Hey Everyone,
Recently there have been a lot of questions asked about the SVT 40 and I have read many myths that seem to be circulating about these fine rifles. I figured I would take it upon myself to do a range report/review write up and try and dispell some of these untruths.
My particular SVT 40 is a 1941 made Izhevsk rifle. This particular rifle is a standard refurb that you will find at many dealers including Westrifle, P&S Militaria, Epps and Frontier etc... When I purchased this rifle it included a 10rd magazine (pinned to 5), sling, cleaning rod, tool kit, oil bottle and cleaning kit. From what I have seen these rifles come ready to go with everything you need to shoot. The only thing that is not included that I would reccomend is a gas adjustment tool. These arent 100% necessary but they sure reduce scratches and dings on the gas selector. I just loosen the gas plug and adjust the selector by hand but with a wrench it would be much faster. All that aside these rifles will typically require a decent cleaning when first purchased as many will still be packed in cosmoline (think SKS).
My SVT
Recently there have been a lot of myths circulating amount the forums on these rifles. Some of the myths I have read quite a bit include:
1. They are difficult to clean - False. I have only ever fired surplus ammunition through mine, on occasion firing 100rds or more in a day and I have never had an issue cleaning this rifle. Just take apart and clean as you would any other rifle and you will be fine. There is no "trick" or "secret" as some people may have you believe. I have never used hot water, windex or voodoo magic and yet my rifle works fine Just use a standard solvent (I use Hoppes) and follow up with a good oil and you'll be fine. The same cleaning process as an SKS or Mosin with surplus. If you can take apart an AR or M14 then you can do this no problem. Its really not that difficult! The difficulty of these rifles seems to be blown way out of proportion.
2. They are very finicky - False in my experience. My rifle has never had a stoppage of any kind with Hungarian heavy ball, Czech light ball or Soviet light ball. All ammo has run 100% through my rifle and cycles perfectly. If you are having trouble, adjust your gas setting to an appropriate level. To find what works for you turn your gas setting up in increments. The higher up you go, the more gas you are letting in. My rifle works 100% at 1.5.
3. Recoil is terrible - False. Recoil is substantially lower then a Mosin rifle firing the same ammunition. The gas system and huge muzzle break eat up a lot of the kick. The rifle is very pleasent to shoot with surplus ammo actually, providing only a gentle push. If you can handle an M1/Mosin/Enfield/K98 then you can handle these rifles with no issues. The blast however is something to consider when shooting on a bench with others to your left/right. The muzzle blast is very noticeable and will blow open a sandbag or empty casings (trust me).
4. They are inaccurate - I have no idea where this came from? perhaps someone with a bad lot of ammo or a rifle with a poor bore? These rifles are capable of excellent accuracy, more on that later.
Some points to consider with these rifles:
1. Condition - As with any milsurp you should look for a good bore, not necessarily shiney but with good rifling. A dark bore is nothing to run away from in my experience. Stock repairs are also another thing people run away from. The stock repairs are very, very common on reburb SVTs and are nothing to worry about, my particular rifle has 3 repairs to the stock and its as tight as the day it left the factory. Most refurb rifles will have been reblued and cleaned up, so if your buying a rifle that has never been fired since refurb - dont worry so much
2. Ammo - we all know how difficult it is becoming to get surplus ammo. It is out there and usually at a decent price, but its not as common as its little brother the x39 and as such were left firing whatever loose rounds we can get our hands on. I have found the Czech light ball (standard stuff around) to be of excellent quality and very consistant. I have found the 1940s era Soviet stuff to be EXTREAMLY hot and as such accuracy wasnt the best. One test I did proved it to be acceptable at about 4inch at 100m - but nothing to write home about. The heavy ball stuff dosnt seem to be a problem but the rifle did have a more noticable "kick" to it. I have read it is hard on the op rod and the gas system to fire heavy ball through it. I cant confirm or deny this so to be safe stick to the light ball (150gr). Its the standard anyway.
One thing to note about the brass/casings. The SVT has a fluted chamber with was implemented to ease the extraction of spent casings under dirty conditions. Great for a combat soldier 60+ yrs ago, not so much for the reloader today. I have never fired reloads through my rifle as I am afraid of losing my brass My rifle spits the casings out usually cracked and split in places, I dont care if they are berdan primed steel cases but its not getting my precious (and small quantity of) boxer primed brass. Just a warning.
Anyway, on to the shooting.
Today was a decent enough day, 33 degrees and sunny with a very light wind - a perfect day to do another write up. I headed up to my range with my SVT in hand and just 20rds of Czech surplus.
