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Thread: My WASR AK-47

  1. #26
    poet,traveler
    Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ivan View Post
    Hi SAFN1949,
    As I see it, head shots at 200 meters really only need about 3 MOA accuracy. An average M1 Carbine can do that. The big issue with accuracy with AKs and guns based on that system are that the bolt carrier is WAY heavy and jars the heck out of everything when it closes. The gas port is HUGE and is typically way over powered. The gas piston is pinned to the bolt carrier and should be more isolated. The last issue is the worst I believe.

    Note that in the SVD Dragunov and even the SVT-40 Tokarev the gas tap is pretty much isolated from anything but a straight back push by all the pieces between the bolt carrier and the gas port. I don't think the SVTs shoot all that accurately, but the Dragunov is very impressive if you feed it the right ammunition. Pity that Match grade .310 bullets are hard to find in this country.

    - Ivan.
    Oh,I know all that.People make the AK series out to be so bad you can't hit a house with one.I was just trying to say that for what they are they shoot pretty good with a little effort.:d

    I used to pull the .310 bullets from 7.62x54R and seat .308 soft tips in the brass,they shot fairly good.Also you can take the bullets from the .303 British at .311 and use them although I have never tried it.I don't shoot or reload anymore but you can get these and try them.
    Sierra MatchKing Bullets 303 Caliber and 7.7mm Japanese (311 Diameter) 174 Grain Hollow Point Boat Tail


    Product #: 1482205247
    Of course I know what I'm doing,gee whiz......ouch,owwwww

  2. #27
    Safn. "people" made fun of the 6.5 Arisaka, as that "...little .25 caliber rifle..." till they got hit by one, the bullet is half a mile long, and the action on the Arisaka is the strongest yet measured on a bolt-action rifle. Don;t underestimate your enemy.

    The AK round at street fighting range is a vicious one, and I hope our armed forces go back to the .308 for a main battle round rather than this groundhog round we've been cursed with, although the .223/5.56 mm NATO did a job on John Kennedy's head.

    Bonesimoto
    My Dad's last words to me were, "Son, an eagle may soar to great heights, but a weasel never gets sucked into a jet engine..."
    And then he died...
    He was sucked into a jet engine...

  3. #28
    Hi SAFN1949,

    As you probably know, the only easily available .310 bullets on this side of the pond are 123-125 grain intended for the AK round. The .308 inch bullets are plentiful, but undersize for the groove diameter of a 7.62x54R. They will still work, but aren't terribly useful for best accuracy which is what I am after. The .311 bullets are just oversized enough so that full velocity of the cartridge cannot be safely achieved. One silly little thousandth of an inch makes life difficult.

    Hi Bonesimoto,

    Given a choice, I would go for something a bit smaller diameter than a .308 inch and a bit larger than a .224 inch. I figure a 6.5 mm to a 7 mm would be about right to have a reasonably heavy bullet with enough sectional density to stay accurate and lethal out to 1000 yards without having extremely high muzzle velocity. The .308 bullet in reasonable weights for use in a general issue battle rifle doesn't have enough sectional density to be a good long range cartridge. Yes, I know folks shoot it in Palma matches, and other competitions out to 1000 yards and further, but it isn't optimal for the purpose. Even the lowly 5.56 mm can be shot with accuracy out that far, but again it isn't optimal for the purpose.

    - Ivan.

  4. #29
    Ivan Reading about the ammunition type, the best round for reach is and will remain the 7.62*51 standard Nato 'long' rifle round, when deployed on the other hand my primary Kit is the L129A1, which fires the 7.62*51 and has a reach of 1000yds... the other rifles i carry (i carry 3 rifles and 1 sidearm usually) anre the Accuracy International Artic Warfare L96/L97 and the AI AW50F, the L96/97 i use is chambered for .338 lapua and the AW50 is for them .50cal rounds... image below is the L129A1 Sharpshooters Rifle..



    for balancing reach with accuraccy what you need is a stable round, a stable and lightweight rifle and practice... the stable (but resonably heavy round) carries more kinetic energy allowing it to travel further along it's arc of shot and the lightweight rifle means that you can control it much easier, i know from experience semi-automatic can be a nuisance, especially on the AK-47 as to get to semi you have to thumb it past auto on the fire mode selector which if you're in safety means the enemy/target might hear "Click-Click" and either run or in a few cases it has given away troop locations and they have opened fire in the direction of the clicking...

