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an AK will be a decent hunting rifle out to about 300,
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Not.
1-Even assuming your 123 gr SP* bullet could be driven to 2300 f/sec out of that short barrel, it'd drop more than 10 inches between 250 and 300 yards: you'd better be pretty exact with your range estimation, or you'll miss completely, or worse, wound the animal.
2- By 300 yards (again assuming you start with a muzzle velocity of 2300) you round is nearing 500 ft/lbs of energy - not a lot, and possibly not enough to make that bullet expand....
3- Placement, as they say, is everything: What kind of group can you get with an AK? I've heard 3-4 MOA is the norm. 4 MOA is roughly a 12 inch circle at 300 yards. If you put the gun in a mechanical rest, and there was no wind or shooter error, you still would have a rather weak hit outside the heart/lung area of a whitetail 25% of the time with a 4MOA gun! And with the short sight radius and crude sights of the AK, there's plenty of room for shooter error. Don't talk to me about responsible hunting.....