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Old May 10, 2005, 08:23 PM   #1
Sarge
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"Harry Day" with the AK-corrected/Wolf 154 added


Since May 9, 2005 was the official celebration of President Harry S. Truman’s birthday here in Missouri, it seemed like the perfect time bust a few caps. The rifle I chose for this outing was my SAR-1; one of the first Romanian import versions of the AK-47.

“But Harry was a Democrat” you might say, “and Democrats hate guns. And they REALLY hate AK-47s!”

You’d be wrong- about Harry, at least. HST was a Democrat all right, and a damn good one. Too bad he isn't running the party today! Harry loved guns- and not like a certain pretender who ran for the office of president recently. How do I know this? I had the good fortune to work security for the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library several years ago, and the equal good fortune to have examined many of his firearms. President Harry S. Truman was a consummate gun collector by anyone’s standards.

Harry had light and heavy US and foreign machine guns, so I doubt that my little semi-auto AK clone would have offended him much. He also accumulated enough handguns to cover your kitchen table. Many of these handguns bore beautiful and near-identical walnut grips, with the initials “HST” inlaid in pearl. A man don’t go to that much trouble if he simply regards gun ownership as “disposable political goods.” Harry Truman was the real deal. He also knew how to end, and win, a war. We could use a little of his “tactical common sense” in high places, today.

But back to the SAR-1-

Several weeks ago, I took this rifle out for a 225-250 yard plinking session. The results were not impressive, for a couple of reasons that had nothing to do with the gun. It was cold & blowing hard, and the wind was right in our faces; our eyes were watering like leaky faucets. I was also shooting Wolf hardball, and this gun had been zeroed with Barnaul “Silver Bear” FMJ. We were getting close to the distant milk jugs we were shooting at, but we just weren’t connecting with them. So I had an excellent excuse to retire to the range for some zero-verification, today. Conditions were good and the range was empty, so I stapled up a couple of 8” bulls, at 100 yards.

Since I had a pretty good idea that the gun was at least close with the Barnaul Silver Bear ball, I started with 5 rounds of that. Silver Bear has produced a couple of 3-shot, 200 groups in the neighborhood of 4-5 inches from this gun; so it is the ball round for this rifle, as far as I’m concerned. The zero was still good and those rounds are highlighted in red, on the target below. I also wanted to see if I could find a soft-point load that shot to the same POI as my FMJ load. I had marked the first five, so I let another five of Barnaul soft-point go in the next string; these rounds are highlighted in yellow. These seemed to shoot a little high, and while they are fine for varmints out to 50 yards, the zero wasn’t as close as I had hoped for. I marked the target and returned to the bench.

I still had few rounds of Norinco soft-point in the bag, so I loaded five, and fired another string. These shot to nearly the same POI as the ball round, and they are highlighted in blue below.

While I didn’t set out to shoot groups today, very few of the 15 rounds fired would have missed an enemy soldier’s head, at one-hundred yards. I was simply resting the gun over my range bag on the bench, and didn’t even bother “getting into the sling” today. When you consider that I was shooting three distinctly different loads, through a stamped-receiver AK, with a home-made rear peep aperture- this ain’t too shabby. When you add the fact that I have 48 year-old eyes and I lost my glasses last deer season- it’s downright amazing!

The AK is no bench-rest rifle, but I like these guns anyway. I have had a dufflebag-full of old Mausers over the years, that didn’t shoot as well as this little rifle does.

Since there was still a good bit of HST day left at the end of this exercise, I decided to try one round each of the ammunition mentioned, against my favorite expendable ballistic medium; water-filled 100 oz. laundry-detergent jugs. Two of these placed back-to-back will stop most expanding pistol rounds, and many centerfire rifle rounds. I haven’t quite figured out why- but they are real hard on bullets. I back them up with an old Kansas City phone book, braced against a section of 2x8 lumber. Shooting was done at 10 yards. The photo gives an idea of the results, but the only round that penetrated both jugs was the Barnaul ball. It burst the first jug and exited sideways, passing through #2 with enough retained velocity to split it at the seams, and still penetrate about 2 ½” into the phone book. It tore a pretty good hole in that, as well.

