BD44 - What do I need to know? - range report post 51

The more I handle this rifle, the more I love it.

It is heavy, but very well balanced. It is very strong. I could see if someone hit the side of the receiver hard enough that it would dent and may not function correctly, but it would take a substantial hit.

The war time reports of pressing one hand on the receiver to stop the bolt does not seem very likely. It takes almost all of my 96kg to get a noticeable amount of deflection in the receiver near the operating handle slot.

Magazine insertions are extremely easy with this rifle. The short length of the cartridge means a very narrow magazine that is very easy to get a good firm grip on with one hand. Even from the base plate it is still easy to insert the magazine.

Due to the length of the magazine, I'm not sure what kind of webbing would work well with it. They're a little uncomfortable to extract from my AR pouches.

Completing magazine changes does take a little bit longer than the AR due to having to cycle the action, the bolt release of the AR greatly speeds this up. The magazine release being a large button on the left side of the rifle is very easy to use, but means you must always extract your magazines instead of letting them drop free. Due to the value of these magazines, I think I'll use a drop bag anyways, so it is a handy design feature.

This rifle feels most natural when using the magazine well for your left hand, but is also comfortable when using the sheet metal hand-guard. I have not shot the rifle yet, but I can imagine gloves would be very important to deal with the heat if a person preferred using the hand-guard.

Speaking of gloves, this rifle has been finished in a way that is consistent with how it would have been produced during the war. As such there are a number of sharp edges that will be more than happy to take flesh off. The top of my knuckle is well cut up from manipulating the safety selector.

The bolt carrier travel is very long in this rifle, and it has a very strong recoil spring. It seems to me, that it is designed for the spring to soak up all of the recoil without the carrier contacting the back of the reciever. The travel is around twice the distance it needs to be in order to eject the spent case, reset the hammer and feed a new round into the chamber. I don't have a scale to measure the actual spring tension but I would put it somewhere around what my M14s is, and still having a longer travel than the M14.

The piston on the BD44 is huge, it must extract a tremendous amount of energy from the expanding gas. Once I get some brass and a standard load worked up, I'm going to work on some subsonic loads for it, to see how the action performs.

So far, I couldn't be happier I spend $3100 on this rifle and that I still have quite a bit more money to spend before I can shoot it. I hope to get it out to the range in a couple weeks. Good thing I'm right handed though, if you're left handed I doubt this rifle is for you.
 
mhenn1965 said:
Any range shooting updates? How're things going?
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I'm thinking about taking it to the open house at the Agassiz range this weekend and letting a bunch of people handle it, but then I would have to over night a stack of ammo and charge people a buck a shot to be able to afford it. I'm not sure if the club would appreciate that or not.
 
Do you rock the magazine in like a m14, or insert it straight up like an AR?

I'd make a place on the wall for that gun, so freakin nice.
 
lone-wolf said:
Do you rock the magazine in like a m14, or insert it straight up like an AR?

I'd make a place on the wall for that gun, so freakin nice.
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Insert straight in. Due to the short length of the cartridge the magazine is very easy to grip and guide into place. The generous dimensions of the magwell mean there is no issue getting the magazine in the hole. The magazine release of the AR is almost a mirror of the STG. Magazine release button on the left, catch on the right. Mechically the release mechanism is very similiar to the AR.
 
NavyCuda said:
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More detailed photos to follow after I have time to get it out to the range.

Farmboy, if you're reading, I need a good sling for my BD44, suggestions?
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Nice pic, I would love a range report.
 
No pictures, but I did get to take the BD44 to the range finally. I've mostly been putting it off, hard to believe I've had it this long without shooting it, until now.

I don't know where to start, it's a real love-hate relationship I'm having with the BD44. I love the trigger, I love the recoil but the rifle as it sits currently has some serious flaws. Some are design related and therefore not directly SSDs fault, but others are on SSDs head. I've had the rifle too long without using it that I'm likely out of warranty too.

I tried to put 120 rounds through the rifle, but at least 20 wouldn't chamber. Reloads made from old .308 cases were not resized correctly, so the die will have to get turned in a bit further. WARNING: Hard primers are a must for this rifle. I had at least 6 slam fires, feeding from the magazine. I fired 60 rounds of surplus steel cased ammo they only had feed issues related to the magazine and ramp relationship. The BD44 is a very unique sounding rifle.

Problems:

Front sight post, muzzle device detent, the retaining pin was not properly staked and the vibration of shooting freed it. Luckily the spring stayed inside the sight base and I was able to recover the detent and the pin.

