Range report - DPMS 7.62x39 carbine

[Skyco]

I became excited about the Sig Sauer 556R with a folding stock and priced just a little higher, but there have been some bad reviews meanwhile about poor fit and finish and ongoing quality issues (some people rejecting the 4th rifle delivered to the dealer because it fell apart in their hands).

So unfortunately, the quality issue seems to be alive and well unless you either spend over $2000 or have enough experience to shop for all the parts and put it together yourself.

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Sig has apparently gone to h*** in a hand basket as they say. I own 3 Sig pistols, the first a West German made P228 is fantastic, the 2nd a P220 is ok, the 3rd a P238 is a total piece of crap. I wouldn't touch one of their rifles now for half what they charge. I'd be hard pressed to buy ANY Sig now.
I own two AR's both Bushmasters, bought them a few years ago before the rush they've been great although some criticize them. Each was under $1000 at the time.
BTW local dealer is selling S&W AR's for $599....now thats a pretty good deal.

7.62x39- have 2 an AK and a Mini 30, the Mini costs twice what the AK did and is not near as accurate. It also threw brass 40 ft until I played with the gas orifice and tuned it down to 6-8 ft. Wouldn't have mattered except I reload so I want my brass back.

 

[Specop_007]

Thats pretty decent shooting really. 9 rounds in 3" using surplus 7.62....I dont see you getting much better performance and I'd bet you've already went about as far as you can with surplus.

Why 7.62x39 if I may ask? If you want more pepper on it than what the 556 has theres a ton of great caliber options for an AR15 lower that are head and shoulders above the 7.62x39mm......

 

[westcliffe01]

2 main reasons for the caliber choice + a few more
1) cost and availability of ammo, both surplus and new Wolf
2) It appears that many states require a caliber larger than 0.25" for hunting
3) I will be building a FAL, so that will be my heavy SHTF rifle. I was not looking to spend $1700+ for AR10 style rifles.
4) I have carried and fought with a 223 select fire rifle. In my opinion, I'm not going to continue that experiment.

Yes there are many great calibers available, with ammo running $1+/round..

I want at least a few weapons that I can afford to shoot regularly.

 

[westcliffe01]

Todays target with the DPMS on the second iteration of trigger work:

I worked on it again today to reduce sear engagement to reduce the amount of take up. Will see if it does better tomorrow. Also worked on my Remington 700 in 8mm mauser. The trigger on that beast was close to 8lb... Will also see tomorrow whether the shotgun pattern with that is the 50's yogo ammo or the sucky trigger pull.

I added a pic of the 8mm mauser shells I fired today. 100% reiability

And a pic of the rifle, 2004 Remington 700 "Classic" in 8mmm mauser.

 

[Specop_007]

2 main reasons for the caliber choice + a few more
1) cost and availability of ammo, both surplus and new Wolf
2) It appears that many states require a caliber larger than 0.25" for hunting
3) I will be building a FAL, so that will be my heavy SHTF rifle. I was not looking to spend $1700+ for AR10 style rifles.
4) I have carried and fought with a 223 select fire rifle. In my opinion, I'm not going to continue that experiment.

Yes there are many great calibers available, with ammo running $1+/round..

I want at least a few weapons that I can afford to shoot regularly.

Makes sense, all good reasons. I do agree on the cost aspect especially. Those other calibers arent cheap. The only one I can think of thats fairly economical would be a 223-25. Its a necked up 223 round to accept a 25 cal bullet. Lets you use 223 brass from a 223/556 upper and reload it into a nice 25 caliber round.

But not a thing wrong with the 762x39 option either! :thumbsup:

 

[Bill 55]

Dillon sells a decapper for punching out Berdan primers and a swager to remove the crimp ring so you can use Boxer style primers.

 

[westcliffe01]

Had another couple of hours at the range this morning after a 3rd round of trigger work on the DPMS carbine. I spent most of the time trying to get my Remington 700 in 8mm mauser to group after adjusting the trigger yesterday for a more reasonable break force. In that respect it certainly was an improvement, but unfortunately my "groups" were still somewhat laughable....

So for fun and the sake of full disclosure, this is what my 2 targets looked like with the 8mm after I removed the muzzle break:

The 3rd target is the one I shot with the DPMS. To try to get an idea of performance shooting off only a front support (more like real hunting conditions) I did not use my bench rest, but used a wooden block covered with carpet instead. The target is a 20 round group. The group is just slightly bigger than 2x2" (probably 2" wide and 3" high).

