It is hot in this area, but this morning, I went to a different rifle range to finish sighting in my Mosin-Nagant 91/30 sniper rifle. I had a mixture of Privi Partizan soft-nose, Russian 7N1 and Czech light ball; the rifle shot well with all of them. The rifle clearly shoots far better than I can.
The range I went to last weekend allows single shots only. This range had no such rule, and as a result, there were guys with AR-15 clones, Mini-14s and AUGs who were trying to see how fast they could empty their magazines. So while I'm firing at a 100 yard target (the farthest the range allows), those shmucks were blasting away at targets that were 10 yards away.
As I was leaving, another shooter was setting up with a PSL. He seemed to have all current production ammo; he wasn't shooting surplus stuff as I was. That's more expensive, but the Eastern European milsurp rounds have corrosive primers and I imagine that cleaning the guts of a gas-operated rifle well enough for that situation is not a lot of fun. I should have maybe stuck around to watch, but it was hot and I was both thirsty and hungry.
Either range is an hour's drive away; one is by highways and the other, which is closer in distance, is all by fairly twisty back roads. But either way, between the drive, the shooting and then the cleaning of the rifle, it's not something I see myself doing more than every several weeks.
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8 comments:
Sounds like a good time. 150 grain's about as high as I'd go on a Mosin. I put some 210 grain match rounds through my M44 once and it about took my shoulder off after 10 rounds. It literally left my shoulder bleeding and I didn't realize it until I happened to look down. You know you're having a good time when your wife has to tell you "Sweetie, that's enough." and pull a smoking rifle from your hands... :)
That was before I'd realized that there were different loadings for 7.62x54R dependent on whether you were shooting older weapons (MN, SVT-40) or the Dragunov-type rifles. At or around 150 seems to be where my Mosins are happiest.
They are playing your song on the radio right now.
I forgot how much I like it.
Thinking of you.
WP, 210gr rounds through a M44 must be rather brutal, since the M44 has a rep of having a lot sharper recoil than the M91/30. A Shooterpad or a Limbsaver can do wonders.
Busted, which song is that?
I do have two of those recoil pads now, one for my 91/30 and one for my M44. I just forgot them the day I took the 210 rounds out. Lucky me.
I don't think they're from either of those brands you mentioned, but they're the same principle. I got two so I can just put them on both rifles before going to the range. They fit pretty tightly and I didn't want to have to mess with prying a pad off one rifle and wrestling it on to the other in the middle of the range.
My shoulder has thanked me profusely since I got those.
The Pink Floyd tune that has the line 'just an earth bound misfit', of course!
I think the name of it is 'Learning to Fly".
Given the subject of this particular blog post, I figured it might have something to do with firearms.
Sorry.
Being sappy requires me to comment on the latest post.
I'll try to stay on topic, here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOyj4ciJk34
It wasn't a criticism, Busted, just explaining why I was unclear on which song you were referring to.
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