I love this caliber. Ever since I took my first deer with an sks, I been trying to see how much I can wring out of this caliber. I've owned 3 SKS and an AK now and have shot them all in various configurations. Ammo is cheap, and compared to off-the-shelf retail firearms, rifles chambered in this caliber are usually affordable. But let's be honest. Being seen during hunting season carrying one of these guns raises an eyebrow to say the least. No, I've never taken my AK hunting; but after mounting a scope on it and producing some nice groups at 100 yards, I began to think more and more about it. Hunting anything but maybe hogs, not acceptable for the AK. SKS carbine? The inherent flaw with any SKS, is the difficulty mounting any decent optic to it. Scoutscopes.com allowed me to mount a red dot successfully on my yugo sks, but again hitting heart and lungs at a hundred yards is gonna be real hard with that set up. I hunt for the meat; so I want clean humane kills, that drop quickly. That being said, we usually hunt ambush style around here. Tree stands, ground blinds, back porches... 50 yard shots or less. 7.62x39 is great for this, there are even hunting rounds made too. And it's all cheap enough to practice for days compared to the average hunting round. So when I first saw these rifles I've wanted one badly. Zastava M85 mini mauser. Mauser action, chambered in my favorite commie .30 cal ammo, walnut stock, scope ready....
A) it is 7.62x39
B) it's a bolt gun, capable of a traditional eye relief scopes
C) and it's a mauser too! (sort of)
So here is range day.... If you read the "what gun did you buy today" thread, you may remember this. I won an auction on gunbroker, and upon prepping for shipping the original owner discovered the 1 lb trigger wasn't functioning correctly. So he replaces the broken timney with a 4lb timney trigger at my request, for free, via a local gunsmith. The smith works out of the shop that ships the gun to my FFL dealer, everything-despite taking too long to have in my hands- honestly works out great. Gun arrives and looks beautiful. Cycles my snap caps, goes click. Looks clean, bore is bright and shiny. All for 200 less than retail. I mounted and laser bore-sighted an old cheap shotgun scope on it, 1.5x4.5x32mm power. A great affordable scope I got from Cabela's years ago. It's been on half a dozen guns by now and I really like the low power wide angle view for quick shooting.
Get it to the range and start shooting. Almost immediately I'm saddened by a sticky bolt, trying to cycle the first batch of tula steel cased stuff. Adding to it the small bolt handle lacks the leverage required to chamber the sticky steel cased ammo, and my hand is hitting the scope. But the trigger is awesome. After shooting milsurp stuff all the time, It's heaven. Crisp, clean... surprises me a couple of times it's so light. At 25 yards it groups beautifully.
I keep shooting, moving out to 50 yards and eventually to 100 yards.
By now I've several issues going on.
1)Bolt is sticky both opening and closing. This occurs with all the ammo I bring for the day. To be noted, I brought nothing with brass case.
2)Ejection issues. Empty cases are frequently left lying on top of the next round once the bolt comes all the way to the rear. Other times the case flies and flips away as it should.
3)Group Shift. By the time my round count starts to get around 40, my groups are getting wonky. Typically I'm firing three rounds, going to the scope, checking the target. Breath for a minute, load some fresh on top. Get back in chair, get behind the gun, breath another moment or two, start looking thru the scope, settling... finger on the trigger, bang. Wrestle with the bolt. Repeat.
So I set the gun aside and let it cool. Put some rounds thru a pistol for a break. When I come back to the rifle I check all the scope mounts, rings etc.... all tight as can be. Shoot out to 50 yards. Group is now spread from 1.5 inches earlier, to about 4 inches. At a hundred, marginally larger. It was also 94 degrees outside.
So I bought a real pretty project. Doing the internet research thus far hasn't yielded any obvious answers. Century Arms, the original importer has already told me as second owner they won't sell me replacement parts. I really want original irons back on the gun. My plan thus far is to pull apart the bolt and look for signs there.
So Ktog, what'cha got? Deer season is coming....
A) it is 7.62x39
B) it's a bolt gun, capable of a traditional eye relief scopes
C) and it's a mauser too! (sort of)
Get it to the range and start shooting. Almost immediately I'm saddened by a sticky bolt, trying to cycle the first batch of tula steel cased stuff. Adding to it the small bolt handle lacks the leverage required to chamber the sticky steel cased ammo, and my hand is hitting the scope. But the trigger is awesome. After shooting milsurp stuff all the time, It's heaven. Crisp, clean... surprises me a couple of times it's so light. At 25 yards it groups beautifully.
I keep shooting, moving out to 50 yards and eventually to 100 yards.
By now I've several issues going on.
1)Bolt is sticky both opening and closing. This occurs with all the ammo I bring for the day. To be noted, I brought nothing with brass case.
2)Ejection issues. Empty cases are frequently left lying on top of the next round once the bolt comes all the way to the rear. Other times the case flies and flips away as it should.
3)Group Shift. By the time my round count starts to get around 40, my groups are getting wonky. Typically I'm firing three rounds, going to the scope, checking the target. Breath for a minute, load some fresh on top. Get back in chair, get behind the gun, breath another moment or two, start looking thru the scope, settling... finger on the trigger, bang. Wrestle with the bolt. Repeat.
So I set the gun aside and let it cool. Put some rounds thru a pistol for a break. When I come back to the rifle I check all the scope mounts, rings etc.... all tight as can be. Shoot out to 50 yards. Group is now spread from 1.5 inches earlier, to about 4 inches. At a hundred, marginally larger. It was also 94 degrees outside.
So I bought a real pretty project. Doing the internet research thus far hasn't yielded any obvious answers. Century Arms, the original importer has already told me as second owner they won't sell me replacement parts. I really want original irons back on the gun. My plan thus far is to pull apart the bolt and look for signs there.
So Ktog, what'cha got? Deer season is coming....