ds1

Bump

Done 

M16/M4/ Ar15 (9mm). Example Czech V-AR.

Early 1980s saw Colt (now CZ owned) step into the 9mm game, initially with a castrated (no gas system) m 16 / m4 Frankengun, first models used an Uzi like grip safety, fired from an open bolt and Uzi mag. They soon changed to a closed direct blowback bolt system. It’s been a process of little refinement since - the last ten years has however seen a big push from the civilian AR 15 gamer USPSA / IPSC market, match 16” barrels, match triggers, hydraulic and magnetic buffers but only over the last few years have different operating systems than direct blowback been coming along - CMMG radial bolt, Sig MPX gas system and JP and Stribog roller systems in an attempt to reduce perceived recoil. 

Sig MPX PCC. 40 round mag dump. Very controllable recoil.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16ZEHeMGVR1h9ZnANTHO1-qmUhkkHv_g-/view?usp=drivesdk

Direct blowback in 9mm gives more recoil than a 223 direct gas impingement system - it didn’t bother Colt, they wanted to push M4s, no real military interest in 9mm and LE were happy with a 50 year old HK mp5 system. The civilian PCC gamer market has pushed development of the ar15 system.

AR 15 9mm weighted bolt required in a direct blowback system.

New millenniums, ( Stribog, B&T, Scorpion Evo).

So LE had been using the mp5 for the best part of 50 years. It made no sense to military with a better .233 cartridge in every respect but LE a 9mm carbine with compatible pistol 9mm ammunition and suppressors for covert use made some sense. But not the 16” PCC gamer guns that were bigger than 223 rifles. Enter the likes of Stribog and B&T and CZ.

Stribog Gen A1

what you get ( Stribog) is a cnc machined monolithic upper that is picatinny and/ or m-lock compliant for easy mounting of optics, lasers, lights and the kitchen sink. Space is at a premium. The Stribog AI uses a blowback system but bolt mass is placed over the barrel therefore not much center of gravity shift during cycling so still flat shooting. The A3 version uses a simplified roller delayed system that saves about 6oz in weight and reduced preceived recoil by around 15%. 

There is a trend for lowers to  become polymer with chassis like fire control groups - so you change out a lower shell to suit your magazine choice be it proprietary but Glock and now Sig 320 mags are the dogs danglies as most LE use Glock pistols and the US army has adopted the Sig m17 (320) pistol. There is also a fair bit of tech crossover from the PCC market - B&T uses a hydraulic buffer like those developed for AR15 gamer guns. State of the art in a LE type kit is something like this B&T APC 9 PRO G SD  - still direct blowback but with hydraulic buffer, Glock mag compatible lower and integral suppressor. 

Always welcome here Derek. It’s still snowing here at the moment btw. By the time you come over I may have just treated myself to one of these: B&T APC 9 Pro G SD (think modern day HK mp5 SD). 
 

So being bored of lockdown decided to do a brief overview of some of our more iconic  9mm carbine platforms ( all 9mm semi-auto).

First up Uzi,

an agricultural bit of kit but with some really forward thinking features. A child of it’s time ( 1950s) in respect of it being made from pressed sheet stamping and Bakelite furniture but some excellent feature - non reciprocating charging handle , bolt over barrel design, quick change chrome lined barrel, compact size with folding stock. The bayonet lug is a bit retro. Agricultural in the sense it fires from an open bolt so lock time measured in weeks and an almost double recoil impulse. No thought at the time for red dot optics or picatinny anything, aftermarket options now exist though. 

Iconic moments would include special agent Robert Wanko pulling one from a briefcase during the Regan assignation attempt.

On to the the HK mp5,

a 1960’s child, also of stamped and welded  steel though a bit more tastefully done than the Uzi. The rail guides which serves a triple  purpose of strengthening the receiver housing and acting as an internal track for the bolt carrier group and an external track for the collapsing stock are a very nice touch. Features like the tri-lug suppressor mount were very forward thinking. It shows it’s age now with non captive pins, lack of integral picatinny / key mod rails and controls not designed for humans and no last round bolt hold open ( except on the 10mm version). The ‘German Slap’ non reciprocal charging handle is fun though. 

