home defense question

Question
Hello. I purchased an SKS for my family for home defense. I am having a dilemma choosing what type
of ammo to get. First, some say wolf 7.62x39 is no
good. Also i cant decide on whether to use SP
(softpoint) or HP (hollowpoint) for stopping power.
So when you get some free time, i just wanna know
wolf is any good, and what ammo you would choose.
I have a chinese SKS 7.62x39. Thank you for taking
time to help me out,
                 Daniel  

Answer
Daniel,

The 7.62 X 39 is the old Soviet block intermediate cartridge, its nearest western counterpart being the 5.54 NATO that is used in our M-16/M-4/AR15 and varients.

Such rifles are good for home defense if you live out away from other people.  In a community where houses are close by, danger from overpenetration or a miss is too great, and a shotgun would be a better option from a liability standpoint.  The 7.62 catridge will be effective from contact distance out to about 300 yards.

Wolf ammunition is of Russian mfg.  Despite what they advertise, it does have corrosive priming.  It is inconsisent from lot to lot, and in some cases there have been instances of it being dangerously underpowered (the cartridge fires, but the projectile does not exit the bore - the next round slams into the lodged round, causing the barrel to burst, with catastrophic results).

Although many people use Wolf for inexpensive plinking, I refuse to use it any of my guns.  If you use it at all, it should be for practice - certainly you can do better for ammunition to defend you family with.

In a cartridge of that velocity, whether soft point or hollowpoint will largely be a marketing issue - they will perform essentially the same.

I would look at cartridges from Hornady or Black Hills for a self-defense round.  Any expanding projectile that these companies offer will serve you well.