It was a beautiful day, that last gasp of Spring before Summer slams her red hot iron hand down on the sands, the last of the cool mornings edging up into the shimmers of summer mirages. It was a good day....to shoot. On the way in, a pair of coyotes walked right in front of my car, staring and daring. I waved and smiled, knowing I had plenty of coyote medicine with me.
The rear adjustable iron sight had been folded down on my wonderful CZ 527M carbine in 7.62x39mm, and the Bushnell 4-12 scope remounted. Just look at how much clearance I have between the bell and that folded sight! Yes, there really is about 1-3 millimeters of clearance. Now you know why a folding sight was best!
I also threw the vz-58 in it's travel bag in the car, seen here in the bag with the Phantom posing alongside. You can now clearly see the Neit Extended Ambi Mag release and Neit Extended Bolt Release. Those are incredible.
I arrived at the range, still cool, and Larry was waiting. See, I had lucked into a great deal on clean wheel weight lead, but a combination of bad days off and distance meant I couldn't get up there to pick it up when the gentleman was there. In stepped Larry, who lived close and said he would do it. Twist my arm and don't say it twice, SOLD! So he met me down at the local range today, and we swapped some stuff the other person needed more, including this nice 50 pounds of lead! Yummy, make NICE boolits out this stuff!
But, back to the range! I needed to get the scope re-sighted in, and chose the Berry's bullet load to do it with. I sighted at 50 yards, for grins and giggles, and got some incredible groups - at 50 yards I'd BETTER! So no pictures, too close. Also, I remembered everything, targets, stool, water, guns, ammo, goodies, EVERYTHING! Everything except a charged camera battery. DOH! Well, it did have a bit of juice left in it, so I got a few photos. Oh well.
I went straight to 200 from 50 - big black ant hill right on the 100 yard line on my LOF. Gah. Besides, I really wanted to stretch the legs of this little carbine and this plated bullet load. These Berrys' 125 grain plated atop 28 grains of H4895 were just impressing the snot outa me.
Here I am, target at 200, and I felt like adding in some range markers, just for clarity. That little white line to the left of the "200 yards"? That's my target stand with three targets on it.
Hard to see those 2 inch black squares. Jacked the scope up to 12 power, set parallax to 200 yards held 6 inches over, and let fly. I had three targets on the carrier. The top two I used the Berrys load on, the bottom I used the old standby of the 123 grain Hornady spire point. THAT load printed a disappointing 6 inch circle, roughly. Of the two other targets, I had a nice group going on the second when I pulled a flyer. Bad. I blame it on the guy shooting full house 357 mag loads from a snubby about 5 yards to my right.
But that top target, holy cow. This is a PLATED bullet load, and this IS what it can do.
Center to center, 2 1/8 inches at the widest point. I'll buy that for a dollar, to quote an old sci-fi movie. 5 points if you can name it.
BUT, I promised to try it at 300 yards, yes I did, so here we go. Can you see that target stand? That's three black center targets ranged vertically. The red arrow has the very tip on the top of the stand. Parallax setting at 300 yards...
I knew I was going to get horrendous bullet drop - 7.62x39mm really starts running out of gas about 275 or so, so I decided to hold 6 inches over like at 200 yards and start at the top target, hoping to score on the one below it. New load, no way to estimate bullet drop, so what the heck. I only fired 3 rounds per target. I shot at top target, moved down to the second target, shot it and chickened out. I couldn't see where the bullets were going to save my skin, so I figured I had pushed the envelope one to many times, and trudged out to 300 yards to bring the target back for some vz-58 fun.
Shocked. Surprised. Stunned. No way. Yes way. The red dot is where the third bullet hole was in the target paper underneath the one I had put up just off to the left. If you don't believe me, I don't blame you - I have trouble believing it, and I was there. Put that as an estimated 1 3/4" group at 300 yards. Well, 3 rounds isn't a group, and I agree, but I still wanna claim it! Estimated at least 22 inch bullet drop, so it was really starting to slow down, no idea what velocity or terminal energy it was still hauling. I doubt I will use it that far, as 1) I am no rifleman! And 2), I doubt the round has much energy left by then, probably not much for anything larger that rabbits and gnats. I know I can hit well at 200 yards, so I am good.
Still. Wow. Luckiest shooting I have ever done.
Brought the target in to 100 yards, (away from the anthill), and put a Prehle police target, (donated by a very nice member of CZF!), on it for some fast vz-58 work. Fired 40 rounds standing at 100 yards. It's shooting low, but I am inching the front sight to correct. That's when I ran out of water. As a born desert rat, the time to go ALWAYS is when you run out of water. But it shows the old warhorse can do it on a man sized target at 100 yards standing, even though I kept shooting low. Well, he will never procreate! Good, enough stupid people in the world, don't need more. Old standby 123grain Spire Point Hornady load. Need to adjust that front sight.
In the middle of this I did get to shoot Larrys Yugo Mauser project, a very nice rifle. We found someone had left a bowling ball at the top of the 300 yard berm. Red cape to a bull - OK, we're on it. Yes, with that 308 Mauser we nailed that thing several times, the two of us with that Mauser. Here's Larry about to deliver another death blow to the Evil Ball!
See that nice rifle?
But it was indeed time to go. I loaded up, said thank you to Larry, shook his hand, and left to come home, throw brass in the tumbler, clean the rifles, and write this review. All in all, I don't think I could've wished for a better morning!