The thing is it still exist in ( if much declining) mainstream use. One of the reasons it has a very low recoil impulse due to the delay and less mass needed with the roller locking system. HK used this system in the G3 rifles and p9 series pistols- but I think it found it’s niche  here - recoil is more in a 9mm carbine than . 223 direct impingement AR15. 9mm carbines have been for the vast majority developed around blow back actions - this means high mass bolt carrier groups and more recoil than direct impingement rifle systems. The MP5 is still one of the softest shooting / less recoil systems available (Sig mpx being better). HK have released a civilian SP5 semi-auto version which is a faithful copy except for the front pin being replaced by a ledge -  therefore cannot drop in a full auto trigger group.

Iconic moments - Maggie standing against a wall with SAS with mp5s and top mounted maglites. Iranian embassy siege.

Catch, believe it or not there are temperature and wind speed parameters in which the test has to be conducted here ( +10c and < 2m/s wind speed if memory serves). What is the same it seems is that the council orchestrates these things (signed off by the H&S office) along with the rest of the planning permission.......whichever country it is a nightmare.......a piece of retrospective planning permission and sound test took  about 2 years to complete.......no reason it could not have been done easily within 2 months...... adding to the utter pee-take you end up paying a fortune for it as well. However I would still say it’s better to be pro-active with these things......imagine suspending a business for a year or two waiting for a bit of paperwork. 

Saddler,

 I tried to PM you but you cannot receive messages - is your mailbox full?

As a European range owner I have recently upgraded my range to add a full-auto capability and other things. As part of that I was required to do a H&S sound test ( a standard for any commercial activity cost about £2k here in CZ plus an extra £1k for other H&S aspects). Presumably the U.K. will have similar protocols. At that point arguments become moot - the shooting times, number of rounds and caliber are determined from a database from the sound levels.
 

I think that it would be sensible to do this ASAP so any legal objections are dealt with in a data driven way and not from emotional argument.

As a guide I am about 1.5km away from the nearest residence. I ended up with 7am-10pm daily use, 9k / 9mm, 5k /223 &308 etc down to 425/338 Lapua per day. Nothing that’s going to give me an issue.....OTOH there is peace-of- mind from the greentards and religious fanatics.

Lloyd, I would highly recommend contacting Ronin or Baldie on here, both are excellent gunsmiths. They are both very capable of doing a re-barrel and will probably have barrel blanks in stock and are best suited to advise on length and profile.

I would recommend Sassen barrels as they are U.K. made but nothing wrong with Krieger  etc but maybe more expensive as imports. I would opt for cut rifles over button and certainly not hammer forged. 1 in 10 twist would be my choice as it gives a little more flexibility if you want to try heavier bullets. I am using Krieger  on my 338 now - excellent barrel but so was the Border (I think the tooling ended up as Sassen).

TRGs - usually the factory barrels are a very tight fit - also chambers may be larger than a match chamber on a new barrel- count on needing new brass ( new barrel = new brass is not a bad mantra). 

That he was.......and explosives. The wheels came off when Roger Pope got banged up for embezzling the P.O. I think.

Nostalgia days of pistol shooting- when a hard chromed fame with blue slide .45 1911 was where it was at...... (remember the Graham Titus days at St. Just, John? ).

Terry, did you get your 215 from Keith Perks?.....I remember having a chat with him many years ago about the 215 v 208 -just was the 208s were more hand fitted and polished but often were not as accurate as the 215s because of it.

1066 - Shame about Hammerli. Sig is going the same way - German factory is now closed with all production in the USA  

Have a look at Tilak. Czech not China made. Excellent quality to price ratio.

https://www.tilak.cz/en

Loke or Odin series might be suitable.

https://www.tilak.cz/en/eshop/jackets?tags=20-22-hiking-1

For what it’s worth- I use one of their softies most mornings recently- starting the cars and taking Emma to school. Morning temps have been around -7c to -18c. Still felt comfortable with just a t-shirt and softie.