Both of the soft-point rounds exhibited similar characteristics; each burst the first jug and tossed it several feet in the air; the main core fragment and separated jacket of each was recovered inside the second jug. Speaking of bullet fragments, it was apparent that may were shed and lost as the first jug was exploded by the soft-point bullets’ impact. The 125 grain Barnaul did a bit more damage to the first jug, than the Norinco soft-point did. The jugs appear in the photo below for your review and in each case the jug that received the bullet’s initial impact, is lying to the right.

And finally, there are the bullets themselves. The Norinco soft-point core weighed but 44 grains, and its separated jacket weighed 42.5 grains. The Barnaul soft-point’s core fragment weighed 59.1 grains, and its jacket weighed 23.4 grains. The Silver Bear ball round retained 120.8 grains through the ordeal, flattening itself notably as it plowed through the jugs and catalog sideways. You can have a look at them and draw your own conclusions.

And finally, as promised, I subjected the Wolf 154 grain soft-point to the same test. The result looks much more like what we expect from a big-game bullet. The recovered slug expanded perfectly, and weighs 146.5 grains. If you look at the jugs that were hit by the FMJ round, you will have a picture of what the Wolf did; except that the Wolf load launched both caps about 12 feet straight up in the air. It also fully penetrated both jugs, and bored straight into the phone book about 3 inches. It was apparent that this bullet bored true, and did not yaw regardless of what it encountered.

The Barnaul “Silver Bear” ball ammo is still going to be my “go to” load for this gun. It is accurate, shoots to point-of-aim, and has plenty of “oomph” for anti-personnel us. I would much prefer it to any 7.62x39 soft-point load, especially if a vehicle were part of the tactical problem at hand. I also strongly suspect that this round would perform better than you might think, if it were pressed into service as a deer/coyote round.

Still, a soft-point is what you select if you expect to turn the gun on a game animal I am amending my original opinion on this one. After testing the Wolf soft-point, I would use it with confidence on deer-sized game. I have shot enough of it that I don’t believe POI will be a problem out to 150 yards. I will check the 100-yard zero and grouping for this load and post a target pic to this thread, for anyone interested. I like the fact that it starts out at the same roughly the same weight as your typical .30-30 round- a proven deer-killer by anyone’s standards.

For lighter game like coyotes, I like the Norinco soft-point. Like the ball ammo, it is accurate, shoots where it looks, and expands like a varmint load should.

These loads certainly add a degree of versatility to 7.62x39 rifles, that we didn't dream of 20 years ago.

The AK itself is a great little gun. This one has been stone reliable, never jamming once in several thousand rounds of various and sundry 7.62x39 ammo- including many soft-points and hollow-points. Less than a yardstick long, it is a lot of gun in a small package. It is also damned near indestructible and accurate enough for its intended mission; it would make a passable hunting rifle as well. I just may kill a deer with it this year, to spite idiot politicians who seem to think that a pistol-grip and a box magazine make a simple machine capable of diabolical acts.

Judging from what I know of Harry Truman- I think he just might agree.
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Last edited by Sarge; May 12, 2005 at 09:19 PM.
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Old May 10, 2005, 10:41 PM   #2
Smokey Joe
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Well thank you!

An excellent celebration of HST's memory, and a very complete, nice, range report! Thx for sharing!
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Old May 10, 2005, 11:15 PM   #3
G56
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I filled up some 2 liter soda bottles with water and proceeded to shoot them with my AR, the difference between FMJ and soft points was dramatic, the FMJ blew them up pretty well, but the soft points totally destroyed the bottles! It's an interesting experiment to play with.
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Old May 11, 2005, 04:17 PM   #4
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Thanks guys- but I found a technical error in my article. What was listed a Wolf 154 SP, was actually Norinco 123 SP.... DUH! The rounds are almost identical to each other in appearance, but the headstamp told on me. That's what I get for hurrying to put the article together. I will fix the original post/photos when time permits, and yes I will test the Wolf 154 and post the results to this thread.
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Old May 11, 2005, 06:50 PM   #5
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I never knew that about HST. Sounds like a great way to celebrate too.
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Old May 11, 2005, 07:20 PM   #6
Adam Firestone
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Of course there was that whole issue of HST ignoring known Soviet agents in his administration. . . but we can gloss over that because he had a gun collection.
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Old May 11, 2005, 07:52 PM   #7
Smokey Joe
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Well, perbody's nofect!