The ammo I was using had the headstamp bxn 76 (a fine vintage) - its the same stuff that came in the crates Marstar had last summer. I had the ammo pre loaded on stripper clips as you can see here. The stripper clips are a great, fast way to feed the rifle as extra mags cost about as much as a new rifle. I have found the cheap ebay stripper clips to work very well in the SVT rifle. Feeding was smooth, fast and reliable - what else can you ask? The rifle can also (obviously) be loaded by the magazine
I set up my fig 11 target at 100m and proceeded to shoot. For the purposes of this test I used a front rest with a sandbag on it, and shot from a bench.
A few notes I made during firing:
The sights: The sights are what you would expect on a wartime Soviet weapon. The exact same system as a Mosin - rear ladder to 2km and a standard post-in-a-globe front sight. I find this sight picture to work great as it is fast to pick up and very accurate.
The muzzle break: What can I say. That huge, howitzer looking muzzle break sure does its job. It does an excellent job at displacing the blast and allowing the rifle to come straight back.
Trigger: This particular rifle had a very, very long trigger pull. It breaks consistantly however and is crisp enough for accurate shooting. It makes a very good combat trigger.
Ergonomics: Seems to be a big issue among shooters today. I found this rifle to shoot, handle and sit well with me. The grip is a natural slop and the rifle sits well into your shoulder. Im about 5'11 and this rifle fits me fine.
The rifle cycled and fired very smoothly. I had and have had 0 issues ever with this rifle in terms of a jam, stoppage or extraction.
I found this rifle to be very accurate, shooting a very acceptable group. I fired 15rds at the targets "heart". I am happy to say this rifle met my expectations in every way in terms of accuracy. The flier was me
Overall I am very pleased with the purchase of this rifle. The SVT40 rifle right now can be purchased in the area of 300-400$ and in my opinion is worth every penny. Not only do you get a very powerful, accurate, reliable semi automatic rifle, you also get a great piece of WWII history. The Soviet SVT40 was/is a very prolific weapon and sits very well in the safe beside a TT-33 and a Mosin or two
In my opinion no Soviet/WWII collection is complete without one. Do yourself a favour and pick one up - you wont be dissapointed
Any questions/comments are greatly appreciated!
Recently there have been a lot of questions asked about the SVT 40 and I have read many myths that seem to be circulating about these fine rifles. I figured I would take it upon myself to do a range report/review write up and try and dispell some of these untruths.
My particular SVT 40 is a 1941 made Izhevsk rifle. This particular rifle is a standard refurb that you will find at many dealers including Westrifle, P&S Militaria, Epps and Frontier etc... When I purchased this rifle it included a 10rd magazine (pinned to 5), sling, cleaning rod, tool kit, oil bottle and cleaning kit. From what I have seen these rifles come ready to go with everything you need to shoot. The only thing that is not included that I would reccomend is a gas adjustment tool. These arent 100% necessary but they sure reduce scratches and dings on the gas selector. I just loosen the gas plug and adjust the selector by hand but with a wrench it would be much faster. All that aside these rifles will typically require a decent cleaning when first purchased as many will still be packed in cosmoline (think SKS).
My SVT
Recently there have been a lot of myths circulating amount the forums on these rifles. Some of the myths I have read quite a bit include:
1. They are difficult to clean - False. I have only ever fired surplus ammunition through mine, on occasion firing 100rds or more in a day and I have never had an issue cleaning this rifle. Just take apart and clean as you would any other rifle and you will be fine. There is no "trick" or "secret" as some people may have you believe. I have never used hot water, windex or voodoo magic and yet my rifle works fine
Just use a standard solvent (I use Hoppes) and follow up with a good oil and you'll be fine. The same cleaning process as an SKS or Mosin with surplus. If you can take apart an AR or M14 then you can do this no problem. Its really not that difficult! The difficulty of these rifles seems to be blown way out of proportion. 2. They are very finicky - False in my experience. My rifle has never had a stoppage of any kind with Hungarian heavy ball, Czech light ball or Soviet light ball. All ammo has run 100% through my rifle and cycles perfectly. If you are having trouble, adjust your gas setting to an appropriate level. To find what works for you turn your gas setting up in increments. The higher up you go, the more gas you are letting in. My rifle works 100% at 1.5.