Given the 4x scope, the cross hair is nearly .5moa wide and the more primitive support, I think I am totally satisfied now. I think I will shoot it in this configuration for a while before I mess with again... I am looking to move both my rifles up to a 3-12x42 Nikon scopes, since the 4x is not making me terribly comfortable at 100 yds and beyond.

But am I really to believe that the scatter with the 8mm mauser is just the 1950's ammo ? I guess I can try some of the Privi Sniper ammo for sale at Wideners. It is a lot more expensive, but is much more recent ammo and has been very consistent over a chronograph (right around 2400fps with a 196gr spitzer bullet). If it turns out to be the ammo, then I guess it will be limited to plinking and SHTF type ammo. Perhaps I may need to think of pulling a set of bullets, reloading with an accurate dose of modern powder and re-seating. This would be a relatively inexpensive way to make it into something better.

There you have it..

 

[westcliffe01]

For some reason the system wouldn't let me attach the 3rd picture, so here it is.

 

[Specop_007]

I wouldnt be surprised to see 50's ammo group like that depending on who made the ammo. Is the lowest shot always your first shot? I also wonder if you dont have some heat related vertical stringing going on there too.

Another question I have is are you warmed up when you shoot the 8mm? My first few groups tend to suck compared to the groups after that because I need to warm up a bit.

Ammo and barrel and the 2 most critical points to accuracy followed closely by trigger. I'd spend the money to get a box of good match grade 8mm ammo and see what happens. :thumbsup:

ETA:
Double check your scope mounts. I had a loose mount that caused me all sorts of fits and confusion until I checked the mounts and found out it was loose!

 

[westcliffe01]

I have fitted 2 different scope bases, only because it took so long to get a 1 piece rail type steel base for this rifle. Prior to last weekend, I fitted a 2 piece Warne steel scope base. I suspect that although not stated on the packaging, it was a 20MOA base, since after getting on the paper at 25 yds, it shot 6" high when I went to 100yds.

Last weekend, when sighting in, I was shooting some "cheap" (relative term @$17/20) US made ammo. It was definitely "mild", since the recoil was nothing like I am getting with the Yugoslavian ammo. I only had a total of 20 rounds and after getting dialed in at 25 yds and then nearly missing the paper at 100yds by being 6" above aiming point and then dialing the scope back down, I had precious few shots left to check grouping. I would say that from memory it was "dispersed" above, below and to the sides of the aiming point. I specifically used targets with the bold horizontal and vertical bars to aid in alignment of the scope, given the not so extreme magnification (2-7x33 Redfield).

During the course of last week, the Warne 1 piece steel scope base came in and I also got vertically split steel rings. Warne 1" Maxima Permanent-Attachable Weaver-Style Rings Matte Medium - MidwayUSA

I fitted it to the receiver during the week and bore sighted it the same as I had previously done by removing the bolt. The 1 piece scope base is secured with 4 screws and had no rock or wobble detectable even before it was fastened down. I did not have blue thread lock available, so I know that I will have to take it off to install the thread locking compound at some point in the future. Same with the trigger adjustment screws.

So in going over the process when I got to the range, the first thing was to set up at the 25 range, set up my targets and check how well things were dialed in. I was initially high by about 4.5" and slightly right, so I made some corrective adjustments. Then I confirmed that I was just above center (I was told that theoretically I should be sighting about 2" high at 25yds, but do to the experience with being high at 100yds with this rifle, I was sighting in about 1" high, not 2.

Then I went to the 100yd range and tried for the center of the target to see if I was on the paper. I was, but it was about 4.5" above point of aim and slightly right. Got the scoped dialed down about 16 clicks and I was now hitting above and below point of aim. I went down and set up 2 new targets to look at grouping. Because of the lousy grouping after making the scope adjustments, I decided to remove the muzzle break, in case it was a contributing factor. With the brake removed, I made no adjustment to the scope and was just interested in how the rifle grouped. Needless to say, I was very disappointed. This was after I had made the trigger adjustments on Saturday that had brought down the trigger pull to something closer to 3lb, where it was previously 8-9lb.

1 thing I failed to mention, was that I cleaned the bore with hoppes #9 before I shot the last batch of targets. I had fired about 30 rounds up to that point and wanted to start with a clean bore. After running the bore mop through several strokes I used a series of patches until they came out clean, then a patch saturated with Remoil, followed by more dry patches until they came out without any noticeable residue. I do believe that the first round out the bore was the one closest to the point of aim and the more rounds that followed, the higher they seemed to go. Why should that be ?