federal legal definition of the word, which is based on materials and bullet design rather than on tested ability to penetrate armor. ^[4] Mild steel is the most common form of steel as its price is relatively low while it provides material properties that are acceptable for many applications. ...

Other names for 7.62x39

On some occasions, this ammunition is referred to as 7.62mm Soviet, 7.62mm Warsaw Pact, or 7.62mm ComBloc. It was also known in the United States as .30 Short Russian/ComBloc; the "Short" was to distinguish it from the older .30 Russian, which was the 7.62x54R. (Note that the "R" in 7.62x54R does not stand for "Russian", but "Rimmed") Not to be confused with the Warsaw Convention, which is an agreement about airlines financial liability and the Treaty of Warsaw (1970) between West Germany and the Peoples Republic of Poland. ... The 7. ...

Hunting

Since approximately 1990 the 7.62x39mm cartridge has seen some use in hunting arms in the US for hunting game up to the size of whitetail deer, as it is approximately as powerful as the old .30-30 Winchester round, and has a similar ballistic profile.^{[citation needed]} Large numbers of inexpensive imported semiautomatic rifles, like the SKS and semi-auto AK-47 clones and variants, are available in this caliber, and the SKS is so inexpensive as to have begun displacing the .30-30 lever-action rifles as the new "poor man's deer rifle" by being less expensive than the .30-30 Marlins and Winchesters that long held that role.^{[citation needed]} Inexpensive imported 7.62x39mm ammunition is also widely available, though much of it is of the non-expanding type that may be illegal to use for hunting in some US states. However, both imported Russian ammunition like Wolf brand and American civilian manufacturers produce both hollow-point and soft-point rounds, which are suitable and legal for hunting. A semi-automatic rifle is a type of rifle that fires a single bullet each time the trigger is pulled, without the need to manually operate a bolt, lever or other firing or loading mechanism. ... This article is about the hunting of prey by human society. ... Wolf Ammunition is a Russian clearinghouse company that sells ammunition produced in former state-owned (USSR) factories. ... .357 Magnum rounds. ...

See also

• List of rifle cartridges
• 7.62 mm caliber

Left to Right: .17 HM2, .17 HMR, .22LR, .22 WMR, .17 SMc, 5mm/35 SMc, .22 Hornet, .223 Remington, .223 WSSM, .243 Winchester, .243 Winchester Improved (Ackley), .25-06, .270 Winchester, .308, .30-06, .45-70 Govt, .50-90 Sharps From left to right: .50 BMG, 300 Win Mag, .308... There are many cartridges which use 7. ...

References

External links

• Various photos of 7.62 x 39mm ammunition
• .30 Caliber cartridge article at Chuck Hawks