Range Day

Last Saturday Jeffersonian and I went up to the range to send some no-serialized bullets downrange, make a lot of noise and have a hell of a time, all in the interest of science, of course.

First up were the Mosins. Two M44's and one M91/30. We each shot ten rounds of his handloads through each of the rifles and compared the results. Besides proving (again) that he's a lot better shot than me (2MOA vs MONAZI), we also learned that the M91/30 shoots a lot better than the M44's we had with us. The M91/30 shot consistently high and right(1 - 2 o'clock) about 4 inches with both of us shooting. With Jeffersonian shooting, it turned in a respectable 2MOA with both of our handloads. Not bad for a 70 year old military surplus Russian rifle with rudimentary sights and a crappy trigger. Now that I know it'll do it, I think I'm going to spend some more money on this rifle and get it some decent sights or a scope, and an after market trigger.


Here's the results from 100 yards with my handloads and Jeffersonian shooting. That tool is exactly 4 inches long.


Compared to mine. Yes, there's five shots. There's a flier in the upper right quadrant. I was shooting some of Jeffersonians handloads. Notice the POI is basically the same.


Here I am touching of one of my handloads.


From there we moved on over to the Garand. It is my intention to shoot in the May Garand match at the range, so Jeffersonian let me touch off a few rounds. Once I got used to the sight picture I managed to send my last six shots into the black from 100 yards. Yes, there's seven holes, but one of those (9 ring, 4 o'clock) is left over from the Mosin experiment.


Here's some bonus footage of Jeffersonian shooting his Garand.


From there we headed up to the top range and tried to get my SKS sighted in. With his help, we were able to establish that it was grouping at least (4 - 5 MOA), but some sighting issues may be contributing to the problems I have been having. A) the scope is mounted high. There may be no getting around that because of the way I've had to mount it. B) the scope is canted slightly, increasing the parallax error. I'm going to correct those as best I can and try again with more factory ammo. Speaking of which, I think the surplus ammo I had may have been contributing to the inaccuracy too, because with Winchester FMJ's the rifle was grouping.


Here's a target shot at 25 yards. The trend continued out to 50 yards, ending up high and right, but we ran out of ammo and time so I'll have to come back once I get the scope adjusted and try again.


Finally, here's some more video of Jeffersonian shooting the SKS. I'd have some of me, but he was busy trying out a rifle of his own while I was taking my turn. Next time, I promise!


Well, we both learned a lot from our day at the range. Now I can't wait to get back up there and get in some more trigger time. Lord knows I need it! *grin*

UPDATE: I accidentally left out the load information for the 7.62x54R loads we used. Mine was prvi-partizan brass and 150gn (.311) FMJBT bullets over 43.9gn IMR 3031 with a Winchester WLR primer. Loaded to a 2.9" COAL. Sierra manual lists a 2,500fps MV but I didn't have a chronograph. Jeffersonians was 125gr (.311) Sierra Pro Hunter #2305 flat-base Spitzer soft-point bullets, S&B case, 50.5gn H380 and Winchester WLR primer. Loaded to 2.85" COAL. He has clocked this load doing an average of 2,534fps through the chronograph. Both loads were run through the Lee Factory Crimp Die.

UPDATE II: I just discovered that the scope rings on my SKS are loose enough that I can rotate the red dot with firm hand pressure. Unacceptable. I will be locking them down with some locktite ASAP. This would explain the reason the scope was canted to the left.

Gun of the Week: M1 Garand

Caliber: .30-06 (7.62x63 mm)
Action: Gas operated, rotating bolt
Overall length: 1103 mm
Barrel length: 610 mm
Weight: 4.32 kg
Feeding: non-detachable, clip-fed only magazine, 8 rounds

