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Posted: 8/14/2007 4:59:09 PM EDT
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I've been reading alot of threads lately (just back from two weeks vacation and making up for lost time) and I noticed a post on the AR side where a guy is thinking about selling his AR. He said he had fired around 700 rounds through it. That got me to thinking about other posts I've read, mostly in EE where people are selling guns. Seems to me that I've seen an awful lot of what I would consider low round counts, anywhere from "just 30 rounds through it" to "maybe 300 rounds total". I realize that it may be advantageous to lowball actual round count when trying to sell something, but it got me wondering how many rounds other people have fired through their AKs (or ARs as the case may be). As for myself, I picked up my first AK in October '05 and my second in October of '06 and thus far have went through five cases of 7.62x39 through the two of them. I figure it's approximately 1500 through the UF and around 3500 through the fixed stock version. I never thought of myself as a "high volume shooter" as almost all of these were aimed, deliberately fired rounds at a target as opposed to bump-firing (although I've put a few mags worth of ammo through 'em doing that, too). So what say you all? Am I really unusual in my round count? What's Yours???? |
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I'm a low-round-count guy. I try make every single round count. I use an automobile mileage log book to record every round through every weapon, with brief notes on the results of the day's shooting. Once in a while I will lose count of which gun fired how many of what, but it's pretty close. The yeehaw days of bumping hundreds of rounds are over for me, unless the days of cheap and plentiful ammo come back. 
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Back in the 90's when I was shooting a lot of IPSC, I remember Todd Jarett whining about a part on one of his guns broke and the gun only had 25,000 rounds through it, which he stated was pretty new (for him). He considered it barely broken in. There's an UZI at one of the rental ranges in Vegas that has over 3 MILLION documented rounds through it. Of course, every part except the receiver has been replaced.... Round count means NOTHING to me, since everybody lies about it. In general, for the uneducated public, the more rounds they admit to shooting through the gun, the lower the perceived value. |
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We built a really nice custom AK for a guy once, he had about $1300 into it, a really nice Bulgarian Sidefolder. All matching numbers, force-matched receiver custom engraved, blah blah. Turned out it had a tight chamber (alot of the Bulgarian 5.45s suffer from this) and occasionally a spent casing would stick in the chamber once the barrel got hot. Since I had only slow-fired one mag though it for test firing, the issue wasn't noticed before we shipped out the gun. It was more than a year before the customer called to tell us that his gun had a problem. He'd spent more than a grand on the gun and still hadn't gotten it out to the range until more than 12 months went by. While I talked to him about it I was thinking, damn dude, I hope you like your job and all because apparently that's ALL you do. Have a happy heart attack at age 64 right before you retire... which has happened to two guys I knew. Guy living next door to my dad was in countdown mode during his last year working for the postal service, he'd worked his ass off his whole life and had saved up alot of money so he could travel when he retired. He had posters of Israel and Egypt and such on the walls in his house. The countdown was at 64 days to retirement when he fell dead into his breakfast cereal around 6 am. Cardiac arrest. He'd never done anything, never gone anywhere, just sorted mail and saved his paychecks his whole adult life. I sorta wished I was his son (he never had kids) so I could have taken all that money he saved and blown it on a Mustang GT convertible, or a registered Mp5 sear or something. But the state got most of it, I heard from his wife, since he died without a will. Anyway, its late and I digress. Shoot your guns. Enjoy them. Don't fret about their stupid resale value, if you want to worry about that stuff you can read about the housing market. Enjoy your time here because every day is a bonus day compared to what has happened to others... |
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Amen Brother Nukem! Seriously do you ever think in those final moments, as you prepare to make the leap into the great mysterious, that the last thought to flicker through your brain will be, "I wish,...I wish....I wish...I had spent more time at the office."? Cherish your days, do not suffer fools gladly and tell those you love or are important to you, that you DO love them and they ARE important. Because in the grand scheme of things life is too short to be bloody miserable and let all your time be taken up by those that would waste it for you all the while you are conducting yourself in a preprogrammed "right and proper" way. Excuse MY preachyness. Just sharing lessons learned after 3 bouts with 3 different types of cancer AND a major heart attack and bypass surgery all between the ages of 30 and 39. Cheers, RWB64 |
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I don't keep up with round count. I usually do not care about the round count when buying a firearm either. Most cases when buying I just inspect the firearm and make sure it has not been abused. I've had guns that were fired w/1000's of rounds and the riflings and bore looked new. I don't really think it is an issue when someone can't prove the round count anyway. It's always their word against what one might think. I rarely sell a firearm, but I'm honest and let them know that I have no idea about round count. It has never affected the sell. DK |
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First and foremost, I don't understand why people sell and trade firearms like cars, If you buy a Ford Taurus and find out it's breaking down after 50k miles you get rid of it. I don't understand the mentality of buying a gun and figuring out you just don't like it later. I bought a Norinco SKS for my first son before he was a year old and it's still NIB waiting for him to move out and take it with him as well as AK's I've built etc. When I take the great backflip into oblivion, my collection will go to my boys, not to a pawnshop. My answer to your question is to inspect the rifling, crown and action and don't believe what someone says about how many cases flew out of it. I can also say I change the oil in my car every 500 miles....... NOT! |
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Duke, I know wherefore you speak. I'm at 53 right now. Heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery in '99 when I was 45. Thoracic surgeon fucked it up and they had to go back in 20 hours later and redo three of the four they originally did and added a fifth. Plus in '05 I had another major heart attack and died on the road driving home from visiting a customer. Long story short, due to a volunteer fireman, a Michigan State Trooper, and God's help I'm still here. I'm not interested in selling either of my AKs, as I've pretty much learned my lesson on selling guns... I was just interested in learning if my round count was higher than average after reading all the posts showing less than 1K fired through rifles. I honestly don't think I've got a firearm with less than 1K through 'em with the possible exception of a Keltec P3AT that I'd estimate at around 500 rounds so far. |
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I keep track of round count by the cases I shoot. For example, I know one of my AR's has 16K+ rounds through it, because I kept track of the cases I went through, a little after I started shooting it. My Wasr has about 500 ronds through it, because I've got about half a case of ammo still open for it. |
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If I had the chance to shoot everyday, I would. But I have about a once every two months for the pistol caliber guns. And Once every 4 months for the rifles. Thats gonna change soon. But so far we've shot off like 300 in the AK, 240 in the M1 Carbine, 1200 or so in the CX4 Storm, along with others.... So I'm a low volume shooter I guess. |
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