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Posted: 3/29/2004 11:37:37 PM EDT
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Range Report - SEAK #25 Finally made it to the range, so here's my report. Went to the MPAA (Henricksen) range which is halfway up Parley's Canyon just off the East Canyon exit. Cost was $5 for the day. The range accepts any gun except for shotguns, and is .50 cal and full-auto friendly. I loaded up my nine mags with Wolf ammo I got from Sportsman's Guide. Price was about $100 for 1000 delivered. Used my new LULA from Bowers Tactical [really fast shipping!], which is designed for the AK-47 but also works on the AK-74 mags. I'm not sure if it's because of the thicker plastic mags or the -74 design, but the LULA wouldn't easily lock onto a few of the mags. Ultimately it worked for all of them. Loading 30 rounds into the mag took very little time and was foolproof. I didn't even try to use the stripper clips included with the gun. Lesson 1 learned: Buy a LULA. Put in the first mag, which was a little awkward to begin with. The mags don't go straight in - the front is levered in first and the rotated back towards the trigger group and it snaps in. Pull back the charging handle and loaded the first round. Click. Nothing happened, so I ejected the round. It had a primer strike, but didn't go off. Pulled the trigger again and BANG!, just like it did for each subsequent pull of the trigger. I went through 210 rounds of ammo, and the first was a dud, the rest worked fine. Out of my nine mags, five worked perfectly right from the start. Two more worked after I fiddled with them to get them to seat correctly in the mag well. This is my first AK type rifle and I'm not familiar with the system, so I'm sure that has something to do with my problems. I couldn't get two mags to seat correctly, and near the end it was getting dark and cold, so I left them loaded and will compare them to the functional mags to see if there is a problem with the mags or if it was something I was doing wrong. Put some targets (picture of a bowling pin three feet high on cardboard) up at the 25 yard point and blasted away from a bench. I didn't use a bench rest. I fired one round every few seconds or so, I didn't take 30 seconds to set up each shot. Groups were 3-4" or so. Brass went flying away - up to 15-20 feet in some cases, so I don't think there will be any issues with my ejector. Put up a target at 50 yards and repeated. Shots ended up several inches low and the groups opened up a bit. I attribute the large groups to my poor shooting ability with rifles, and would hope that with practice they will decrease considerably. I got ambitious and put up the 100 yard target. Figured out right away I'm going to have to get the scope for this gun if I ever want to shoot past 50 yards. I had some trouble seeing the orange target and the front sight post seemed to cover most of the target, which was about 10" square. Again, the shots placed lower than my aiming point, so I'll have to adjust the sights for the next time out. I liked the trigger, so I'm not sure I'll be making any adjustments, and even if I did, I'm not sure what I'd change. The gun functioned flawlessly except for that first shot, which I'm blaming on the ammo. (Then again, maybe it needed that first shot to "set" the firing pin - who knows?) Slow fire and rapid fire worked just great. Then I got the bright idea to see if I could bump fire the gun, which is something I've never tried before. I fired at the targets a few times, then decided to finish of the mag bump firing. Bang! Click. Lesson 2 learned: When attempting to bump fire, make sure you have more than 1 round left in the magazine. It was cool to see the smoke coming off the barrel at the beginning. I guess it was burning off the oil and didn't happen after the first couple of mags. I had some difficulty with my ear muffs - they are AHP electronic muffs and pretty big, and they got in the way sometimes when shooting. I normally shoot only pistols so they haven't been an issue until now. I guess I'll have to look for some slim type muffs better suited to rifles. On my next outing I'll have to adjust the sights a bit and get it dead on at 25 yards before going out to the longer ranges. I've got nearly 800 rounds left, and it will probably take all of them in practice sessions before I can shoot reasonably well. The gun was fun to shoot, recoil was light. It made this "sproing" sound every time I fired, so I assume that's normal. Ultimately, I'm pretty confident that if I'm ever attacked by 3 foot high bowling pins at a range less than 25 yards that I can take 'em. I figure this might be good training if a large group of midgets turn into zombies and head my way. At farther distances I'm much less confident, although I probably could hit a person sized target at 100 yards, but the groups would probably be 15" at this point. Three cheers for Krinkfreak for handling this group buy! Three cheers for Ohio Rapid Fire for putting together a great gun! Pics to follow in a few days when my digital camera shows up. |
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Great report, not only informative, but pretty funny. "Lesson 2 learned: When attempting to bump fire, make sure you have more than 1 round left in the magazine." "Ultimately, I'm pretty confident that if I'm ever attacked by 3 foot high bowling pins at a range less than 25 yards that I can take 'em. I figure this might be good training if a large group of midgets turn into zombies and head my way. At farther distances I'm much less confident, although I probably could hit a person sized target at 100 yards, but the groups would probably be 15" at this point." |
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