r/canadaguns • u/Kind-Ad-9144 • Jul 11 '26

Misc Where has all the surplus 7.62x39 gone?

Is the lack of availability in spam cans a result of everyone concerned with the SKS continued legality, a result of the Ukraine war, a lack of stock, or another/mix of the above?

Iā€™m just trying to get some cheap spam cans man.

55 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

44 comments sorted by

View all comments

84

u/Razul1066 Jul 11 '26

It comes in waves, like the sks. And right now that ammo is going to Russia.

6

u/MostEpicRedditor Jul 12 '26

This seems correct until you actually LOOK at the firearms used by Russian infantry, and then it will be obvious that they are overwhelmingly using 5.45...

So no, I doubt it is going to Russia, and the continued shortage of surplus 7.62Ɨ39 is most certainly due to other reasons ā€” what those reasons are specifically can be debated in length about, however.

15

u/Razul1066 Jul 12 '26

Huge amounts of second tier/reserve/millita units in the Russian forces still use older equipment that is chambered in 7.62. Literal sks rifles, both modernized and not have been used on both sides.

Russian also went back to 7.62 with the Ak-15 after seeing 5.45 being ineffective during the invasion when used in the Ak-12

5

u/MostEpicRedditor Jul 12 '26

I thought they switched back to 7.62 also. But just about every propaganda photo / video released from their side (and also FPV videos released from the Ukrainian side) shows them rocking AK-74/Ms and AK-12s. The one exception I can recall atm is a first-person POV video released from the Russian side from like 3 years ago, where it showed a detachment of their naval infantry (basically marines) storming a Ukrainian position and the guy in the video had an AKMS that was bubba'ed to hell and back.

From what I understand, the AK-15 is more of a relatively limited-production run, and the rifle itself is essentially an export version for nations that already have heaps of 7.62 but not 5.45 but want to keep the AK platform in I guess a more modernized configuration, kind of like what the AK-103 was to the AK-74M.