After so much anticipation about substandard soft Spanish steel, excessive muzzle blast and sharp recoil, I finally built up enough courage to take my Spanish FR8 out to the outdoor rifle range.
All of the aperture sights shoot high. The lowest peep (right side of the V-notch) shot about 6 inches high at 50 yards. And the V-notch shot about 2" high at 50 yards. Trying to shoot 12" pie plates at 200 yards was somewhat of a challenge due to 1) myself not being a very good rifleman and 2) having to hold low. This certainly isn't the best sight set up but I was able to put all shots within a 6 inch circle from various sitting positions at 50 yards. That's more than I can do with my Romanian SKS but hideously embarrassing compared to what I can do with my AR.
Top round from the magazine sometimes failed to chamber; the bolt would simply slide over without catching the round. Also, after extracting the 4th round, the 5 round would jump out of the magazine preventing extractor-controlled feeding. The cartridge would simply be pushed by the extractor into the chamber and prevent the bolt from going into full battery.
I shot thru 2 boxes of Chilean surplus 7.62mm NATO and switched to some South African ball. Then more problems occured. After firing a round of SA ball, the bolt became very difficult to move. I had to lay the rifle on the bench and put body weight on the bolt knob to get the bolt to rotate. I tried feeding a live round and extracting it without firing it, no problems and the bolt would operate very smoothly. Tried firing the round then extracting, near impossible to open the bolt.
The range staffer told me that the SA ball were reloads and the brass was excessively expanding causing it to stick inside the chamber. And he also said that my rifle (that had barely 50 rounds thru it) was filthy and needed to be cleaned.
Help me out here guys, rifles that are known to be rock solid reliable (SKS, Mauser 98) tend to be jamomatics in my hands. And, a rifle with questionable reliability (AR15) happens to be the most reliable weapon in my quiver. What's up?
All of the aperture sights shoot high. The lowest peep (right side of the V-notch) shot about 6 inches high at 50 yards. And the V-notch shot about 2" high at 50 yards. Trying to shoot 12" pie plates at 200 yards was somewhat of a challenge due to 1) myself not being a very good rifleman and 2) having to hold low. This certainly isn't the best sight set up but I was able to put all shots within a 6 inch circle from various sitting positions at 50 yards. That's more than I can do with my Romanian SKS but hideously embarrassing compared to what I can do with my AR.
Top round from the magazine sometimes failed to chamber; the bolt would simply slide over without catching the round. Also, after extracting the 4th round, the 5 round would jump out of the magazine preventing extractor-controlled feeding. The cartridge would simply be pushed by the extractor into the chamber and prevent the bolt from going into full battery.
I shot thru 2 boxes of Chilean surplus 7.62mm NATO and switched to some South African ball. Then more problems occured. After firing a round of SA ball, the bolt became very difficult to move. I had to lay the rifle on the bench and put body weight on the bolt knob to get the bolt to rotate. I tried feeding a live round and extracting it without firing it, no problems and the bolt would operate very smoothly. Tried firing the round then extracting, near impossible to open the bolt.
The range staffer told me that the SA ball were reloads and the brass was excessively expanding causing it to stick inside the chamber. And he also said that my rifle (that had barely 50 rounds thru it) was filthy and needed to be cleaned.
Help me out here guys, rifles that are known to be rock solid reliable (SKS, Mauser 98) tend to be jamomatics in my hands. And, a rifle with questionable reliability (AR15) happens to be the most reliable weapon in my quiver. What's up?