Noah Zark
07-27-2003, 05:18 PM
There was pause in today's precip so I took my year-old Bushmaster A2 AK Carbine to the range for a little functionality check with some new-to-me mags and a variety of ammo.
http://www.bushmaster.com/shopping/weapons/Images/pcwa2s14ak.jpg
Photo courtesy of Bushmaster site.
I had eight used USGI 20 rd mags to check for functionality, and wanted to try the following flavors of ammo:
Wolf 55 grain FMJ
Wolf 62 grain FMJ
Barnaul 62 grain HP
Silver Bear 62 grain HP
SA surplus M193 55 gr FMJ
Federal XM193 55 gr FMJ
I fired individual mags full of a given round, and went as far as to load mags with a mixture of all rounds, just to check the function.
As the weather was threatening I did not set up the trusty 20+ year old Oehler 33, and essentially fired at a large rock buried in the 200 yd berm. Again, functionality was the objective as opposed to general accuracy. At 200 yard, if the dust puffs were in the same spot, that's close enough for the A2 open sights and my 49-yr eyes.
Bottom line:
The Bushy continues to captivate me, digesting all the ammo from all mags with NO failures, even the mags containing the mixed flavors. The dust puffs were monotonously in the same spot. If they weren't dead Bad Guys, they were tightly pinned down with significant casulties, as it were.
As far as felt recoil, the Silver Bear seemed the "lightest" whereas the Federal XM193 was clearly the most stout, and threw one heck of a flame to each side of the AK brake on the Bushy. The Wolf 55 grain FMJ threw small sparks out the muzzle about every three shots or so, the only ammo to do this that I noticed.
The AK brake is effective at controlling recoil and keeping the target acquired for fast recovery and follow-up shots, although it is a bit noisy under the bench pavillion roof. No where near as loud as the mini-Y comp, though, and no backblast.
This A2 AK carbine is very nice handling, providing an excellent cheek weld with the A2 stock, and I believe that I prefer it to a collapsing style stock.
The mags worked, the ordnance was expended without incident, and I had a couple mags of Wolf 55 FMJ left to shoot when a guy pulled up with a son and daughter, who expressed interest in the carbine. I asked their father if they could fire the weapon after a brief instruction and he gave the OK. Thier father took two empty 2-liters out of the trunk and carried them downrange, while I went over the carbine with the kids. When they were ready they each fired a 20 rd mag at the bottles and chased them all round the berm, and were wearing ear-to-ear grins. So was Dad.
A good day.
Noah
http://www.bushmaster.com/shopping/weapons/Images/pcwa2s14ak.jpg
Photo courtesy of Bushmaster site.
I had eight used USGI 20 rd mags to check for functionality, and wanted to try the following flavors of ammo:
Wolf 55 grain FMJ
Wolf 62 grain FMJ
Barnaul 62 grain HP
Silver Bear 62 grain HP
SA surplus M193 55 gr FMJ
Federal XM193 55 gr FMJ
I fired individual mags full of a given round, and went as far as to load mags with a mixture of all rounds, just to check the function.
As the weather was threatening I did not set up the trusty 20+ year old Oehler 33, and essentially fired at a large rock buried in the 200 yd berm. Again, functionality was the objective as opposed to general accuracy. At 200 yard, if the dust puffs were in the same spot, that's close enough for the A2 open sights and my 49-yr eyes.
Bottom line:
The Bushy continues to captivate me, digesting all the ammo from all mags with NO failures, even the mags containing the mixed flavors. The dust puffs were monotonously in the same spot. If they weren't dead Bad Guys, they were tightly pinned down with significant casulties, as it were.
As far as felt recoil, the Silver Bear seemed the "lightest" whereas the Federal XM193 was clearly the most stout, and threw one heck of a flame to each side of the AK brake on the Bushy. The Wolf 55 grain FMJ threw small sparks out the muzzle about every three shots or so, the only ammo to do this that I noticed.
The AK brake is effective at controlling recoil and keeping the target acquired for fast recovery and follow-up shots, although it is a bit noisy under the bench pavillion roof. No where near as loud as the mini-Y comp, though, and no backblast.
This A2 AK carbine is very nice handling, providing an excellent cheek weld with the A2 stock, and I believe that I prefer it to a collapsing style stock.
The mags worked, the ordnance was expended without incident, and I had a couple mags of Wolf 55 FMJ left to shoot when a guy pulled up with a son and daughter, who expressed interest in the carbine. I asked their father if they could fire the weapon after a brief instruction and he gave the OK. Thier father took two empty 2-liters out of the trunk and carried them downrange, while I went over the carbine with the kids. When they were ready they each fired a 20 rd mag at the bottles and chased them all round the berm, and were wearing ear-to-ear grins. So was Dad.
A good day.
Noah