    For hunting at long range i'd suggest a bolt fed rifle as it drills you into the routine of shot placement instead of just being able to point and squeeze on semi-automatic... another advantage of the bolt is maintenance and their reluctance to jam, if a round does jam 7 or 8 times out of 10 a simple recock will eject the 'duff' round and put a new one in chamber, without much time lost racking back and forth on the mechanism... another advantage of the bolt is that it makes you and your rifle one unit, when you become one with your kit you trust your rifle and it feels as if your rifle trusts you and puts the round where you want it, but this does apply to all rifles, it's all about them 7 P's i was taught "Proper Planning and Preperation Prevents P**s Poor Performance", another tip for hunting is to roughly gauge distances to visual markers on the range which will tell you how to correct for range, also keep an eye on the grass and trees at long range, gauge the wind... but if firing along a treeline be cautious as the bind reflects and might not be as bad as you corrected for... always here to help if you have questions

  5. #30
    redriver6
    Guest
    although the .223/5.56 mm NATO did a job on John Kennedy's head.
    what?

  6. #31
    Look for the book "Mortal Error by Benoit Menninger.
    This is about a theory by Howard Donahue.

    - Ivan.

  7. #32
    Hi Smoothie,

    I don't disagree with you that the 7.62 NATO is a fine cartridge. I reload and shoot quite a few .308 Winchester rounds which are very comparable.

    The problem with this cartridge as a long range round (1000 yards) is that with typical bullet weights: 147 - 175 grain, Overall Length, Case Capacity, Pressure, Practical Barrel Lengths and Ballistic Coefficient combine to limit the maximum effective range. Yes, it can be done as Palma Match shooters prove every few years, but THEY do it with a 30 inch barrel. The same load (155 grain HPBT) out of a shorter barrel won't stay reliably above the transonic range out to 1000 yards as I understand it from talking to the folks out at Sierra Bullets. I am guessing that gun in your picture has a 20 inch barrel.

    No doubt one can use bullets with a different shape such as the old 173 grain M118 Match, but the accuracy isn't quite as good and the recoil is noticeably greater. You really can't use the lighter weight VLD (Very Low Drag) bullets without exceeding the maximum OAL at 2.800 inch which means those rounds won't fit in a typical magazine.

    What I am arguing for in this case is a cartridge that can shoot a high Ballistic Coefficient bullet that weighs 150 grains or less. Such a cartridge would be able to keep a bullet above the transonic range out past 1000 yards but do it with a reasonably low recoil impulse.

    BTW, That sounds like an awfully heavy load with three rifles.

    - Ivan.

  8. #33
    it can be heavy but you get used to it, once 'on the job' you put these things behind you, and i agree what is needed to be developed would be what i call a LRRR (Long Range Rifle Round) i've looked at a few methods on my own research thinking and sketching out ideas like a fin stabilised round...

    best round i've fired is the .338 Lapua, co-incidentally this is the round that put the longest confirmed sniper kills back in British hands...

    "The longest range recorded for a sniper kill currently stands at 2,475 m (2,707 yd) and was achieved by CoH Craig Harrison, a sniper from the Household Cavalry of the British Army. It was accomplished in an engagement in November 2009 in which two stationary Taliban machine gunners were killed south of Musa Qala in Helmand Province in Afghanistan with two consecutive shots by CoH Harrison using an Accuracy International L115A3 Long Range Rifle chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum. According to JBM Ballistics, using drag coefficients (Cd) provided by Lapua, the L115A3 has an approximate sub-sonic range (speed of sound = 329.3 m/s) of 1,375 m (1,504 yd) under International Standard Atmosphere conditions at sea level (air density ρ = 1.225 kg/m3) and 1,548 m (1,693 yd) at the 1,043 m (3,422 ft) altitude or elevation (air density ρ = 1.1069 kg/m3) of Musa Qala. This illustrates how environmental condition differences can significantly affect bullet flight.

    so if you see an Ai L115 (Or L96) i urge you to try it i guarantee you'll love her the way i do, plus she makes a beautiful 'double crack' noise in the right conditions...