How time flies. In context of the international bit it was 2007 when I first started inviting people over to CZ to compete and 2008 when 7 people from this site came over. Still happens.

On 2/11/2021 at 7:50 PM, MarinePMI said:

ds1,

 

Nice.  TBH, I just switched one of my PCC's (9mm) from an EOTech to a Trijicon SRO (1MOA) on a riser.  Perhaps it is just me, but I found it much easier to get on and track targets than the EOTech.  If POI is a concern, then running it with a straight RMR=>Picatinny adapter may get you where you want to be...low to the bore line.  The SRO also has the benefit of being able to be left on for a year before the battery dies.  My EOTechs have consistently eaten batteries like a fat kid eats doughnuts.

Anyways, I thought it worth bringing up...

br

I like the SRO also. Have one on a Shadow 2 at the moment but it’s going to be moved to an STI Costa Carry Comp when the trijicon mount arrives......the Shadow will get an RMR.

Sig mpx, I’ve tried lower mounted red dots but miss the generous eye box the Eotech gives by being a holographic sight, transitions are much quicker for me with the Eotech. The downside is I find the illumination not as bright in sunlight with the Eotech almost washing out. Someone recommended trying a Holosun 510 but I tried a 507c on a pistol- it was not as good as the hype for me.

Out of interest Pcc’s - have you found anything to compare the the lack of recoil a Sig mpx has? I have no particular love for the Sig other than the gas system mitigates so much recoil. On things like JP’s or Divinci  I like the quality but the straight blow back is not in the same class as the Sig for recoil impulse mitigation. People have tried reducing recoil with hydraulic buffers but they tend to break the buffer tube pin. Magnetic buffers are being used also.

So I put a mount and optic on one of these today for a mate. Rifle, optic and mount were band new.

There used to be a time when Hammerli was the best, full stop. I had a 208 Hammerli and used a Hammerli p240 in 38spl. By comparison this AR 15 .22lr clone is a sh1t sandwich without the bread.

A few details- the bolt release catch on the left hand side is only there for ornament- it does not do anything 

The sights - are cheap plastic magpul copies- jut bin them

The bolt carrier group is mainly aluminium casting- reminds me of an air soft toy:

The trigger broke as clean as a 4x2 wooden stick. The optic and mount suited well to the rifle - Vortex Crossfire 6-24 scope, product of best China - (far removed from the the excellent Vortex  Razor HD gen 2 scopes). The cantilever mount was also Vortex - ok except they used the same size screws to secure the mount to the picatinny rail that they used to clamp the rings to the scope. It really did not seem good to me - especially considering bare rifle cost about £500 here ( £100 for the rifle and £400 for the name). 
 

BD, that was my point but as a small range owner it’s always going to be a decision of income vs pain-in-assery. In general police are the best clients- they always pay show or no show,  look after themselves and clean up afterwards. Contrast that to some of the past petty issues in PRS type threads here like ranges not having the desired plates or target systems.

There is enough admin hassle with the day to day running of a range that the thought of dealing with an international organisation is not very appealing. Do some fag-packet maths for PRS say 60 shooters @ £150 per weekend =£7500. If (big if) you get £4K out of it as a range and deduct target cost, tax, food and income form whoever else you could have had on the range then you might be left with £2k for the weekend. Is it enough?....... depends on which other user groups you are not giving priority to (it will likely be competing civi groups though as police etc only hire during weekday work hours). 

To deal with an international organisation directly you can see how much crap they expect..... if you held 10 matches per year that’s an extra £20k, minus tax, marketing, paying subs to an international body and having the phone ring every hour because someone left their tripod somewhere on the range and can you just go and find it. If you are a busy range with a staple of police and/or military users it not going to be worth the hassle.

One of the biggest advantages I see to having a ‘middleman’ between range and organising body is that the middleman can organise events at several venues (if they exist) and hopefully bring more clients from other venues / geographical areas. That said shooters are not the most nomadic of people and the middleman needs to understand that they are there to facilitate the smooth running of things ( admin) and not dictate to either shooters or ranges.......... then you get issues.

