Evening SF faithful....I had a friend pass away back in May following a long fight with Stage 4 melanoma. His family chose to hand down a few of his firearms in part for my role as the executor of his estate. One of these is a DPMS AR chambered in 7.62 Russian. Does anyone have experience with these?

While I have never sought one out I figured it might be a good addition to my collection. It came with a GI cleaning kit, sling and four (20 to 30 round?) C-products mags. My past experiences with C-Products mags has been less than stellar so I will probably shop for an alternative if one is available.

Any advice...good, bad or indifferent is much appreciated. I hope to strip it and clean it before a range trip as ARs always benefit from a good scrub. Any recommendations on ammo? Brass, Steel, or Poly better?

I put a 762x39 upper on one of my ar's, it shoots well, accurate and reliable. has never jammed in any way. kind of fun and something different to play with, plus I have lots of ammo for it.
Barry

I have one.

I randomly get light primer strikes so I went with a stiffer hammer spring after trying 3 different 7 62 firing pins. That solved that but now I need some anti walk pins. Also I had to go for duramag steel mags which have been excellent.

It is alot of fun at the range with the primary arms 1x6 lpvo. But its fickle probably due to the low quality ammo running mostly tula and barnaul. Still a ton of fun.

It would be a very long post discussing the details of my trials trying to get a reliable 7.62x39 AR. My conclusion its not possible at least at the level of anything above a go have fun at the range gun. But that was awhile ago.
First I wanted it to run the ammo I had, so steel cased. Second I wanted an optic mounting and controls like an AR (I have plenty of AK's) so that was why I tried.. In the process of testing I've broke a zillion parts, bolt lugs, FP, extractors, you name it. It never ran reliably for very long.
The Cproducts mags are hit or miss, but cheap.
I eventually gave up and went to platforms that took AK mags like the CMMG and the Galil that did what I wanted and were totally reliable. Its a fun project and there are a number of steps you can take to help (look up changing the feed ramps and FP changes for example).

My first 7.62x39 AR was (is, still have and shoot it) a 20" DPMS with a rifle back end.

First, as to ammo, DPMS CS at the time absolutely insisted on brass and not steel-cased ammo. Other companies seem to have made some strides in terms of accommodating steel but DPMS' 7.62x39s came from long enough ago that DPMS never really seemed to try. You might try gambling on steel if your chamber seems to be chrome lined, but the company line was to avoid it. I followed that advice myself, so I can't speak to steel-cased ammo in your rifle.

Having said that, I have had absolutely zero problems with brass-cased ammo - which means, among other things, that I wouldn't bother trying to replace the firing pin with one that some company or the internutz absolutely insists you have to have for 7.62x39. What those longer firing pins are for is specifically to deal with the so-called 'harder' primers of Eastern European ammunition.

(Although, if you reload, I recommend sticking with CCI white box primers since there's no firing pin spring in DPMS ARs.)

Second is magazines. C Products Defense, now Duramag, is unquestionably king of the AR 7.62x39 magazines. Earlier C Products mags had the occasional bobble, but they were better than the alternatives. The current magazines should work just fine - or be returned to the manufacturer for replacement. This, in my experience with the DPMS, is true of the 20-, 28- and 30-round versions.

Next, as you go through the responses you get online, look carefully at the rifles people are talking about. A lot of people are using very short barrels, rifles made by less-than-stellar companies, assortments of parts from a variety of sources, suppressed/unsuppressed...people (for perfectly good reasons, of course) seem to add a lot of complication to those rifles. IOW, a lot of people complain about self-induced problems because they want something specific and tuning that combination to work is problematic. People who keep it simple don't seem to report a whole lot of problems.

Clean it, lube it, feed it brass and see what happens before deciding you need to change anything.

By the way, accuracy should be reasonably good. If you can't outshoot an AK, try another load.

And (final thing, I promise) be aware that there are different grades of brass ammo. Winchester and Remington ball suck; they're expensive and I wouldn't buy them even for the brass. Fiocci and Ingman are passable. American Eagle and Prvi Partizan/PPU tend to be good, but I think Sellier & Bellot tends to be a bit better and the brass is great for reloading.* Lapua tends to be very good in just about everything but it's goshawful expensive at the best of times. Of the premium bunting rounds, you'll have to try a box of each to see what your rifle likes should you wish to hunt with that rifle.

*Full disclosure: I am a long-time S&B fanboy.

Il C! I think you and I may have the same rifle, 20" inch barrel (1/10" twist) and labeled AR-150. I've attached a pic so you can take a look as I am not generally in the habit of showcasing my wares.

I've cleaned it and given it my usual Breakfree treatment. As this is my first Russian 7.62 rifle the ammo that was given to me with it is all steel case Tula. Going to try and break it out this weekend as well as possibly shop for some brass case ammo. My current AR collection runs from RRA's to Daniel Defense so I am interested to see how the DPMS cycles and what it prefers dining on.

Thanks for the plethora of information and I will be short to report back after a range trip (weather here in Alabama has been as predictable as usual 82 Sunday and snow / sleet on Monday AM).

https://www.flickr.com/photos/...n/dateposted-public/

I'm glad that was helpful. Your rifle may actually be a bit earlier or a slightly different model - mine looks identical to yours, except that the carry handle is detachable from a railed upper receiver.

I hope you get a good day for shooting (Texas weather is, as per usual, gleefully schizoid). For the long term I'd certainly look into brass cased ammo, but as much for the bullets as the cases. That barrel isn't chrome-lined or cold hammer forged; using mild steel bimetallic bullets like those in Tula's ammo will give you some degree of accelerated wear over time. There's no reason not to use Tula to try the rifle out as long as the cases feed and eject, but that barrel was made for gilding metal jackets and lead cores.

If you do find the rifle handles steel cases well enough to suit you, keep an eye out for some Wolf ammo that uses steel cases but is loaded with bullets that have gilding metal jackets and (apparently) lead cores. I haven't tried it in the DPMS myself, but they shoot well in a Yugo AK and a CZ bolt action FWTW.

Well.....I finally got out to the range this weekend and ran a few types of brass and bi-metal (Tula and Red Army) through it. It ran well on the PMC brass and the Red Army steel case, but the Tula didn't feed correctly and ended up with several primer strike failures.

The best group I was able to attain at 100 yds with the PMC was around 3" from a bag. The steel case ammo produced around a 5" group at 100 so I would say there may be some room for improvement with a better trigger and a little work on my part. Based on a somewhat gritty single stage trigger I might swap in a spare RRA 2-stage and see if there is much difference. More to come.

I will say it does hit steel plates with authority though so it might not be a bad truck gun, but it most likely become a range toy given its performance from this weekend.

FWIW, Tula does have a reputation as the cheapest of the cheap, and that's from AK fans.

Keep an eye on the bolt face especially when running steel cased ammo on a regular basis…it’s pretty hard on the bolt face and can result in cracking due the difference in diameter between 7.62X39 and 5.56 NATO cases…I use 90% brass cased ammunition (NORMA or BELLOM to have reliable brass for reloads with powder coated home cast bullets…very little factory steel…it’s kept back for time when I ever need it) and I’ve not had any issues so far in the rare instances I use steel cased ammo.

Thanks Bisley! I have noticed that the rim wall of the bolt head is definitely thinner than a 5.56 bolt head. Will definitely keep an eye on it going forward.

As I inherited this rifle I cant speak to the rough round count but may go ahead and purchase another bolt and some go-no go gauge as well.

Thanks for the heads up