3. Recoil is terrible - False. Recoil is substantially lower then a Mosin rifle firing the same ammunition. The gas system and huge muzzle break eat up a lot of the kick. The rifle is very pleasent to shoot with surplus ammo actually, providing only a gentle push. If you can handle an M1/Mosin/Enfield/K98 then you can handle these rifles with no issues. The blast however is something to consider when shooting on a bench with others to your left/right. The muzzle blast is very noticeable and will blow open a sandbag or empty casings
(trust me). 4. They are inaccurate - I have no idea where this came from? perhaps someone with a bad lot of ammo or a rifle with a poor bore? These rifles are capable of excellent accuracy, more on that later.
Some points to consider with these rifles:
1. Condition - As with any milsurp you should look for a good bore, not necessarily shiney but with good rifling. A dark bore is nothing to run away from in my experience. Stock repairs are also another thing people run away from. The stock repairs are very, very common on reburb SVTs and are nothing to worry about, my particular rifle has 3 repairs to the stock and its as tight as the day it left the factory. Most refurb rifles will have been reblued and cleaned up, so if your buying a rifle that has never been fired since refurb - dont worry so much
2. Ammo - we all know how difficult it is becoming to get surplus ammo. It is out there and usually at a decent price, but its not as common as its little brother the x39 and as such were left firing whatever loose rounds we can get our hands on. I have found the Czech light ball (standard stuff around) to be of excellent quality and very consistant. I have found the 1940s era Soviet stuff to be EXTREAMLY hot and as such accuracy wasnt the best. One test I did proved it to be acceptable at about 4inch at 100m - but nothing to write home about. The heavy ball stuff dosnt seem to be a problem but the rifle did have a more noticable "kick" to it. I have read it is hard on the op rod and the gas system to fire heavy ball through it. I cant confirm or deny this so to be safe stick to the light ball (150gr). Its the standard anyway.
One thing to note about the brass/casings. The SVT has a fluted chamber with was implemented to ease the extraction of spent casings under dirty conditions. Great for a combat soldier 60+ yrs ago, not so much for the reloader today. I have never fired reloads through my rifle as I am afraid of losing my brass
My rifle spits the casings out usually cracked and split in places, I dont care if they are berdan primed steel cases but its not getting my precious (and small quantity of) boxer primed brass. Just a warning.Anyway, on to the shooting.
Today was a decent enough day, 33 degrees and sunny with a very light wind - a perfect day to do another write up. I headed up to my range with my SVT in hand and just 20rds of Czech surplus.
The ammo I was using had the headstamp bxn 76 (a fine vintage
) - its the same stuff that came in the crates Marstar had last summer. I had the ammo pre loaded on stripper clips as you can see here. The stripper clips are a great, fast way to feed the rifle as extra mags cost about as much as a new rifle. I have found the cheap ebay stripper clips to work very well in the SVT rifle. Feeding was smooth, fast and reliable - what else can you ask? The rifle can also (obviously) be loaded by the magazine
I set up my fig 11 target at 100m and proceeded to shoot. For the purposes of this test I used a front rest with a sandbag on it, and shot from a bench.
A few notes I made during firing:
The sights: The sights are what you would expect on a wartime Soviet weapon. The exact same system as a Mosin - rear ladder to 2km and a standard post-in-a-globe front sight. I find this sight picture to work great as it is fast to pick up and very accurate.
The muzzle break: What can I say. That huge, howitzer looking muzzle break sure does its job. It does an excellent job at displacing the blast and allowing the rifle to come straight back.
Trigger: This particular rifle had a very, very long trigger pull. It breaks consistantly however and is crisp enough for accurate shooting. It makes a very good combat trigger.
Ergonomics: Seems to be a big issue among shooters today. I found this rifle to shoot, handle and sit well with me. The grip is a natural slop and the rifle sits well into your shoulder. Im about 5'11 and this rifle fits me fine.
The rifle cycled and fired very smoothly. I had and have had 0 issues ever with this rifle in terms of a jam, stoppage or extraction.
I found this rifle to be very accurate, shooting a very acceptable group. I fired 15rds at the targets "heart". I am happy to say this rifle met my expectations in every way in terms of accuracy. The flier was me
Overall I am very pleased with the purchase of this rifle. The SVT40 rifle right now can be purchased in the area of 300-400$ and in my opinion is worth every penny. Not only do you get a very powerful, accurate, reliable semi automatic rifle, you also get a great piece of WWII history. The Soviet SVT40 was/is a very prolific weapon and sits very well in the safe beside a TT-33 and a Mosin or two
In my opinion no Soviet/WWII collection is complete without one. Do yourself a favour and pick one up - you wont be dissapointed
Any questions/comments are greatly appreciated!
