11/09/12

This is the first serious shooting after the stock work and I wanted to confirm that the zero hadn’t moved. I also wanted to see how close Barnaul’s Silver Bear 125 grain soft-point POI was, to the Tula FMJ I’d been shooting. I hunkered down at 196 yards and did my best to stand the tiny dot of the 8” bull, on the top center edge of the WASR’s front sight. God bless my optometrist. All five shots landed in the black and spanned four inches. If you give me an alibi on the low shot, you have four in three and one half inches. That hole at ten o’clock wandered in the during some 100 yard offhand shooting at a target ‘next door’ and yes, I am too cheap to discard a target over that. If you look close it was marked with a pocket knife before the five shot group was fired.

Much better group than I would've thought possible with any AK at that distance. Maybe I should've picked one up when they were all over the place at cheap prices.

This is the second Romanian I've recrowned the muzzle on and the results appear pretty consistent. This one shoots a little better than the SAR-1 did, but I attribute that to the WASR's better trigger. My Chief (who has an Armalite HBAR) shot it the other day and he said he couldn't believe the trigger hadn't been tweaked, because it was better than his HBAR.

The conventional wisdom has always been "AK's are inaccurate!" and compared to a Savage 110, I suppose they are. Based on my limited sample, they are *about* as accurate as any other rack-grade military rifle assuming a decent crown on the muzzle. If you heat them up, they won't shoot as well; but you're never gonna get one that hot hunting with it or shooting 5-10 shot groups.

It seems ridiculous to put a scope on one of these guns, but I think I'll do it to satisfy my curiosity. Think I know where I can borrow a 24X varmint scope ;)

You are making e want an AK more and more, Sarge! I've had them in the past and liked them well enough but the Ar just seems so much more ergonomic. I put a Del Ton midlength kit on back order at Midway and Jenny bought me a stripped lower for Christmas. I've been wanting to build a bare bones far I e and hopefully this one will stay simple. I've build three of these kits already and all have been very reliable and nearly MOA as assembled hard to beat that!

I do have a little used Chinese SKS. I haven't pushed it at longer ranges but the Tech Sight I put on it certainly helps quick hits inside of 100. Maybe I'll see what it will really do and follow your lead to see if it can be made even better.

I think it's all what you're used to and what you like. I've fiddled with AK's enough to be used to them and I like not having to sort out malfs. I like the little Russian round better and in this rifle it is certainly shooting well enough for my purposes. After deer season closes I'm going to stretch it out to 300 yards. I'll eventually reach a point where 'real' rifle embarrasses it.

I like AR's and I can run an AR; their safety is certainly located better.