American Eagle, Remington, or Winchester are about the best 7.62x39mm ammo that you're going to find. The more common brands are Wolf, Silver Bear, and Barnaul. You decide. SKS Rifle Ammunition To Go
As stated, the American ammo tends to be cleaner burning, more consistant and as such more accurate. On a big plus note the American ammo is boxer primed and reloadable. The brass has value after fired. If you are not a reloader, you can send it to me and I will make good use of it to help keep your range clean and clear.
I shoot wolf, and have since the clinton ban dried up all the true military 7.62x39 surplus. back in the early nineties, I would tear through cheap steel core stuff. I've shot the american brands, as others mentioned above. It is nice stuff, but it is SOOOO much more expensive. And remember... AK's and sks rifles are known to be very forgiving. They can shoot just about anything, so don't worry much. Just avoid the word corrosive, unless shooting in sub-zero environments (one of several reasons the russians used a lot of corrosive ammo is because they say it's more reliable in really cold climates).
Somebody told me different that American ammo actually isn't very accurate because the American made 7.62x39 having a .308 diameter while 7.62x39 in combloc guns have a bore diameter of .311
I've only ever purchased one box of american 7.62x39 ammo (remington, I think). It ran fine, but cost too much. I'll take the commie rounds to feed my commie rifles...
American 7.62 X 39 does not have .308 bullets. Anyone who told you that is (at best) misinformed. To my recollection Winchester and Federal have .311 bullets and Remington has .310 bullets. All three are perfectly accurate in my AK/SKS YMMV.
I agree with you janikphoto, I'll just stick to the commie ammo for the commie guns. It's too cheap to pass up, especially for a rifle that isn't gonna be that accurate anyway. Remington 7.62x39 cost me about $9.50 a box the last time I bought them, while Wolf 7.62x39 only cost about $5.00 for 20 rounds. Buying more expensive rounds won't help accuracy if your rifle isn't built for accurate fire. That's like running racing fuel in a Yugo sedan.
If you want some good quality 7.62 x 39 ammo your going to have to load your own and tune it to your rifle. I load for both my YUGO and my Chinese SKS for about $5 a box of 20 I bought up enough components years ago to load a few thousand round back before everything went up,you can still get some decent deals on components if you look around. If you main gig is just throwing lead down range then use the commie stuff,when hitting the X ring on a regular basis is more important then work up some quality ammo. Back about two years ago Rem. load it 7.62 x 39 ammo with .308 bullets mainly because the mini-30 was chambered in .308 now they use .310 have no clue about Win. or Fed. On other thing if your shooting a Mil-Surplus semi-auto type rifle with free floating firing pins,AK,SKS,M1 Garand,M1 Carbine it not a good idea to be shooting ammo with standard soft primers or using them for reloading because of the possibility of Slam fires caused by the forward momentum of the non spring loaded firing pin striking and dimpling the primer. CCI make the #41 SR and #34 LR Mil spec primer for reloading for these types of weapons they are MAGNUM primes so work up your loads accordingly. Wolf also has a similar version of this primer in there MAGNUM series in both sizes made by PMC.
Am still using up the very large supply of Russian and Chinese Milsurp I picked up a few years back. Have bought some Remington for hunting- heard the same complaint about .308 vs .311, so pulled a Remington bullet and miked it. - .311. I have run a few boxes of Bear thru one of my SKSs, and it does well. Ref: Corrosive- I shoot a LOT of corrosive 7.62 Russian, as well as 7.62x39. Just clean the rifle. Takes less than 5 minutes.
That's all I use in my SKS, the cheap russian milspec stuff that is. I've shot Bear ammo before but it's not available in the local gunstores in my area. I guess they just don't carry it anymore. Everyone in my area carries Wolf, and I shoot the hell out of it. I can't see spending $10 per box of 20 for Remington UMC when I can get Wolf for $5 a box, especially since the rifle is russian anyways. Don't get me wrong, Remington makes some great ammo and I use it in my other guns. However my SKS runs just fine on the cheap stuff, kind of like my old Ford.
My sks gets wolf. I like steel casings as they were good enough for the US Army in WWII so there good enough for me.I don't get caught up in dirty as I clean after each visit to the range. Bad for extractors I'v e yet to replace one on any of my firearms.
I've always stuck with the Wolf, silver bear and Tula ammo. It's kind of dirty as far as powder goes but your SKS or AK was designed to use this type and the SKS was originally manufactured at the Tula cartrage plant in Russia and specifically made around that steel cased, dirty round. Just remember that brass ammo expands differently when the chamber is hot in these guns brass ammo will start to give you failure to extract issues. And since the chamber of these guns is of less close tolorence then most, neck cracking and chamber detonations can happen with brass ammo. I'd stick to the steel cased Russian/Ukrainian/Chinese stuff. It's never done me wrong.
Steel is OK for cartridges like 7.62 X 39. To say brass is NOT good for this application is just silly. Brass is better than steel for cartridge case use, period. One of the reasons steel cased ammo seems to be "dirtier" is the incomplete seal in the chamber. If you were to take the components of the Wolf/Tula/Brown Bear ammo and load into a brass case, it would be cleaner
I fired the Remington and Prvi Partisan ammo back-to-back with the garden variety, from my AK. I failed to see the difference. Not on steel plates, quite small ones too. That's good news, if you don't care to reload (I don't). Cleaning an AK is so easy that whatever extra dirt may end up in there, it is worth one more blast of canned air. If you shoot hundreds non-stop, better use non-lacquered cases like Golden Tiger or Silver Bear (was still for sale on CTD this week) or similar.