John, my post were regarding IPRF as obviously I am Czech based. However am surprised to find that the IPRF is seemingly not registered as a charity or other business. Also I see the same issues here and in the U.K. - where’s the venues? There seem only one or two ranges in either country capable of handling the 150 rounds over 2 days ( presumably weekends) over 12-15 stages. In practice you would have to run 3 or 4 stages simultaneously to get say  60 shooters through the COF. I don’t see the attraction for a range to do it. For example with my range I hire it to state police - they carry the can of there is an accident or other issue. If I run a course civi or local police then it’s my head on the block. I’m not going to let some else RCO on my range for which I am ultimately responsible particularly when the governing body is not registered. 

I must admit IPSC pistol/ PCC is big money here however shooting venues can be much smaller than a rifle range. 

I am struggling to understand  the viability of it unless someone happens to own a suitable range and wants to do it. ......there doesn’t seem much point in forming an organisation with no where to run the COF however.

Scotch, we can have moderators now but it’s the divinci compensator which helps it a lot. Today was about mapping vertical poi changes at close distances 5-25m. IPSC tends to go to 70m but close stuff is fast. Eotech is very good and fast being holographic but 5cm vertical poi change from 5-25m. Next time we will try the Eotech longer AA battery version- it sits lower so should reduce the poi.

PCC ( Pistol Calibre Carbine) is a growing part of IPSC. As a training facility we have a number of carbines, HK mp5, uzi’s, Stribog, ar 15/9mm. They are traditional blowback designs (HK roller locking) although excellent for shooting steel offer little advantage against an AR 15 in 223 in terms of recoil reduction. However top of the food chain is the Sig mpx pcc it offers something even JP rifles cannot- a gas system delay. Result is one sight picture at 50m for fast double taps. Downside is cost, about £2k for the bare rifle and it’s going to be over £3k with an Eotech, ar15 stock, divinci compensator etc..... but it is a lot of fun.

Video 43 rounds semi -auto, fairly fast.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16ZEHeMGVR1h9ZnANTHO1-qmUhkkHv_g-/view?usp=drivesdk

2 hours ago, Popsbengo said:

I used CRO and Kyckr.com, also the Irish Charity Register.

Why 'must' it be registered somewhere?  I agree they should but they aren't as far as I can Google.

They claim but no registration numbers etc.  If they intend to take money from people they had better get themselves sorted out.

“Must”..... or “Should”....... possibly a very different thing but I know I “must” as a business be registered with an ICO number.......otherwise what I do would not be legal. I presumed a similar system for such organisations/ charity. I also presumed it is / was open source / public domain information- same as ICO data.

I don’t put my ICO number on the company fb site ( only invoices) so I don’t read too much into that.

Pops, we’re you using cro.ie or something else?

I tried a search on this but got nothing.

https://www.cro.ie/Search-Results?sb-search=International+Precision+Rifle+Federation&sb-bhvr=108&sb-logid=350795-fnsjv16mymxqkd54

must be registered somewhere- my Google fu is weak.

The “World Championship” bit seems odd to me.... with just 12 countries. For a while I helped in a small way with organising aspects of the Czech International police sniper competition- it’s been going for more than 20 years with 120-160 participants per year, I think at one point I can remember 26 countries taking part ( even South Africa and  Mongolia). Yet I don’t think anyone  would call it more than an international event ( not World anything).

As a range owner I’ve had several organisations saying affiliate to us (usually cost around £1k annually) and you get to use their logo and are on their mailing list to their clients. They are also charging their clients to be on that mailing list - in effect acting as a middle man talking money from both ends. The friction starts with things like accident liability and  booked but not used dates. Really just not worth the hassle. This is how I read the organisation / business model for this event.  I could well be wrong and overly cynical - just what I have learned from experience.
 

Settled on RS76 in 338 Lapua :

92.0 grains with a Hornady 285 grain Eldm. 
 

COAL is 95.5mm with a H20 capacity of 100 grains with seated bullet.

Wamadet would probably be a good choice. Helston Gunsmiths used to make them for a time. It was made as much for cast bullet resizing / swaging as reloading.