M10x vs type 81 final results

Not entirely lol
I've been shooting irons my entire life and still.
I hate scopes and I don't like red dots or optics of any kind.

There's something about the T81 sights that I just didn't like.
I've fired many an AK as well over the years. They're good enough to use for fast quick shooting at torso sized targets which, again is exactly what they're made for.

I think the issue for most is that they buy a combloc 300m torso blaster and we shoot them in a bench vice with surplus ammo then measure the groups with calipers and get all bent out of shape when it isn't putting 10 rounds in a 3" circle at 100m
The sort of equivalent of buying a sledge hammer and being upset at it's poor ability to simply tap in a finishing nail ;)

Expectations are not in line with the tools intended purpose or an understanding of what the tool was designed to do. Just my personal observations from being on these forums for way too long lol

you sum up in a nice way what i said a while ago ...
 
Not entirely lol
I've been shooting irons my entire life and still.
I hate scopes and I don't like red dots or optics of any kind.

There's something about the T81 sights that I just didn't like.
I've fired many an AK as well over the years. They're good enough to use for fast quick shooting at torso sized targets which, again is exactly what they're made for.

I think the issue for most is that they buy a combloc 300m torso blaster and we shoot them in a bench vice with surplus ammo then measure the groups with calipers and get all bent out of shape when it isn't putting 10 rounds in a 3" circle at 100m
The sort of equivalent of buying a sledge hammer and being upset at it's poor ability to simply tap in a finishing nail ;)

Expectations are not in line with the tools intended purpose or an understanding of what the tool was designed to do. Just my personal observations from being on these forums for way too long lol

Exactly!

I think all the “my SKS is inaccurate” threads ended with similar words... “it’s a bullet hose, not your daddy’s .303”

When I’m at the range I noticed too many guys bench rest shoot. I always get “the look” because I’m shooting at the 200yard plate... open sites and offhand like a champ!
 
Each military rifle has accuracy requirements. If army and designers agreed on certain accuracy and manufactured rifle meets those requirements, then it's an accurate rifle. Even if it's 6MOA according to specs. Different countries, different times, different doctrines, professional and drafted soldiers, financing and visions for future upgrades, numbers of rifles required in number of years - all of this simply cannot produce "comparable" rifles across the globe. SKS is not inaccurate rifle, and Type 81 is not bad design (though I have very special opinion about quality of assembly of commercial version). They fully meet their initial requirements. If you try to use them for different things - how's that a rifle fault? SKS accuracy according to Soviet manual is considered "normal" if you shoot 4 rounds at the special target (good visibility with iron sights) and place 4 of them (or 3 if 4th is a flyer) to a 15cm diameter circle. And if first group was not good, then they would shoot second. If second is fine, then rifle accuracy is "normal". If both group not goods - rifle would go to service/repair depo. That is 5.1566 MOA operational requirement (manufacturing requirement is still classified, no joking, and I'm sure it's more strict). With this accuracy rifle is effective up to 400m for single target / single shooter. There simply were no need to build more accurate auxiliary rifle, and technically speaking main rifle (AK-47) had exactly same accuracy requirements and then when they accepted AK74 they kept 15cm requirement (again, operation accuracy requirement, manufacturing is more strict and thus rifles are usually more accurate).
On another note I don't see any sense in comparing boutique rifles such as M10х with military(-derived) platforms like SKS or Type81 or AR15. Those boutique rifles will never exceed their role of bench paper hole punchers. I guess if all you need is rifle to punch the holes, then yes, one can compare them.
 
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I figure this might be a decent thread to mention I picked up an m10x recently, out of the box I put a little clp on things, took it out today, 100 rounds Barnaul, zero malfunctions, able to hit man sized steel target at 200 regularly (belt buckle poa). FWIW I guess

Good stuff. What has setting were you on and how do you like it overall?
 
Good stuff. What has setting were you on and how do you like it overall?

Gas setting 2 (or at least I think...)My plan is to clean, then put it on 1 and fire 200 additional Barnaul. Then switch to Norinco non corrosive.
Accuracy, well, while sighting in there was a couple decent groups 1.5” & 1 7/8 ish fwiw 35 yards mind you. Red dot sight in at 35 ish yards. Used ballistics calc and played around (why not, it was fun) and with 2.5” sight height it looked good on paper.
Overall, not bad, fun, minimal recoil felt, not too heavy or cumbersome to hold freehand and land hits on steel. A fun toy.
One thing I noticed was while aiming for center mass on man sized steel, at 200, I was getting head shots, or at neck level, so much for ballistics calc sayin .9” high at 200, but then again, kneeling shooting position, ah well (sh*t ammo variance an sh*t shooter?)
 
