Range day!

Having nothing better to do today, I was looking through my gun room ammo storage area when I happened across an ammo can that wasn't labeled with a description of the contents, as my cans usually are. This can was on the bottom of a stack of cans, so, being the curious type, I dug it out and popped it open. Oh joy! it was chock full of 7.62x39mm ammo, all reloads that I'd put together probably a decade ago or more.

Well that called for a trip to the range.

Looking over my rack of SKS rifles, I pulled off the one pictured here. It's a Romanian model made at the Curgir factory in 1960, and it served it's Communist masters for quite some time, doing it's part for the bad guy side of the Cold War, until we won (Thank you, President Reagan!) and the Romanian government gave up Communism and sold this rifle and many others like it on the commercial market for solid western currency. I picked it up along with a few others when Aaron of The Shekel and I both went on an SKS-buying spree a few years ago. I never actually got around to shooting this one though, and it just graced my SKS rack as a historical display piece until today. It displays the typical eastern bloc craftsmanship that I've come to expect with these guns. The varnish on the wood stock has several runs indicating the level of care and quality control that went into it, the handguard and gas tube are a tad on the loose side, and the trigger is muddy and stiff but at least breaks somewhat cleanly at about 8lbs or so. A match rifle it's not.

I set up at 100 yards and fired off a few sighters. Predictably, it was off, but I knew to bring the sight-adjustment tool and with a few minor tweaks to the front sight. I got it's windage and elevation close enough to allow me to put the rounds all in the 6" five-ring. Definitely not a competition winner, but more than good enough for it's intended job. Even backing it off to 200 yards, I had no problem making every shot a simulated chest hit on the bad guy targets.

I put about 60 rounds through it, getting miffed at it's tendency to toss the brass in any and all directions. As these were nice boxer-primed cases, I wanted them all back, and this SKS made the brass pick-up into something like an easter egg hunt. But I recovered almost all of them and by the time I cased the rifle back up, I was confident that should I want to take it out again or if for some reason I need to rely on it in an emergency, it'll hit what I aim it at.