7.62x39 is not inherently bad for accuracy but combination of the length of the bullet and it's diameter as well as relatively low velocity makes it not best suited for longer range accuracy. it's is fine for shorter distances. moreover up until fairly recently there was not whole a lot of choices besides AKs for 7.62x39 and we all know it's not a tack driver of a system.
however with an AR or bolt gun i've seen couple of friends get very good results in ~1.5 MOA range (not out of AK) without going too anal on the process.
my observations were that cast bullets generally don't perform as good as quality US-made FMJs, but that's to be expected. Typically i load cast powder coated bullets on the cheap to blast out of my AKs. it's good enough for me to ring steel at 100 yards. but with quality jacketed bullets you can expect very good groups and that's definitely not impossibility.

 

I'm not looking for long range accuracy, I'm more interested in what it can do up to 100-200 yards. The quest is more or less "clean head shot at 200 yards", and I'm wondering if any 7.62x39 (factory or hand loaded) is capable of that.

 

Definitely yes and easily for handloads out of bolt gun or free floated AR. Good factory is very like able to achieve close to that if your gun likes it. Maybe even with steel cased ammo. 6" @ 200 that's 3 MOA, not that big of an ask for most modern guns.

 

The gun I'm talking about is an AK with a Tabuk profile barrel, very thoroughly built and fitted but still an AK. It's nothing like a bolt gun or an AR.

 

long barrel actually will be worse as it has perplexity to flex more at higher amplitude than shorter barrel.
shorter, thick barrels get less flex so it helps with group size.
i honestly don't know how it'll turn out in your case. if i had to guess you will lend 60-70% of the shots.

 

100 yards with Aimpoint T1 on ultimak on my AMD-65 using Lapua brass cased ammo.

6 shots ain't enough for anything but with quality ammo, the AK platform is capable from 100 to 200 yards.

 

100 yards with Aimpoint T1 on ultimak on my AMD-65 using Lapua brass cased ammo.

6 shots ain't enough for anything but with quality ammo, the AK platform is capable from 100 to 200 yards.

That's impressive! I googled Lapua 7.62x39, and it seems like ammo and brass are both difficult to find and possibly discontinued. In any case, your picture shows that an AKM actually can perform with good ammo!

 

i toyed with an idea of free floated barrel AK. assuming one has modern 21st century quality barrel, maybe even button rifled instead of forged, free floating is likely to contribute 75-80% to improved accuracy remaining %s i would say should come from good ammo selection for the rifle.

 

My AMD-65 aren't free floating......both are SBR with Ultimak CLAMPED down on the heavy barrel setup.......

Dave Fortier, a good friend the editor of Firearms News says he did months and months of testing on his AKs with ultimaks and freefloating and he feels free floating does nothing on the AK while the Ultimak clamping down helped stop the barrel whip that happens on AKs.
it changed the barrel harmonics and it actually helped in accuracy.

I took his word for it and it helps... but this is just my brother and I and 3 other people I know with good quality Aks noticing the accuracy improvement with ultimaks....the science sucks.. yes and it doesn't make sense... I got it but for the AK, it enhances accuracy.

Don't ask me why.

 

Sounds similar to what Walther did with the WA-2000 rifle. Free floating wasn't a thing back then, so they tensioned the hell out of the barrel to keep it in the same spot from shot to shot.

 

options are either let it whip but repeatably every time or make barrel whip less by clamping things and adding weight to it. these are two opposite approaches but both have potential to help with grouping. you chose second method. i'm pretty sure having shorter barrel is also a big help. shorter things are naturally stiffer and stiffness is a positive contributor to accuracy.

 

I'm sure harmonics play a big part, especially in an AK. The gas piston system basically wants to bend the gun, and I have seen a few slow motion clips where you can clearly see how the barrel flops around when a round is fired. A free floated barrel with a front clamp is a traditional way to deal with that, but there's no way to clamp the barrel on this particular gun. I might try weights instead, but I suspect that this method would also require very consistent ammo.

Still, this is not meant to be a target gun. I do want to get the best accuracy possible out of it, but my primary focus is actually the looks. I built it on a whim, thinking that it would be cool to have a "PSL Light" or a "fantasy DMR" that nobody else has. I think I at least accomplished that part.

 

Nice looking rifle. I've kicked around the idea of getting a Tabuk-like rifle built with a nice .308 bored barrel. As I'd only be feeding it handloads this would allow me to use the far more numerous target bullets in .308 vice being limited to the 174gr SMK, 200gr Lapua D-166, or the few other match grade bullets in .310-.311 diameter.

Didn't the Mini-14 do something similar, with a .308 bore and a throat designed to allow for COMBLOC steel cased ammo with .310-.311 projectiles? Thought I'd read that somewhere, but it could just be internet rumor at this point. I'm also not sure what a throat like that would do for accuracy.

 

I was amazed when I started reloading 7.62x39 I can achieve groups almost as good as my 5.56 AR at 100yds using an old yugo m70 bullet selection is key Hornady fmj and SST along with nosler varmageddon with cfe black and h335 has produced amazing results as far as brass goes I buy only brass 7.62 now have plenty of steel and recently brass is more abundant since the Russian steel cased ammo ban capital cartridge is a good source for brass in my experience

 

Time to revive this thread with some good news: I have been looking for the Lapua ammo for a while now, and all I could find (in the US anyway) was a scalper asking a whopping $4/round. I found some old info saying that it was $2/round last time it was on the market, so I knew it wasn't gonna be cheap. There's no way I will pay $4 anyway, so I had just about given up on this. Today I went to a gun show, and found a guy who had 980 rounds on the table. After some negotiating, the whole lot was mine for $500, or roughly 50 cents/round. The funny thing is that he had 1000 rounds of steel case Wolf sitting right next to it, also priced at $500. Unbelievable.

If the weather holds up, I'll try some of it tomorrow. It will be very interesting to see what it can do.