Last night I finally got to fire my new PS90 carbine. After being delayed by range renovations I was just itching to get this thing out for some practice. I decided to go out for a late night shoot with as few people as possible there so I could frequently go down to look at and patch my targets.
I brought along 100 rounds of 5.7x28mm. 50 rounds of SS197SR(blue tip) and 50 rounds of T194 training(green tip). The rounds were a little difficult to load at first but once I got the hang of it I could charge the magazines pretty easily. If I had actual 50 round mags it would probably take about 5 or so minutes to load one by hand.
I used the Eotech XPS2-2 sight that I bought with the gun for this practice. I've never used an Eotech before so I played around with it quite a bit while shooting. I fired 5 rounds at 25m to confirm zero. The rounds were a bit low so I adjusted between applications until it was spot on.
When I switched the targets to the 50m range I found that my rounds were way off. So I adjusted again and found that the sight's factory zero had actually been good to go for 50m right out of the box and I didn't actually need to adjust it in the first place!
I started out shooting with the SS197SR ammo while supported by the bench and found it to be reasonably accurate. I wasn't getting the same tight groups that I would with a .223 but the 5.7mm is a pistol round after all. Also, the barrel is a little loose in the gun so I'm not gonna be driving tacks with it anytime soon.
My first group wasn't as tight as I would have liked but I was ok with that since I'm still getting used to this firearm. In the pic below I fired this first group at the lower left dot and determined that my hold and trigger pull wasn't right so I adjusted my position and squeezed the trigger with my thumb and forefinger together. This caused my groups to tighten up a lot more.
The Eotech has no magnification at all and being a holographic sight can actually obscure your target if not set right. I had to turn the brightness down on the reticle to avoid obscuring the aiming points on the targets. Once I did that it was easier to make out where I wanted to put the rounds from one application to the next.
I found the trigger to be fairly smooth even though it is plastic. My first few tries with it seemed strained. However, once I changed my hold on the gun I had an easier time manipulating the trigger and my shots were squeezed off a lot smoother. The trigger release is sharp and allows for quick snap shooting without a "mushy" feel to it.
Since I have big hands I wasn't able to position my left thumb (weak hand)without getting in the way of my trigger finger. So I positioned my left thumb to point forward on the frame and was able to rectify this.
I had only one stoppage with the PS90. On my third magazine I had a failure to load on the third round in the mag. I squeezed the trigger and it went click! So I did what any good, self respecting shooter would do. I did a tap-rack-and-go and continued firing. The carbine fired flawlessly after that.
Once I finished the SS197SR I switched to the T194 ammo. It fired pretty much the same as the other ammo. Same point of impact so I didn't have to adjust my aim at all. The pic below is the first grouping I fired at 50m with the T194 ammo.
After firing deliberate applications at 50m I wanted to move on to some fun stuff. I loaded up my three 5 round mags (sigh) and then moved my targets to 25m. In the standing position I fired quick double taps, changing mags frequently of course, until I expended my 15 rounds.
The carbine was quite controllabe with light recoil and I was able to get the sights back on target quickly. My last pair went astray though. I ended up aiming on the dot to the right instead. Oops.
The next application I shot was three 5 round mags in rapid fire while standing. I lined up my sights and fired as fast as I could while counting my rounds. This way I still had a round in the chamber when I changed mags and then I didn't have to #### it between mag changes. To apply the safety I switched to doing it with my left hand rather than my trigger finger. I found that I could spin the safety on and off a lot faster while bringing the carbine to aim on the target.
So with mag changes I was able to fire off all 15 rounds in about 45 seconds and still manage to get an ok group. The recoil was manageable and I could easily control the carbine.
The PS90 is fun to shoot despite the low capacity of the neutered mags. The design of the frame and it's bottom eject allows for ambidextrous use. It is a fairly short range firearm given that it is chambered for a pistol calibre. This may be why FN marketed it the military version as a personal defence weapon and not a combat rifle. I would like to try it sometime out to 100m to see how it groups. Until then I'll keep on enjoying it at 50m.
