Finally got the 43 out to the range today. Test fired with live rounds and blanks.
This being California, the flash hider (modified by Wise Lite into a recoil booster by welding a plate to the front with a bullet sized hole in it) was not used and I got to use 10 round belts
Range control required me to start at 50 yards and then move to 100 yards when I could keep them on the paper.
To effectively use the sights, you need to lay down behind the gun and reach up with your arms to fire. The front sight post is bent to the right and I did not have a tool to turn it to a better position.
First belt was 1 round, gap, two rounds, gap and then three rounds to make sure it was not going to run away. Used both light ball and heavy ball in the tests.
First belt is shown in red.
Second belt is shown in purple: one in the X, three in the 10 ring, three in the 9 ring and three in the 8 ring.
Third group are in blue.
4th and 5th belts are in turquoise.
All in all this is far better than I shoot with a rifle.... It really helps to be able to lock every thing down and the 90 pounds combined weight plus spring-loaded mount absorbs the recoil very well.
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There were feed issues, but they seem to be related to the flexibility of the (Maxim metal) belt links. I oiled some of the 10 round belts better than others, so some were very flexible and some had stiff links. Seems that the more flexible belts fed better. The first couple of rounds in a belt sometimes threw the rest of the short belt over the top of the top cover so I would have to flip it back down.
There were a few failures to extract fully. Possibly this was because I did not have the recoil booster/flash hider on. I did not think to change the gas setting (it is set in the middle setting), so we will save that for next time
With a bit of practice and fixing the sight, I think that the gun will be pretty accurate.
The safety is annoying when firing semi auto at a range where a 2-3 second wait between rounds is required. Was not able to try to rapid fire the gun. I may make a simple on-and-off anti-safety clip to defeat the safety when firing blanks on the reenacting battlefield.
Did discover you can feed one round at a time without the belt.
Firing blanks.
Have two blank adapters from Omega Weapons Systems (with different orifice sizes. Only was able to fire with the largest one, as the other one had paint in the threads and would not go on the gun.
Blanks were special long (bullet length) blanks made for reenacting semi-autos. Short surplus blanks will not feed in this gun.
Feed was not as successful as with live rounds. There were enough failures to eject to make me think I need to boost the gas pressure, either by changing the gas setting on the gun or going to the smaller restrictor hole in the other blank adapter. I had two different types of rounds and one type did not sit correctly in the belt, so made for fed problems.
Most of the blank round front ends came out pretty mangled. Not sure what causes this, but my G43 does the same thing to its blanks.
This was my very first outing with a belt fed gun and it was fun if a little frustrating. Lots more variables than firing a K98 or Mosin Nagant.
If you have any questions, please ask.
Tim
This being California, the flash hider (modified by Wise Lite into a recoil booster by welding a plate to the front with a bullet sized hole in it) was not used and I got to use 10 round belts
Range control required me to start at 50 yards and then move to 100 yards when I could keep them on the paper.
To effectively use the sights, you need to lay down behind the gun and reach up with your arms to fire. The front sight post is bent to the right and I did not have a tool to turn it to a better position.
First belt was 1 round, gap, two rounds, gap and then three rounds to make sure it was not going to run away. Used both light ball and heavy ball in the tests.
First belt is shown in red.
Second belt is shown in purple: one in the X, three in the 10 ring, three in the 9 ring and three in the 8 ring.
Third group are in blue.
4th and 5th belts are in turquoise.
All in all this is far better than I shoot with a rifle.... It really helps to be able to lock every thing down and the 90 pounds combined weight plus spring-loaded mount absorbs the recoil very well.
There were feed issues, but they seem to be related to the flexibility of the (Maxim metal) belt links. I oiled some of the 10 round belts better than others, so some were very flexible and some had stiff links. Seems that the more flexible belts fed better. The first couple of rounds in a belt sometimes threw the rest of the short belt over the top of the top cover so I would have to flip it back down.
There were a few failures to extract fully. Possibly this was because I did not have the recoil booster/flash hider on. I did not think to change the gas setting (it is set in the middle setting), so we will save that for next time
With a bit of practice and fixing the sight, I think that the gun will be pretty accurate.
The safety is annoying when firing semi auto at a range where a 2-3 second wait between rounds is required. Was not able to try to rapid fire the gun. I may make a simple on-and-off anti-safety clip to defeat the safety when firing blanks on the reenacting battlefield.
Did discover you can feed one round at a time without the belt.
Firing blanks.
Have two blank adapters from Omega Weapons Systems (with different orifice sizes. Only was able to fire with the largest one, as the other one had paint in the threads and would not go on the gun.
Blanks were special long (bullet length) blanks made for reenacting semi-autos. Short surplus blanks will not feed in this gun.
Feed was not as successful as with live rounds. There were enough failures to eject to make me think I need to boost the gas pressure, either by changing the gas setting on the gun or going to the smaller restrictor hole in the other blank adapter. I had two different types of rounds and one type did not sit correctly in the belt, so made for fed problems.
Most of the blank round front ends came out pretty mangled. Not sure what causes this, but my G43 does the same thing to its blanks.
This was my very first outing with a belt fed gun and it was fun if a little frustrating. Lots more variables than firing a K98 or Mosin Nagant.
If you have any questions, please ask.
Tim