Inadequate deburring on the bolt carrier has caused it to dig a rather large gouge into the guideway.

The ejector is too soft and has bent enough to cause the bolt carrier to bind when retracted by hand during reload. This binding isn't enough to stop the bolt travel during firing, but looking at it now I don't think I can get much more use out of the rifle before it has to be replaced. I would estimate another 100-150 rounds before the ejector fails.

Feed ramp and magazine relationship means that if the rifle is not supported by the magazine, the projectile will slam into a flat steel face ~8mm below the start of the ramp. I'm debating putting my die grinder in there and cutting m4 style feed ramps. My reloads have no cannalure so this means the effected cartridge goes into the do not fire pile. Surplus ammo was not negatively effected by being slammed into the flat steel face. Once I supported the rifle by the magazine and applied moderate forward force, feed issues disappeared. The main problem is that the magazine is allowed to sit too lose in the magazine well. It will hang a good 8mm or so from the over insertion stops. I'm not sure if I'm going to modify the magazine to tighten it up, or try to modify the feed ramps to overcome this issue. The one strong point for trying m4 style feed ramps is there is excessive metal in this rifle, I would be cutting into a steel block 25mm x 30mm and a good 30mm rearward of the start of the chamber.

The out of battery trigger lock, is also too soft and is badly marred up from contact with the bolt carrier. The bolt carrier shows rub off from the trigger lock, but no damage so the hardening on the bolt carrier seems to be correct. As with the ejector, I would estimate that this part will fail in another 100-150 rounds.

On the BD44, the dust cover flips up and rests against the rear sight. If you bump the sight the right way while charging the rifle, the dust cover will slip under the sight and set zero to somewhere around 500m. Lift the sight, free the door and it goes back to normal.

Shooting the BD44:

For the times that the rifle would give me a complete magazine without a failure of any kind, the BD44 is by far one of the neatest shooting rifles. Muzzle flip is noticeable, but recoil is non-existent. You can feel how long the bolt carrier is traveling, you can feel it change directions. There is no sharp crack in either the action or the report of discharge. Everything is slow, steady and smooth with the BD44. I'm 185cm (6'1"), and shooting from the bench, resting the rifle on the magazine was very comfortable. I could see the long magazine being problematic from prone, which I didn't try, but from the bench it is fantastic. I didn't have to hunch down, or lean over to shoot the BD44, instead I sat naturally, put my elbow on the bench and shot the rifle naturally. Steady aiming at a 200m target was easy.

I did not do any scientific accuracy testing and with all the troubles I was having with the rifle, accuracy was the least of my concerns. From the factory however, the sights were badly off, and at 200m, the point of impact was easily 2m to the right of the target. Elevation was almost bang on at least. As I started to get used to the rifle, I tried to zero the sights but ran out of ammo before I could fine tune it.

I don't have a scale to measure trigger pull and I don't know what all the different things mean to describe a trigger, so I'll just wing it and hope for the best. Initial freeplay before getting to the sear resistance is quite long. The break is, well comparable to a brake pedal. A little bit of soft resistance to start, but then a sudden clean release of the hammer. Reset distance is almost all the way back to the normal resting position of the trigger. I was unable to try "rapid-fire." All in all, probably my favorite trigger, from the small sample size of firearms I have experienced.

Today was proof positive to me why a reciprocating charging handle is a must. The strong, heavy duty steel charging handle was slammed hard against the table a number of times to free cases that were oversized and would not chamber. The left side charging handle allowed me to easily check the condition of the bolt carrier and I knew immediately if a round had not chambered. Clearing the rifle in this fashion was a pain, but it was efficient. Looking at the bolt and bolt carrier on the wedge points, it is clear why tilting bolt was selected for this rifle. It is extremely robust.

I field stripped the rifle once while at the range, this task is completed with relative ease, the most complicated part is the recoil spring. I like to cover everything in grease, so it means getting rather dirty disassembling the rifle. This rifle runs very clean. There is a bit of brass clippings inside the action, but there is zero residue otherwise. I'll wipe down the bolt face, clean the bore and leave the action untouched. The grease is still in excellent condition and this rifle has generous locations for debris to safely accumulate.

SSD claims to try to build the BD44 in much the same finish as they would have come off the production line in 1944. Some parts are different colours. The casting quality is so high that you can tell the imperfections in the components was placed there to make the finish appear rough. In some of the remote areas of the rifle, such as deep in the trigger assembly, there is some rust that came with the rifle. I don't know if it's from shipping or storage, but it is there. It's now all coated with grease, but it still bothers me.

