At the range today - K.Kale & Ishapor

cavetech

cavetech

Joined
Nov 25, 2005
Messages
760
This past week I was busy dissassembling and reassembling my new Turkish K. Kale Mauser and Ishapor Enfield for cosmolene removal and detailed inspection..

I finished them both this morning and headed for the range where I fired the heck out of both of them and ran tests on three different brands of 8MM ammo.

Since I had the range to myself I took photos (nobody there = I wasn't embarrassed taking pictures).

Since I had a lot of photos and information I was stumped how to share it with my friends here. So I made a new page on my hobby website to present it all. I am not selling anything and hope this is taken in the spirit of just wanting to share my time at the range and present some interesting (to me) photos.

If you'd like to see it this is a link to that page.
http://www.myownplace.us/at_the_range.htm

It is just my hobby site, nothing much and not pretty. There are no ads or spam. Please ignore every thing but the one page titled At The Range.
 
It always does my heart good to hear of old service weapons fired again. Never been in the Service; but I like to think the truest service is to an armed and free civilian population. Fire away. I know Rusty would approve.

Your groups with the mauser were very similar to each other. That is very interesting. Much the same event is occuring each shot. Consistant.

munk
 
I enjoy collecting old military firearms because of their link to history. They have real meaning to me. Beyond that is my curiosity about them and why they were great. Were they accurate, did they work well, how are they made?

Selecting what to buy and returning it to good serviceable condition is a lot of fun. If it wasn't for cosmolene I probably would never take firearms completely apart. If it wasn't for the terrific information on the internet I'd never have the ability to put them back together again.

Collecting and learning about firearms is as much fun as knife and sheath making. I'm often torn between the two and they have overlapping fields like metal and wood working.
 
When I discovered arms, it was in the military surplus world first. I miss /I]the smell of cosmoline. I liked the adventure. Opening up and restoring a forgotten beauty was a lot of fun.



munk
 
munk said:
When I discovered arms, it was in the military surplus world first. I miss /I]the smell of cosmoline. I liked the adventure. Opening up and restoring a forgotten beauty was a lot of fun.
munk
Click to expand...


Come on over and visit. I have a few that need cosmolene removal and then we can hit the range. Pick your choice of firearms. I've plenty of ammo and I promise a good time will be had by all in a country location.

It is a good way to forget about time. When you've had enough fun, it's simply time to go. That's the way it is every time for me at the range. I arrive and I leave at some vague undertermined time. In between I have a purpose or mission if you will that says first enjoy what you are shooting and second to learn about what you are shooting. Thirdly, at some point you will just feel it's time to call it a day and go find a big cold drink and reflect upon what you have learned on the drive home.

Sometimes you are just happy with a gun. Other times you learn to respect and even admire a particular gun and it makes you rethink your previous stance about guns. Some guns can devastate and area with fire under 100 yards very effectively. Others can reach out much farther and instill a feeling of satisfaction and invincibility to the shooter.

In the end it is good clean outdoors fun and the learning about a military firearm and it's characteristics that win the day. I like to head home with a well sighted in rifle, familiar with how it shoots and having the knowledge of what round shoots best in that gun.

It's just good clean outdoors fun. The only competition is against yourself or against different ammo. But, if chaos should strike some day you know you can handle it.

I love this stuff.
 
That's right, that's right.

It's all good clean fun.

I miss those days!


munk
 
Steve

Thanks for sharing your range experiences & observations with us. As a (very) long-time fan of mil-surp weapons I especially appreciated your extensive photos and your comments re accuracy and amunition quality.
IMHO you really got your moneys worth with the Turkish Mauser. Looks good and accurate too! Best thing about mil-surps (after their rugged reliability) is the amazing value for the money. The beautiful machine work on the pre-WWII
examples doesn't hurt anything either.

gyr
 
Two of my first guns as a kid were a 94 Swedish Mauser and an M1 Carbine. Before I ever had a .22, so I'm with you:thumbup:

My computer is terribly slow at home so I'll check out the pics tomorrow.

You are motivating me to pull out one of my surplus guns and shoot it today. Did shoot some yesterday, but it was my new Blackhawk in .45 long Colt. I got the .45 acp cylinder too.:D
 
Thank you for the kind words. I tried to share my day shooting and some info that came out of it. Mil-surp guns are very interesting and a link to history.

HD, go shoot your mil-surp and stop back and share your experience about it. I'd like to know! Hope you get a kick out of the pictures tomorrow. The Blackhawks are great handguns. I had one in .44 mag and really liked it. The bad news is it was one of four handguns stolen from my gunroom many years ago.
 
