Last week I tried a pair of Moisan M44 carbines (a Russian and a Polish version). The results were much better than I expected.
This got me wondering how the 303 carbines would shoot. I have some #5 Jungle Carbines, an EAL (a basic #4 sporter) a commercially made #1 sporter and a #4 sporter made with a LongBranch 308 barrel. I used a mint #4T as a control.
Today I took them all to the range. I did all the shooting at 50 yards. I would have preferred 100 yards, but the aiming marks I had were too small for my old eyes to shoot at 100.
I was going to use the 303 plinker ammo I made last year with Russian 147gr FMJ bullets, but then thought that if I was going to see what the rifle were capable of, I had better use better bullets. I loaded Hornady 150 gr flat based pointed soft point bullets over 46 gr of BLC2. A fairly snappy load.
I shot each rifle with a 5 shot group of both the old and new ammo. I used the 200 yard and 400 yard setting on the rear sight to separate the two groups. Most of the #5s shot quite low with the 200 yard setting. They need a shorter front sight. I have some on hand.
Every single rifle shot the Hornady soft point load better than the FMJ and every rifle shot better than I expected. The Hornady bullets shot around one inch. The iron sight groups were as good as the scope results. I won't post all the results because they were all remarkably similar.
The commercial soft point bullet was much better than the FMJ. I should not be surprised. Joyce Hornady explained that to me 30 years ago and advised me to buy flat base soft points whenever possible. But now I need to load some 7.62x54 ammo with the soft points bullets and see how much better they do.
The EAL, sporter and 308 all had 22" barrels. They all had a noticeable muzzle flash. The #5s, with shorter barrels, had no flash at all. The OAL of the #5s, because of the flash hider, was about the same as the 22" sporters.
Conclusion: Even with iron sights, these rifle are plenty accurate for any practical purpose. They are simple, robust and factory-made “trick guns”. Only one of my #5s is a “collector” All the others have issues, so I would not hesitate to use them as truck guns.
This got me wondering how the 303 carbines would shoot. I have some #5 Jungle Carbines, an EAL (a basic #4 sporter) a commercially made #1 sporter and a #4 sporter made with a LongBranch 308 barrel. I used a mint #4T as a control.
Today I took them all to the range. I did all the shooting at 50 yards. I would have preferred 100 yards, but the aiming marks I had were too small for my old eyes to shoot at 100.
I was going to use the 303 plinker ammo I made last year with Russian 147gr FMJ bullets, but then thought that if I was going to see what the rifle were capable of, I had better use better bullets. I loaded Hornady 150 gr flat based pointed soft point bullets over 46 gr of BLC2. A fairly snappy load.
I shot each rifle with a 5 shot group of both the old and new ammo. I used the 200 yard and 400 yard setting on the rear sight to separate the two groups. Most of the #5s shot quite low with the 200 yard setting. They need a shorter front sight. I have some on hand.
Every single rifle shot the Hornady soft point load better than the FMJ and every rifle shot better than I expected. The Hornady bullets shot around one inch. The iron sight groups were as good as the scope results. I won't post all the results because they were all remarkably similar.
The commercial soft point bullet was much better than the FMJ. I should not be surprised. Joyce Hornady explained that to me 30 years ago and advised me to buy flat base soft points whenever possible. But now I need to load some 7.62x54 ammo with the soft points bullets and see how much better they do.
The EAL, sporter and 308 all had 22" barrels. They all had a noticeable muzzle flash. The #5s, with shorter barrels, had no flash at all. The OAL of the #5s, because of the flash hider, was about the same as the 22" sporters.
Conclusion: Even with iron sights, these rifle are plenty accurate for any practical purpose. They are simple, robust and factory-made “trick guns”. Only one of my #5s is a “collector” All the others have issues, so I would not hesitate to use them as truck guns.
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