What's the longest range I can effectivley deer hunt with an sks?

Question

Up to 100 yards?

(with a Wolf 154-grain soft point bullet)

Answer 1

Not much more than 100 yards. While the 7.26x39mm cartridge is similar ballistically to the .30-30 (which has killed more deer than any other), it is not a long-range proposition. Your limitations will be these, among others: Its energy has dropped off to 8-900 ft-lbs by 200 yards (about 1200 at 100 yards). Many consider 1200 ft-lbs the minimum to cleanly take deer-sized game. Zeroed at 100 yards, the bullet will have dropped about 7 inches at 200 yards. Finally, since most of these rifles do not have scopes, you will be limited by the coarse open sights on the rifles.
If you decide to hunt with this rifle, you will need to purchase quality expanding soft point ammunition (like Remington Core-Lokt soft points). Stay away from the FMJ or hollowpoint $3/box surplus-type import stuff.

Answer 2

10 gram softpoint pointed bullet at about 2000fps? 150 yards about right. Where are you planning to hunt? Open fields over 300 yards might be a bit long. In Wisconsin woods and brush the SKS is collecting a lot of venison , peep sights at back of dust cover popular option. Some hunter are using Beeman short scope on top of dust cover, others are using long eye relief Thompson -Center type 2x scopes forward of ejection port and getting reasonable groups to 300 yards- they are getting meat at 250 -+. Some Women like SKS for the way it fits them, a friends wife uses a Norinco SKS for past 5 years- fills her tag and adds extra. one careful shot and immediate followup shot has dropped some large bucks at 150/200 yards. Wisconsin allows 222 on up for deer, M1 Carbines getting deer at 100 yards, woods hunting that may be as far as you can see them anyway.

Answer 3

The 7.62X39 mm Soviet round is more or less a semi-automatic version of the .30-30 WCF. That makes in a 150-200 yard maximum deer rifle.

Add in the less than stellar accuracy of the SKS, and I'd call in a 100-150 yard deer rifle.

Answer 4

Don't know about hunting but the best I've ever been able to manage target shooting with my SKS is about 100 yards.

Then again, I'm old and wear pretty thick glasses.

This fellow says he did well hunting at 175 yards -
http://www.sksboards.com/smf/index.php?topic=34022.0

For a lot of great tech info on the SKS, try -
http://www.surplusrifle.com/shooting/sks/index.asp

Flucolax35's post sounds about right. John R's, too, particularly about the ammo.

The SKS is a great rifle. I love mine.

Have fun, and good hunting!

EDIT

Hmmm. Stampy says otherwise from personal experience. I guess, in all honesty, I have to ask you to ignore my answer, and let the other folks fight it out with the facts.

Answer 5

100-125 yards would be an ideal range to try for, however you can use it out to 150 or 175.

Like the 30-30, the 7.62x39 looses a lot past that distance and it's not wise to be taking longer shots at living targets. If you do, you are going to wind up tracking blood trails through the forest for hours.

Answer 6

I looked on-line and found that at 200 yards, the round has a little over 800 ppounds of energy left, with a 125 grain bullet. This is about the bare minimum for deer. Not knowing the bullet drop, the farthest I would go is 200, and thats if I knew the bullet drop.

Hope this helps!

Answer 7

I think you'll get educated quickly if you just shoot those 154 grain bullets over a chrono. The case is just too small to come close to 30-30 capabilities, so even 100 yards takes limiting your shots to open broadsides. The people who talk about the two being equivalent have either fallen for the old hype Ruger once pulled or simply don't know anything about terminal ballistics. It ain't the foot-pounds that kill, it's the bullet putting a hole in flesh.

Answer 8

anywhere from 150 yards to 200 yards but a sks isnt really al that powerful it doesnt have alot of punch power

Answer 9

I own and fire my SKS all the time.... you can easily shoot and kill a deer up to 300 meters scoped with that rifle.... I was hitting targets with iron sights at 400 meters last week.... that rifle is sighted to 1000 meters. So you can easily hunt deer with that rifle Iron sights or scoped.... I would get a scope...

Answer 10

100 yds maybe 150