Well, Adam, at least HST was a gun owner and user and therefore a good example of THAT aspect of being a good leader.

Give the man credit, he stood up and did his duty and ended the most horrendous war the world has ever seen, in a way that saved thousands of American GIs' lives. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't pleasant, but it was his duty and he did it. That's leadership.

Now, as to the Soviet agents, were I the prez, and there were spies in my White House, I'd "ignore" them too--And hand-feed them carefully selected disinformation they could send back home to Moscow. And there would be a public outcry I'm sure. In the late 40's-early 50's everybody was scared there was a Red spy under their bed. Gee whiz, KNOWN spies can only do just so much damage--it's the UNdiscovered ones that you think are on your side, that are really dangerous.

But I for one do not want to turn this thread into a discussion of history. HST was a gun-owner's friend. Period.
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Old May 11, 2005, 08:09 PM   #8
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The gun owner's of today (that would be you and me) are in peril. Bans, proposed gun limits, gun control laws, gun registration and the infamous class III registration. The second amendment provises that we, as Americans, have the right to keep and bare arms. This amendment does not say "The right to keep and bare arms that we say you can". Men like HST understood this. Our fore-fathers knew this very well. These laws will not stop the use of assault rifles on the police. These laws will not stop the use of handguns in criminal activities. The class III has not stopped the use of full-auto weapons in drive-bys and gang wars. We need men like HST to stand up for us. We need our current "political leaders" to remember why we have our guns. Lets face it, any country stupid enough to invade the US soil would be a land filled with idiots. Lets face it, the average to good hunter can shoot 3" groups at 200+ yards. We are a country of warriors, despite what gun laws they provide. And if they ban the AK and SKS? I say big deal! For every gun they ban, I have another. More powerful. More accurate. When will they stop? Men like HST need to be glorified. They need to be proclaimed a hero for being a true American. Hats off to HST a man who understood us. Fire a round for me to say thanks!
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Old May 12, 2005, 08:34 PM   #9
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INVSSGT SAYS....

Quote:
I will fix the original post/photos when time permits, and yes I will test the Wolf 154 and post the results to this thread.
I shoot the Wolf 154 grain soft point out of my Sam-7 AK, which is made by Arsenal and has the solid milled receiver. At 100 yards, shooting groups of 3 in a bench rest position, I can keep the groups tight enough to be covered with a 4 inch circle. Corbon 150 grain soft point will give me better results, 2 1/2 to 3 inch., but the ammo is very expensive. For plunking I use the Wolf, and for hunting I will use the Corbon.
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Old May 12, 2005, 09:19 PM   #10
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Corrected/Wolf 154 terminal results added
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Old May 12, 2005, 11:14 PM   #11
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Roger that..Sarge! Great article to say the least. Lots of work and thought put into it. Very professionally done. Thanks!
Once a sarge but busted to private! Oh well, at least I made it home!
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Old August 22, 2005, 10:35 AM   #12
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WOw

Excellent article, and thoughtfulness.

Love the gun, love the round, appreciated the info and pictures.
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Old June 28, 2006, 12:49 AM   #13
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Interesting. I conducted similar tests with Wolf ammo through my Rommie and published the water jug tests here:

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/...d.php?t=214685

As for accuracy, Minute-O-Gallon jug with the PK-AS-V is about average at 200 yards and with a little practice, I think I could keep all or most of them COM at 300 yards. Like you, I am a big fan of the Kalashnikovs. Mine is only a ban-era WASR I bought for $279 just befor the AWB expired "just in case," but it has been utterly reliable and surprisingly accurate--even when going long periods--several thousand rounds, without cleaning.
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Old June 28, 2006, 11:02 AM   #14
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Quote:
“But Harry was a Democrat” you might say, “and Democrats hate guns.
Democrats were good, honest Americans until Johnson came along.Since then its been all down hill.
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