I was at the range with a buddy of mine yesterday. He had an AK in 5.45mm and I took my Yugo M92 and my VZ58. He told me he was thinking about getting a 7.62x39 rifle and asked me which AK he should consider. "None" was my reply, "Buy a VZ. It's everything an AK is and more." "But what about reliability?" he asked. Well, that was my cue!! I disassembled the VZ and promptly began filling it with pine needles, leaves that had been out rotting all winter, mud, pebbles, rotted tree bark, and clay that was the consistency of Jif peanut butter. I packed the handguards....as in PACKED. I filled the top cover almost solid and filled the receiver up to the bottom of the bolt. I put it back together....more like forced, and ran the bolt back and forth a couple of times. Crazy knashing and gritty feeling!!! Took the top cover off and shook both the rifle and topcover a couple of times and reassembled it again. Then I inserted a mag and proceeded to empty it. Crap was flying everywhere but no jam..... of course. Steve's jaw dropped. I asked him what he thought would happen if I did this with an AR? We agreed that it would have probably resulted in catastrophic failure. "So", I asked, "what do you think?" He said two words......"I'm sold." Good times baby.....good times!!!!Source: http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?96833-I-would-call-the-VZ58-reliable
Some things to know about that vid:
- the rifle was a brand new Czech Small Arms (formerly D-Technik) 11.75" VZ 58 Sporter.
- it was oiled, not greased. The importer wanted it that way. ::)
- roughly 1k was fired continuously over about 20 minutes, 5 rounds at a time.
- at about 600 rounds the front of the plastic handguard melted through and it fell off.
- it was about -20 C out.
- it had numerous feed issues due to mags not fully locking in place. I had the same problem with my CSA til I modded a spare extended mag release.
- I'm the guy in the blue and red snowmobile suit.
It was a ridiculous test, not representative of any sort of reasonable use, even for a FA military gun.
Oh, it was a good time. Burning someone else's ammo always is! The gun got so hot everything forward of the middle of the receiver was too hot to hold, even with gloves on. I'm surprised it didn't cook off. Burned the paint off for a couple inches on either side of the gas block, too.
My preference for grease has more to do with it staying where you put it and, in my experience, not disappearing as much as oil when you get a rifle good and hot. In that test, the gun really wasn't that dirty before it got buried in the mud we made. But that's not shown in the video.
No, after the 1k, then shook the muck off and shot it some more.
The stoppages were mostly magazine related, as I said earlier. Once we figured out which ones wouldn't seat correctly, we took them out of the rotation. I'd attribute a few of the stoppages to a brand-new, under-lubed rifle, but not many.
As they admit, it's a pretty impossible test. The videos are entertaining but I don't see them as overly informative.
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/01/27/mud-will-always-get-inrange-desecrates-vz-58/
:-[
Looks like the topcover stripped all the mud off the bolt carrier into the action... One of my primary guess in CP's thread... Overall, I'm not a fan of this InRange test, but YMMV... It is an interesting test, but in any real world use, unless one is in the middle of combat, the moment a weapon dropped into quicksand or similar, one would clean it asap...
Here, the issue was the bolt not going into battery... Remove the mag, grab a canteen and flush out the forward rails and chamber area. Run cleaning rod or boresnake through the bore and then get back to testing. Overall this test design seems shortsighted... Stuff like sand tests, frost test (freeze, take weapon out to warm up where moisture condensates and freeze again), etc, type of tests seem better measures of reliability beyond the standard round counts between required cleaning, etc, type of tests.
That said, I've been thinking about this and they talked about it in the video text edits too...
OOW calls the VZ58 striker a "linear hammer"...
With striker fired pistols, the striker and firing pin is one piece, and often pulling the trigger assists in cocking the striker...
With the VZ58, it's two piece. I really think "linear hammer" is a far better description for this action than "striker." While perhaps it's in the weeds, I think it's important and will be changing my references when discussions arise regarding action type -- for parts, I'll probably stick with striker when discussing the "linear hammer" but either works... Again, YMMV.
Watched the videos for the VZ, the AK, and the AR. Interesting results. It seems to come down what's appropriate to what situation. I can see that the tight tolerances kept the mud out of the AR and the loose tolerances allowed the mud into the VZ and AK. But that also has a flip side. If the VZ or AK jam as demonstrated, it doesn't take much to open them up and clear them -- that, however, takes the gun out of the fight for at least a couple of minutes, which, obviously, could be disastrous. The AR stays in the fight -- a huge advantage. But if an AR jams -- and I've seen it more than once -- it's likely that the AR is out of the fight until someone can get it into a vise and start digging in. That's also disastrous, especially if away from any tools or support.
So the reliability is relative to the situation. A jam in the VZ or AK can take someone out of the fight for a couple of minutes, and a jam in the AR can take someone out of the fight for a couple of minutes, a couple of hours, up to forever. Which time frame is the most lethal? Again, depends on the situation.