The story of the first semi-automatic rifle ever widely-adopted as a standard military arm began after the start of the First World War, when the inventor John C. Garand (Canadian, then living in USA) began to develop a semi-automatic (or self-loading) rifles. He worked at the government-owned Springfield armory and during the 1920s and early 1930 developed a number of design. Early rifles were built using somewhat rare system of the cartridge primer blowback, but due to some reasons this system was unsuitable for a military rifle, so he switched to the more common gas-operated system. He filed a patent for his semiautomatic, gas operated, clip-fed rifle in 1930, and received an US patent for his design late in 1932. This rifle was built around then-experimental .276 caliber (7mm) cartridge. At the same time, his rifle was tested by the US Military against its main competitor, a .276 caliber Pedersen rifle, and was eventually recommended for adoption by US Army early in the 1932. But a little bit later an US general MacArthur stated that the US Military should stick to the old .30-06 cartridge. Foreseeing that, Garand already had a variation of his design chambered for 30-06. Finally, at the 6th January, 1936, the Garands' rifle was adopted by the US Army as an "rifle, .30 caliber, M1". Early issue rifles, however, showed a quite poor characteristics, jamming way too often for a decent military arm, so a lot of noise was raised that eventually reached the US Congress. In the 1939, the major redesign was ordered, and Garand quickly redesigned a gas port system, which greatly improved the reliability. Almost all M1 rifles of the early issue were quickly rebuilt to adopt a new gas system, so very few "original" M1 Garand rifles survived to present days, and those are extremely expensive collectors items. When the USA entered the World War 2, the mass production of the M1 rifles was set at the Springfield armory and at the Winchester. During the war, both companies developed about 4 millions of M1 rifles, so M1 Garand is a most widely used semi-automatic rifle of the World War 2. During the war, M1 Garand proved itself as a reliable and powerful weapon. There were minor attempts to improve it during the war, but these did not left experimental stages, except for two sniper modifications, M1C and M1D. Both were approved for service in the 1945 and both featured a telescope sight which was off-set to the left due to the top-loading feature of the M1. After the end of the WW2 the production of the M1 in the USA was stopped, and some rifles and also licenses to built it were sold to other countries, such as Italy and Denmark. With the outbreak of the Korean war in 1950 the production of theM1 for US forces was resumed early in 1952. Rifles were manufactured at Springfield armory, and also at Harrington & Richardson Company (H&R) and International Harvester Company. Those companies manufactured M1s until the 1955, and Springfield Armory produced the Garands until 1956. With the official adoption of the new rifle and ammunition in 1957, M14 and 7.62x51mm NATO, respectively, for US service, the M1 rifle became obsolete. It was still used during the later years, however, due to the lack of M14 and M16 rifles, and saw some service during the early period of the Vietnam war. Later, many M1s were transferred to the US National Guard, used as a training weapons by US Army or sold to civilians as a military surplus. Few M1 are still used by all branches of the US Military as a ceremonial weapons. Other than USA, M1s were used by Italy (where these rifles were lately redesigned and rebuilt into 7.62mm BM-59 rifles). Denmark, France and some other countries. There also were attempts to rebarrel the M1 for 7.62mm cartridge in the USA and to adopt a detachable 20-rounds magazines from Browning BAR rifles, but these were less than successful and haven't seen any significant service.

M1 is a gas operated, magazine fed, semiautomatic rifle. Original M1 were using the gas, that was tapped from muzzle by the special muzzle extension, but this was proven unreliable, and since the 1939, M1 rifles were built with gas system that used a gas port, drilled in the barrel near the muzzle. The tapped gas was directed into the gas cylinder, located under the barrel, where it operated a long-stroke gas piston, integral with the operating rod. Long operating rod housed inside it a return spring, and ended with the extension, that carried a bolt operating groove at the left and a charging handle at the right. The groove was connected with the rotating bolt, located inside the receiver. Bolt had two locking lugs that locked into the receiver walls. When gun was fired, hot powder gases were led to the gas chamber and to the gas piston, that drove back the operating rod. The bolt operating grove, interacting with the stud on the bolt, rotated bolt to unlock it and then retracted it to commence the reloading cycle.

M1 was fed from the integral box magazine, which was probably the weakest point of the whole design. The magazine was fed using only the 8-rounds clips, which stayed inside the magazine until all 8 rounds were shot. As soon as the magazine (and clip) became empty, bolt was stopped at its rearward position by the bolt catch, and the empty clip was automatically ejected from the magazine with the distinctive sound. The main drawback of the system was that the clips could not be easily reloaded during the action. However, there still was the possibility to refill the clip in the rifle, but this was not the fastest procedure.

M1 featured a wooden stock with separate handguards and a steel buttplate. The forwardmost part of the muzzle served as a bayonet mounting point. Sights of the M1 consisted of the front sight with dual protecting "wings", dovetailed into the gas block at the muzzle, and the adjustable peephole rear sights, built into the rear part of the receiver. Sniper versions (M1C and M1D) also featured scope mounts on the receiver, offset to the left from the axis of the rifle, so it was possible to load it with clips and also to use its iron sights with scope installed (in the case of the scope damage, for example).

There were some attempts to make a handier and more compact version of the M1 by shortening the barrel by some 6 inches (152 mm), with standard wooden or skeleton metallic buttstocks, but these attempts never left the experimental stages. Some short barreled "tankers" M1 rifles, appeared in the post-war period, are not the genuine designs, but the "sawed-off" variations of the standard "long" rifles.