I shot the blackhawks again cause they were down.

I've been really wanting to shoot my M38 again but I have to get it out of the safe and there was a lot of traffic on the road today so I held back and didn't break out the window rattler.

Actually I have a range across the road in the woods I could have shot it at but I need to weed eat it. Maybe this week and then I'll SKS and M38 next weekend:thumbup: :rolleyes:

That's too bad about those guns getting ripped off. I've had a lot of fun with mine.
 
Good stuff and well-met, Steve. :thumbup:

I got range time today!

Shot a $69 Lee-Enfield Mk. 4 No. (didn't blow up, either :D ) hard-chrome M44 (don't mind my shiny bayonet, neighbor) and an SKS paratrooper.

Was getting light primer strikes on the Wolf Military Classic 7.62x39, but I think it's the Paratrooper, a new trade. Probably needs a firing pin. That ammo worked OK in an AK not long ago.

Enfields are a blast. I overlooked them while vacuuming up cheap Mosins and Mausers; I was wrong. Absolutely the fastest bolt of the 3.

When you consider that any decent pistol these days is like $500-600, the milsurps really shine.

Turk Mauser $69. SMLE $69. I even got a fuggly K31 for $69 (which became a beauty later).

Steve said these rifles are like having a library; that's a great analogy. Because you can pull one of these out and it'll talk to you.

El Alamein. Stalingrad. Cherkassy, Prague, Warsaw; who knows?

Like a great book, these rifles tell a story.


Mike
 
A link to the past. A very functional link, in most cases. I personally enjoy experiencing how things were done before my time, for my own education if nothing else. There's also a certain pride of ownership that comes with the milsurps, believe it or not -- a weapon cannot be made to this standard and sold at the same price today, period. (The taxpayers of the originating country took care of that for us.) Some would argue that such a weapon could not be made to this standard commercially today, period. Back then, steel was expensive and labor was cheap. Today it is the other way around...or rather, both are expensive.

It's wonderful to see an old warhorse come out of the box and transform itself from a discarded relic to a rifle again under a careful hand. Kind of like a second lease on life, no? And who doesn't want to live forever?
 
AA - I've had very good luck with Wolf Military Classic in 3-4 different types of rifles. I'd kind of suspect your firing pin or spring. Or crud in the bolt.

A No 4 Enfield is also on my short list. I like the rear sight back over the action. When I went to fire my Ishapore I was biased against the bolt cocking on closing. Working the bolt at home annoyed me. After shooting it a bit I discovered I didn't notice the cocking on closing because I had to push forward on the bolt to strip a round out og the magazine and into battery. I lost my bias against the cocking on closing. Sweet rifles.

Dave - I feel the same way about these older weapons. For the most part they are well made and dependable. Most feel good in your hands and their function can't be denied.

If only they could talk, I'd like to listen.
 
I've heard a lot of folks knock Wolf but I have been really impressed with all of it that I have shot.:thumbup:
 
All the Wolf I have shot has been fine, a couple of mis-fires, but for the cost difference I can live with it.

Dick
 
The Wolff ammo is fine, guys; the SKS paratrooper was Bubba'ed and I am in the process of rescuing it. :foot: It dosen't jam but does throw the 10th live round right out with no. 9's brass. Still trying to figure that one out.

Will try a firing pin from another Chicom SKS.

Traded my neighbor a Yugo 59/66 for the more-rare Paratrooper: I got the better end of the deal... in theory.

On the bright side, how hard can it be to fix an SKS?


Mike
 
I use Wolf Hollowpoints for my Romy AK. Its AK accurate for the money and I've found it good and reliable.

Bob
 
Ad Astra said:
The Wolff ammo is fine, guys; the SKS paratrooper was Bubba'ed and I am in the process of rescuing it. :foot: It dosen't jam but does throw the 10th live round right out with no. 9's brass. Still trying to figure that one out.

Will try a firing pin from another Chicom SKS.

Traded my neighbor a Yugo 59/66 for the more-rare Paratrooper: I got the better end of the deal... in theory.

On the bright side, how hard can it be to fix an SKS?


Mike
Click to expand...

I don't understand it but a new bolt solved a lot of the problems my Albanian was having.
 
Fortunately SKS parts are plentiful

Did you have to do anything about headspacing with the SKS bolt swap?
 
I have a new unissued RFI (Rifle Factory Ishapor) bayonet. I just need the rifle to fit it. Good website and pictures.
 
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