I've been at the range a few times where a buddy's AR decided to seize and was done for the day. There was never any mud involved. It then took them a couple of hours at home to fix the problem. I've had a jam with my SKS and VZ2008 due to bad ammo and the open nature of the bolt allowed me to clear it in a few seconds. I kept shooting my rifle, and my buddy also kept shooting... my rifle.
The only time I've had a bear of a time with the VZ was when I vigorously attempted to remove the dust cover without first pulling the trigger to release the striker. What a nightmare that was. An hour of prying, wrangling, cursing, and a ruined dust cover later, I got the rifle apart. It was an intimate getting-to-know-you time with the VZ platform.
Citizen Pete has a good tactical class report in this forum from a couple of years back relating some of the problems his classmates with AR's had in comparison to the problems he didn't have with his VZ.
It's not tolerances - it's clearances.
But yes - not a lot of clearance in some rifles - makes them choke fairly easily if stuff gets inside. The fantastic part of the AR design is the almost totally sealed system as long as the dust cover is closed and fairly closed when it's open.
The results were surprising to them, but if you?ve been following these articles they shouldn?t be too shocking:
Mini-14 w/ grease ? 1 round
Mini-14 w/ CLP ? 1 round
AR-15 ? 32 rounds
ARX-100 ? 31 rounds
FN SCAR 16S ? 12 rounds
SLR-107FR ? 1 round
The second TangoFoxtrot test has some positive and negative aspects to its methodology. On the plus side, the test was conducted in an especially controlled fashion, with a sieve acting to provide each rifle with an even, uniform coat of fine dust, helping to eliminate error caused by differently sized particulates. Also, the rifles were all dusted while on safe and initially with their dust covers closed (if applicable). After the second (dirty) ten rounds, the dust cover was left open (where applicable), another plus.
On the negative side, the rifles were retired as soon as they had a malfunction of any kind, which halted any exploration of whether the rifles would keep functioning with the assistance of manual operation, or whether the rifles could be successfully put back into action with remedial action. The rifles were then rated only according to how many rounds they fired before malfunction, which limited the utility of the results. Finally, the SCAR 16S was tested (probably by accident) with the regulator on the ?suppressed? setting, which almost certainly led to its premature malfunction.
Having said all that, the TangoFoxtrot tests are still informative. Once again, the AR-15 proves to be a remarkably dust-resistant rifle, in spite of the reputation it received in the GWOT. The AK puts out a particularly poor performance (although it possibly could have continued working with manual assistance), but the true loser of the test is once again the Garand-style open action, in this case in the form of a Ruger Mini-14.
Thanks to commenters mosinman and Gecko9mm for the tip!
UPDATE: The SCAR owner writes ?
QuoteThe complete story is that I thought the SCAR was horribly overgassed when I first got it. Even with the gas regulator set to the suppressed setting it flung brass and the bolt carrier crashed into the buffer.
So I got a set of gas screws (that form the actual gas port) and tuned it for the ammo I actually shoot. I set the gas regulator to suppressed, inserted the smallest gas screw (1.00mm) and fired from a magazine loaded with only one round. I kept increasing the gas screw size until the bolt carrier locked open on the empty mag, then went up 2 sizes (the gas screws come in 0.05mm increments) for a little reserve power.
When we did the test about two or three years later I had completely forgotten that I had set up the gas system that way. If I had remembered I would have returned the rifle to the stock configuration before shooting.
Two other notes:
1) All the rifles were shot with a new, clean magazine.
2) The reasoning for stopping after the first malfunction was to keep everything similar and make the whole run shorter. The first test with the Mini-14 and the AUG was a miserable experience in hammering the Mini?s bolt open and shut after it choked.
I just wanted to clear up what actually happened with the SCAR, just plain incompetence, not malice.
The InRange mud tests are fun and interesting to watch, but not very realistic and they readily admit this.
For example they only clear the trigger and safety and have the rifles caked in the desert mud which has the consistency of sticky wet cement (it's literally fine moon dust + sand + small gravel + water). If that was a "real world" test the shooter would probably wipe the mud of the top of the receiver even if just to see the sights and that would mitigate some of the problems (i.e. the AK or Vz)
On the AK in slow motion, you can see how the mud on the top cover sheets off once the gun is fired under recoil and as it falls is promptly scooped by the reciprocating handle on the bolt carrier and deposited into the front trunnion locking lugs.
I suspect that this would probably remedy the Vz as well, although not the Garand - if you get that kind of crap on the top of the exposed bolt its going to get into the action no matter what (hence the WWII training films with GIs holding their hands over the top of the receiver).
I'm genuinely curious about the ACE though. Since not only is it pretty sealed up, but the charging handle is on the left side and doesn't have the large opening to throw the mud into the locking lugs.
As they admit, it's a pretty impossible test. The videos are entertaining but I don't see them as overly informative.
Agreed, but I just have a hard time seeing the AR win the "mud trophy", when in the "real world" I have seen them have troubles while the VZ.58 kept going without issue. It's like everything I learned from the tactical range classes was a lie. (http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d16/CitizenPete/BT2-X7UIgAA5JQ__zpsb58drc7u.jpg)