G26man
10-08-2006, 19:12
Before heading to the range today I broke down the rifle to lube and clean it, and it was absolutely pristine inside save for some grease on the hammer and assorted parts around the trigger group. The gas piston had the faintest trace of carbon powder on it's face, as if one or two test rounds had been fired. I'm back to believing this is essentially an unfired rifle (as opposed to what I thought in my earlier thread) for this reason and one that will come to light below.
I had a couple of boxes of good quality surplus (Spanish Santa Barbara) and I also stopped at Wally World on the way and picked up an additional box of Federal Power Loct hunting ammo for the accuracy test. I wound up wasting some ammo at first trying to get rounds on paper at 25M until I figured out that I had secured the scope mount incorrectly during reassembly. After that problem was sorted out and I had it on paper I increased the range to 50M to shoot some groups. Initially I was very dissapointed. I was getting 5 shots into 3 inches or so at 50M! I then ran a dry bore snake through it (I don't have a 30cal, I used a 9mm so it was really tight) and immediately the groups shrank by half, but then slowly started to widen back out just a little.
When I was down to 5 rounds left I increased the distance to 100M for the last group, and wound up with a 2.5 to 3" group. The pattern does not string in any particular direction and is fairly random. The two ammo types didn't seem to make any difference. I know the scope is good because I used it Friday on an AR to shoot clays at 200M. Now 3 MOA isn't bad for a AK but I expected better, and my Rommy SKS will do that.
I'm holding out hope that this thing is in fact new and that accuracy will improve as it continues to settle in, since that appears to be what was going on. If not I may look at recrowning, since that little patch of rust I mentioned in the earlier thread was right on the crown.
Recoil was not punishing but was more than the CETME I had. Function was flawless as could be expected, although when manually chambering a round once I had to give the charging handle a little shove before it completed chambering. That also makes me think it might be new and just needs a good break in. One can always hope. :)
I had a couple of boxes of good quality surplus (Spanish Santa Barbara) and I also stopped at Wally World on the way and picked up an additional box of Federal Power Loct hunting ammo for the accuracy test. I wound up wasting some ammo at first trying to get rounds on paper at 25M until I figured out that I had secured the scope mount incorrectly during reassembly. After that problem was sorted out and I had it on paper I increased the range to 50M to shoot some groups. Initially I was very dissapointed. I was getting 5 shots into 3 inches or so at 50M! I then ran a dry bore snake through it (I don't have a 30cal, I used a 9mm so it was really tight) and immediately the groups shrank by half, but then slowly started to widen back out just a little.
When I was down to 5 rounds left I increased the distance to 100M for the last group, and wound up with a 2.5 to 3" group. The pattern does not string in any particular direction and is fairly random. The two ammo types didn't seem to make any difference. I know the scope is good because I used it Friday on an AR to shoot clays at 200M. Now 3 MOA isn't bad for a AK but I expected better, and my Rommy SKS will do that.
I'm holding out hope that this thing is in fact new and that accuracy will improve as it continues to settle in, since that appears to be what was going on. If not I may look at recrowning, since that little patch of rust I mentioned in the earlier thread was right on the crown.
Recoil was not punishing but was more than the CETME I had. Function was flawless as could be expected, although when manually chambering a round once I had to give the charging handle a little shove before it completed chambering. That also makes me think it might be new and just needs a good break in. One can always hope. :)
