7.62x39mm

## History

Soviet full-caliber intermediate cartridge, developed in WWII years and adopted shortly thereafter. Designed with 300m effective range in mind, it has somewhat poor reach, but allows the creation of light and reasonably controllable rifles.

Combines relatively low production price, widespread adoption and a wide range of performance.

## **UAS Ammunition Index**

### **Russian Ammunition:**

* **ZR:** Load with WWI-era explosive round.
* **PZ:** Load with WWII-era explosive-incendiary round.
* **M43:** Original ball round with mild steel core. Poor terminal ballistics. Very stable in soft tissue. Tends not to yaw, tumble, or deviate from its path.
	+ **57N231:** Improved variation
	+ **57N231M:** Further improvement with hardened core.
	+ **M43S:** Rare variant with plastic balls instead of steel core.
	+ **Type 54:** Chinese clone
* **T-45:** Original tracer ball load.
	+ **T45M:** Improved version with delayed burn.
* **BZ:** Original API load with hardened steel core. Capable of penetrating 9.3mm of RHA at 100m. Minor variation was produced in GDR.
	+ **Type 54:** Chinese clone
	+ **Shoubra API:** Egyptian clone
* **7N23:** "BP" armor piercing steel core round. Rated to penetrate 5mm of HHA at 200m.
	+ **7N27:** Enhanced penetration round, similar to 7N23.
* **7N38:** Tungsten-cored AP round, designed to beat heavy body armor.
	+ 7N38M: Experimental version with superhard tip and rear core.
* **US:** 12,6-gram steel-cored subsonic load, designed to use with PBS-1 silencer.
* **PRS:** Reduced ricochet frangible load for urban warfare.
* **8M1:** Hunting load with lead hollow-point 8-gram bullet.
	+ **8M3:** Hunting load with lead hollow-point 8.5-gram bullet. Highly destructive in soft tissue when it deforms. Mediocre quality control means deformation upon impact is not a given.
	+ **8M5:** Minor variation of 8M3.
	+ **8M6:** Hunting load with soft-point bullet.

### **Ukrainian Ammunition**

* BS-10: Ukrainian 10-gram tungsten penetrator. Rated to penetrate at least 14mm of HHA.

### Chinese Ammunition

* Type 56: Chinese copy of M43 FMJ. Expect similar performance.
* Type 54: Chinese copy of BZ API.

### Finnish Ammunition

* S309: Finnish FMJ load. Improved variant is S405. Tracer is VJ313.
* EX-FIN: Experimental Finnish SLAP round with 6mm tungsten penetrator.
* K413: Full-bore Finnish tungsten-core AP round.
* Nammo AP: AP round with tungsten core.

### **European Ammunition**

* **PPI Anthena:** Steel core AP load with remarkably good penetration.
* **THV:** Legendary hi-velocity metal-penetrating round.
* **FNSP:** Experimental tungsten SLAP by FN.
* **WTUVM:** Experimental Czech WC-core AP load.

### **US Ammunition**

* **VMAX:** Hormady varmint load.
* **L-JSP:** Soft-point match round by Lapua.
* **TSX:** Barnes copper bullet with impressive terminal performance.
* **Wolf HP:** Hunting hollow-point ammunition.

* **Liberty T3-123:** 123-grain fragmenting load made out of copper and steel.
	+ **Liberty T3-143:** 143-grain fragmenting tungsten round.
* **Glaser Safety Slug:** Fragmenting low-penetration load comprised out of #12 lead shot in a copper jacket, the nose portion filled with a plastic pellet crimped in to hold the shot in place.
* **ADVAP:** M1158 advanced penetrator bullet, reloaded in to x39 case. Arguably on par with 7N38 and BS-10.
* **Lehigh APRE:** Prototype of multipurpose round by Lehigh Defense. featuring tungsten penetrator and reactive metal explosive-incendiary charge. For that kind of situations, when you need something better than BZ and PZ and at the same time.
* **Libra Snail:** Lightweight steel-core AP round, highly capable against armor, but with unremarkable terminal ballistics.
* **APHP:** Experimental discarding sabot tungsten core round.
* **MAI:** Tungsten penetrator, rated to defeat NIJ-IV armor at close ranges (80 yards).
* **Strike-3:** US-made triplex load.
* **INCPTR-90:** Lightweight 90-grain round.
* **RCBD:** Unproven "blended metal" hi-velocity round. Saboted version is available. Those that have been analyzed turned out to be a very conventional softpoint bullets with soft lead alloy core and relatively thin copper jacket. Generally very light for caliber. Generally manufactured with a plastic filler in the base of the bullet to increase its length and reduce its overall mass. The lead core is very short and there is not much of it behind the bullet's point, allowing for impressively high velocities.

### **Yugoslavian Ammunition**

* **M67:** Yugoslavian ball round. Copper jacket, lead core. Tends to yaw very rapidly and violently in soft tissue within a few inches of impact. Destroys an impressive amount of soft tissue for a nonexpanding, nondeforming full metal jacket bullet, but prone to deviating from a straight line and curving randomly to one side as it yaws. Czech service ball ammunition in this caliber performs similarly.
	+ **M78:** Yugoslavian tracer ball variant.
* **M82:** Yugoslavian API round, outperforming both BZ and Type 54.

### **Other Ammunition**

* **MU8TJ:** Indonesian ball round.
* **M361:** Polish ball round.
* **Maket:** Dummy round, loaded for less-than-lethal use.
* **Barnaul:** 196-grain subsonic load.
* **SS-200:** 200-grain subsonic load.
	+ **SS-230:** 230-grain subsonic load.