I am confident that once I work through the issues with the BD44, it might end up being my favorite rifle. It seems to be a real diamond in the rough. Due to the low production numbers and import issues these rifles are over priced, but I'm glad I bought it, so it's money well spent.
 
Kindly Old Coach said:
Like a Porsche parked between a pair of overblown American muscle cars. The Germans sure could draw 'em.
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Hardly. The MP44 is for sure a neat rifle and the first of what is now the dominant military rifle class in the world. If you have never shot an MP44 the first thing you will notice is just how heavy they are are and cold ... everything is made of steel. They have little recoil and seem kind of underpowered in comparison to the AK and AR rifles.

The MP44 is overly big and complex for such a small round .... but it was a genius idea for its time.
 
Hmm - interesting they've got these problems - they're so dedicated to it being a near-perfect copy it seems like they didn't have the means to do the final controls on small parts.

If a video were possible it'd be great to get a breakdown on shooting and the issues you're having.
 
CobraGT said:
Navy, did you have it at Poco yesterday? If so, I saw you there... I was admiring the gun, but yeah, if that was you, it looked like you were having some problems :(
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That was me, after the first number of jams I realized I was damaging the table and had to put my knife in between. One day I'll have to do a write up on the SOG sealpup. That's one hell of a knife.

To be completely fair it was the result of over length reloads, so not the fault of the rifle. With the magazine orientated correctly it cycled every surplus round without issue. I should have called it a day instead of fighting with the reloads but I wanted to shoot the thing so badly and the charging handle could take the abuse.

Suputin said:
Hardly. The MP44 is for sure a neat rifle and the first of what is now the dominant military rifle class in the world. If you have never shot an MP44 the first thing you will notice is just how heavy they are are and cold ... everything is made of steel. They have little recoil and seem kind of underpowered in comparison to the AK and AR rifles.

The MP44 is overly big and complex for such a small round .... but it was a genius idea for its time.
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In my opinion I would think the MP44 was designed more of a light machine gun then as a rifle. The Germans loved their machineguns and while I've only experienced semi-auto, it's clear this rifle was designed with automatic as the main mode of fire.

I didn't get the underpowered feeling at all, though I tend to think about what's going on mechanically. The BD44 has a very heavy recoil spring, certainly more difficult than the AR15 or the M14 to retract. It has a very heavy bolt and carrier assembly. The bolt carrier travels a little more than 3.5x the overall cartridge length, there is a serious amount of energy going into the bolt carrier. Discharge and recoil thump remind me of shooting the .45-70, in the slow, yet powerful feeling sense. I'm sure it's a super sonic round, but it seems to have a much quieter report than other rifles. Would be interesting to see how 8mmKurz handles being suppressed. The muzzle is even threaded...

Cleaning the BD44 is a breeze too. Very straight forward rifle to clean, easy access to the gas tube, the bore and the chamber.
 
NavyCuda said:
I didn't get the underpowered feeling at all, though I tend to think about what's going on mechanically. The BD44 has a very heavy recoil spring, certainly more difficult than the AR15 or the M14 to retract. It has a very heavy bolt and carrier assembly. The bolt carrier travels a little more than 3.5x the overall cartridge length, there is a serious amount of energy going into the bolt carrier. Discharge and recoil thump remind me of shooting the .45-70, in the slow, yet powerful feeling sense. I'm sure it's a super sonic round, but it seems to have a much quieter report than other rifles. Would be interesting to see how 8mmKurz handles being suppressed. The muzzle is even threaded...
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The ballistics of the 8mm Kurtz are just a bit under the 762x39. It pushes a 124gr bullet at around 2200 fps. This would be roughly equivalent to the 300 Blackout. The 8mm bullet is a bit larger a .323" compared to the .311" of the AK and .308" of the Blackout.

In truth it has been a bunch of years since I have fired one of these rifles. My overbearing memory is of how heavy the beast is and looking up the weights confirms this. The MP44 weighs 10.2 lbs where the AK and AR come in at around 7.7 lbs.

I suspect the 8mm Kurtz would respond to a suppressor in the same way the 300 BLK does .... which ironically has proved to be quite difficult to suppress. Like the 45 ACP, the larger bore and smaller amount of power produces a lower pressure environment which seems to defy attempts to work the gas hard with aggressive baffles. If you look at the suppressors being used on the BLK they are mostly quite long because length generally equals more sound reduction.
 
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