  9. #34
    Hi Smoothie,

    I heard about that one. Those are definitely nice toys (.338 Lapua). I don't have a great wish to own such a caliber though because barrel life is pretty short. When I shoot, I tend to shoot a lot. The .300 Winchester Magnum is about as much recoil as I can tolerate when firing a bunch of rounds. I also shoot a .45-70 with fairly heavy bullets but the recoil there doesn't hurt as much. (460 grain bullet at 1450 fps or 535 grain bullet at 1300 fps) Powder is typically IMR 3031. I also shoot a 500 grain bullet but haven't chronographed it.

    My typical .300 WM load is a fairly light one with a 168 grain bullet at around 3000 fps. I am using IMR 4064 powder, so unless I change powders, I really can't push them much faster. Accuracy is pretty consistent at around 1/2 MOA for 5 shots, so I don't really want to change the load. OAL is WAY over SAAMI specs.
    My typical .308 Winchester load is a 168 grain bullet pushed somewhere between 2550 and 2650 fps depending on case capacity (case weight). Powders I have had the best luck with are IMR 4064, IMR 4895, and Winchester 748.

    You might have noticed that I am hung up on keeping the bullets supersonic. This is because the typical medium weight HPBT match bullets in .30 caliber tend to behave badly when going transonic. They want to swap ends and go base first. In talking with the Sierra folks, the distances they suggested corresponded to where my ballistic programs were estimating about 1400 fps (probably a high estimate but still well above the actual speed of sound). Some bullets don't care if they go subsonic. The .45-70 bullets are barely above the speed of sound even at the muzzle especially in the military loadings.

    I take it that one of the requirements of this LRRR would be that recoil be no greater than that of the 7.62 NATO so that it could be general issue in various forms rather that only a specialist's ammunition?

    You're absolutely right. I would love to try out any of the British sniper guns. The Accuracy International AW would be my first choice. Next would be the guns based on the No.4 Lee Enfield. I have shot equivalents to the No.4 Mk.I(T), M1C/D, M21, M24, SVD Dragunov, and a few others I can't recall at the moment.

    - Ivan.

  10. #35
    the Accuraccy International Arctic Warfare 50 is an absolute peach, had to use it 4 or 5 times in anger when deployed, twice to immobilise a vehicle and the remainder to take bits of a wall down, the new British Army Marksman Rifle is pretty neat, if i recall off the top of my head Designation L129A1, based off a HK416 frame, fires 7.62mm out to the mile mark, and i believe has that supersonic stay in flight, but don't quote me on that... the Enfield No.4 is a great weapon to fire, has a nice kick and great accuraccy for such an old design... i'm going to go back to designing a fin stabilised round, advantage being in theory a round like that could reach further, and be guided by a Laser Designator...

  11. #36
    I have had a chance to fire the McMillan .50 cal BMG rifle. A fellow who was visiting our range wanted to see how fast his bullets were going. Since I owned the chronograph, he insisted that *I* shoot over the screens. If I missed, it was my chronograph.... ;-)
    Gun weighed 40 pounds or so and had an anti-tank gun style muzzle brake. It was firing 650 grain all steel bullets at about 2650-2700 fps if I remember correctly. Funny thing was that it didn't kick noticeably harder than the 7.92 x 57 that I was also shooting though the muzzle blast was extreme. It felt like having someone throw a bucket of sand in your face with every shot.

    With a fin stabilised round, I believe that has been tried before back in the 1960s by the US Army. As for laser guided, I believe that might just be putting a little too much stuff in too little space. Besides, I don't see how theoretical accuracy can be much improved. Under match conditions, I believe the current record for 5 shots out at 1000 yards is 2.7 inches or so center to center. Besides, a laser designator works fine on a vehicle sized target, but at the ranges at which this would be useful, I believe the laser would be too wide to be useful to designate a soldier sized target. It WOULD help greatly with compensating for distance or wind though.

    Another subject worth reading about would be the old US Army experiments called Project Salvo. Personally, I prefer very accurate single rounds.

    A few years back, I went to the range every Friday for rifle practice. I would set up a steel plate that was about 2x3 inches on the berm or on a post while I was hanging targets out at 200 meters on our silhouette range. (The steel plate was once the base of a metallic chicken silhouette.) The first shot for the session was fired with no sighters at that steel plate. I was making upwards of 90% hits (missed once). I quit doing this when I could not find the plate after I hit it one week.

    I do enjoy shooting the Lee-Enfields as well. Two of the guns I would most like to try out would be the No.4 Mk.I(T) and the L42.

    - Ivan.

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