I’ve never had the opportunity to shoot at a military base before, so I wasn’t about the pass up the opportunity when Bitter’s work invited me along for their range trip. I didn’t know much about what was going on other than to bring lots of guns and ammo, so I did. They had some instructors there for us which brought along a lot of their own guns, so it didn’t turn out we needed mine a whole lot. They even brought an AK-74, which was good, because for some reason mine was jamming (bad magazine I think).
Bitter was grateful I was willing to come out. I mean, it’s just so difficult to go out to a range on a beautiful summer day to teach a bunch of abundantly cute young chicks, many of whom have never shot a gun before, how to shoot. Sacrifices we must all make in order to grow the shooting sports, I know. I had a few people, even a few of the women, shoot the PSL.  I think they were a bit beyond 100 meters though, because the round was dropping a bit with the scope dialed into 100 meters, but the little reactive steel silhouette targets got hit just fine if you put the caret on the scope on top of the target’s “head” as a little hat. Bent it right over when it hit.
It was mostly plinking, but I was enjoying shooting the steel targets with rifle and pistol. I might have to get into silhouette shooting on a more regular basis!
Anyway, the Marines have some really nice facilities that are open to civilians. You have to be invited by the Quantico Shooting Club, however. But if you ever have a chance to go, I would highly recommend it. Sadly, they don’t turn on the pop up targets for civilians so you can see how you would qualify as a military rifleman, but it’s a nice place to shoot, nonetheless.
Good afternoon to you and yours; I came along through “Say Uncle” and should have been by before.
Two (ok, three) questions for you:
-What is your opinion of the AK-series? It’s reliability is unquestioned but I just can’t get behind the things. Maybe it’s an emotional xenophobic thing. I’m not crazy about surplus Mausers either.
-The newly issued carbine (replacing the Baretta ‘europelletpoodleshooter’) is also 9MM. How effective and how stable will that round be from the longer barrel?
-Have you any accounts of the effectiveness of the .223 in carbine form? Stability and accuracy?
Thanks for your input and keep up the good work.
Dan Patterson
Arrogant Infidel
The AK-47 is flawlessly reliable. The only time I’ve had the 74 jam was today with a few FTFs. One of them was ammo that was clearly out of spec. It might have been ammo on the other three, but they looked OK upon initial inspection. I think the magazine might be a problem. I will have to put more rounds through at the club’s plinking range to figure out what’s wrong. The AKs flaws are that it’s very difficult to shoot with any accuracy. The sights suck, and the operating system is very disrespectful to the user, but you can throw it in mud and it will still fire when you pull the trigger.
Newly issued Carbine or Pistol? The military hasn’t replaced the Beretta M9 pistol at this point yet. The M9 is actually fine pistol, but the after market mags the military was using for it were garbage. The only other problem with the M9 is the fact that it shoots 9mm, which for FMJ NATO-spec 9mm is a piss poor man stopper.
I’m not as much of a .223 detractor as some folks. As a defensive round, it’s fine. As a target round, it’s fine. It’s not the man stopper that a .308 or 7.62×39 Soviet is, but it’s easy to shoot, and you can carry a lot of ammo around with you. Having the .223 in carbine configuration does reduce its muzzled velocity a bit, but at close ranges, I’m not sure that matters a whole lot. If you need to reach out to longer ranges, there are better rounds for that than the .223
Her “work” invited you? Must be one hell of a place to work!