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Gas setting 2 (or at least I think...)My plan is to clean, then put it on 1 and fire 200 additional Barnaul. Then switch to Norinco non corrosive.
Accuracy, well, while sighting in there was a couple decent groups 1.5” & 1 7/8 ish fwiw 35 yards mind you. Red dot sight in at 35 ish yards. Used ballistics calc and played around (why not, it was fun) and with 2.5” sight height it looked good on paper.
Overall, not bad, fun, minimal recoil felt, not too heavy or cumbersome to hold freehand and land hits on steel. A fun toy.
One thing I noticed was while aiming for center mass on man sized steel, at 200, I was getting head shots, or at neck level, so much for ballistics calc sayin .9” high at 200, but then again, kneeling shooting position, ah well (sh*t ammo variance an sh*t shooter?)

Nice and keep us updated!

Btw does yours have the set screw under the handguard just in front of the takedown pin? If so is it tight and do you feel any movement between the barrel and the handguard/rail assembly?
 
Little grub screw//torx head (T-15). Same position, 6 o’clock, as what the XCR’s have their little 1/4 (?) Allan head. Yup. It’s there and tight. No noticeable wobble between barrel and handguard assembly at all.
The only *minute* wobble is from the lower and upper, while grabbing the pistol grip with one hand and other hand on barrel+gas piston.

I have a question about the gas settings:

With the plug inserted and arrow locked in place facing downward at 6 o’clock, the pin on the outer knurled piece is on 2...but that’s the only cut out/notch on the knurled knob. Am I missing something here with regards to gas setting 1?
 
Little grub screw//torx head (T-15). Same position, 6 o’clock, as what the XCR’s have their little 1/4 (?) Allan head. Yup. It’s there and tight. No noticeable wobble between barrel and handguard assembly at all.
The only *minute* wobble is from the lower and upper, while grabbing the pistol grip with one hand and other hand on barrel+gas piston.

I have a question about the gas settings:

With the plug inserted and arrow locked in place facing downward at 6 o’clock, the pin on the outer knurled piece is on 2...but that’s the only cut out/notch on the knurled knob. Am I missing something here with regards to gas setting 1?

I have my gun on gas setting 1
Both the m10 and type 81 are designed to be normally on 1
2 is only if gets dirty and starts jamming.
 
I've never needed to put the Type 81 on setting two. Over the summer back in 2019 I spent a few months putting around 1500 Barnaul plus about 250 rounds of PPU brass cased, and 200 rounds of Norinco White Box through the rifle. All of these rounds were non-corrosive, and I specifically bought all of these non-corrosive loads to do a bit of a reliability test on the rifle to see if I could get it to choke and require the fouled gas setting.

The test was simple: I shot all these rounds and didn't clean the rifle in between range sessions. New Brunswick is a humid swamp in the summer, so I certainly oiled the external metals after every outing, but I didn't take down or maintain the rifle whatsoever. I got through all of those non-corrosive rounds without a single failure, and being unwilling to spend more money on non-corrosive rounds, went to the range with 400 rounds of corrosive Czech surplus and fired them on top of that almost 2000 non-corrosive total - still no failures or hiccups and ejection and cycling was still as vigorous as ever. Finally I took it home and spent about two and a half hours cleaning my very filthy Type 81. The internals were disgusting and required a lot of work to get clean, and I had some rust on the piston and underside of the bolt carrier because I didn't really service the internals at all and never disassembled the rifle during my test. I was able to scrape that rust off pretty easily.

Some complaints can be made about the rifle, the sights are certainly kind of bad, but it's insanely reliable. I literally cannot afford to buy enough non-corrosive ammo to get it dirty enough to choke, and with corrosive, I clean after session anyway. I have almost 4500 rounds through my 2017 dated folder so far and it has never jammed, nor have any pins walked out. I can also ring steel with it at 150m even when the barrel is hot enough to put off a mirage and make the handguard uncomfortable to the touch.

For $999, I couldn't be happier with the 81SA. Looking forward to running my LMG hard this summer as well.

Edit: I believe around the halfway mark of my non-corrosive test, I pulled the bolt carrier back about halfway and squirted a little CLP on the underside of the bolt itself to make its camming motion while cycling a little easier on the gun, but I don't really remember. Maybe I should have taken notes. If we assume I did that, then the rifle went over 2000 rounds with two pea sized drops of oil on the bolt. If I didn't do that, it did it all dry aside from the light coat of CLP on the working parts that I started the test with. Impressive either way if you ask me.
 
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With the plug inserted and arrow locked in place facing downward at 6 o’clock, the pin on the outer knurled piece is on 2...but that’s the only cut out/notch on the knurled knob. Am I missing something here with regards to gas setting 1?

When you adjusting between the 1 and 2 setting of the gas system, you depress that little pin but don’t rotate the knurled nob, you rotate the protruding square piece with the round hole. You’ll see an etched arrow on that piece and it’ll point directly at the barrel and “1” for setting one, rotate it to point at “2” for setting two.

I think that’s answering your question.
 
I hope all those militaries from all around the world are reading this and immediately reverse to semi auto in all their guns.
Or not. Nice try, though, folks.
 
Were not military. If my Type 81SA LMG was full auto capable, the only use id ever have for it is to put a smile on my face.
 
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