When Estonia received a large influx of small arms from Sweden they got both regular AK4 rifles (Sweden’s version of the G3) and scoped DMR models. The standard Estonian infantry squad had nine riflemen and one designated marksman, and the scoped G3s became a large part of the DMR armament as the AK4 TP (“Täitsa Pask” – Precision Rifle), replacing the rather disastrous M14TP. Some time between about 2004 and 2010, Estonia updated these rifles with new Magpul stocks and QD Versapod bipods. The scopes were the original Hensoldt 4x scopes used on most G3 variants worldwide. These have since been replaced by new LMT R20L DMRs.
Thanks to the Supply Battalion of the Estonian Defense Forces Support Command for giving me access to film this rifle!
Other Estonian sniper and DMR rifles:
1930s Bolt Action snipers – https://youtu.be/UnsGOr8FT_I
M14 TP – https://youtu.be/u7nXaJA6ero
M14 TP2 – https://youtu.be/VPqPVgXkKvA
R20L Rahe – https://youtu.be/Hz0wBYQG6-A
Love the (Redneck) black tape fix on the scope and sling.
What you’re seeing there is the “lived reality” of actual small arms in the field.
You see pristine stuff, “as issued”? You’re almost certainly looking at a curated object that is more theoretical than real. The actual artifact, used in the field? There will have been modifications, adaptations, personalizations made.
One of my major beefs with the “powers that be” in the small arms procurement world is that they’re usually oblivious to the sort of things that real soldiers actually do with real weapons, out in the field.
My favorite example is the M16 sling swivel system. What the actual F*CK did they think people were going to do with a parade-ground sling? Especially with the pencil-barrel on the old M16A1-series weapons? You go to do the “lock in with sling” thing, and you change your impact with zeroing such that the rifle can become nearly useless for accuracy until and unless you “lock-in” again with the sling. Which is something that you don’t really figure out until you’re the guy trying to figure out why your exquisitely zeroed weapon won’t hit anything reliably unless you have that same “lock-in” you used while zeroing. Some rifles don’t exhibit that issue, some do; I suspect there’s something about the barrel wear or something. Or, just the vagaries of mass-produced barrels…
Almost nobody ever carried an M16-series rifle in the field with that parade sling arrangement. We always had to improvise some BS, usually with 550 cord or the issued top sling adapter kit, which never should have ever been a “thing” in the first damn place.
Sometime in the 1990s, after seeing and experiencing the L85 sling, which was about the only thing on that rifle worth a damn, I came up with a similar rig for my rifle. Which was a huge pain-in-the-ass, because I had to take it out of the pouch I kept it in on my web gear, put it on my rifle as it came out of the Arms Room, and then put the issue POS sling in the pouch for the duration of whatever I was doing. I believe that that rig later became what they termed a “3-point sling”, and it wasn’t until the 2000s that the Army finally got around to issuing a plethora of options for that issue, mostly local-purchase off the civilian market.
And, at no time have any of the jackasses involved in procurement actually gone back and revised the sling swivel system on the M16 series rifles. Which they never should have had on there, in the first damn place… Unless you’re firing a heavy barrel that won’t be warped by locking-in the sling, or have a free-float handguard on the rifle, you’ve no business using a locked-in sling… Most of the issue rifles I’ve seen and fired exhibited extreme differences between “locked-in zero” and “normal zero”, to the point where you couldn’t rely on hitting with the rifle unless you “locked-in” just so, precisely as you zeroed. I know a lot of Marines will tell you otherwise, but that was my experience with the rifle over the years. It was also a factor in my former Marine-trained guys being unable to qualify on an Army pop-up range… They would zero, with all the time in the world to make their shots, using a locked-in technique. Then, on the timed pop-up targets for Army qualification, they wouldn’t have the time to make those exquisitely perfect positional shots on every target during the exposure window, and they’d wind up hitting nowhere near enough targets to even qualify. Let alone the “high Expert” they’d consistently demonstrated in the Marine Corps.
If you’re doing Army qualification during my years of service, “Perfect” was definitely the enemy of “good enough”.
Rant mode off. Someone in small arms procurement should definitely be looking at the “lived life” of the small arms they buy, and then make the modifications that are indicated by how real soldiers actually use the weapons.
Should definately promote Kirk eh, to something… In overall charge, of like stuff; to do with guns in the U.S military. Pearl habour might happen again.
Kirk, do a pattern of those FW combats in Kim jong camo; and you could go to Dprk and sort out their army etc gunwise like a 19th c adventurer he he.
Aye you can wear kim jong tartan, he he.
I’d wind up burned at the stake by all the various “unions” within the services.
Oh well, pearl harbour will probably happen again; move to Trinidad or something feck em, listen to Bob Marley all day drink rum; shit happens.
Unless a rifle has a free-floated barrel, the “locked-in” sling will inevitably shift PoI. I learned that with high-S/N M1903s and any and all M1 Garands, many a moon ago.
With M14s it was hard to tell because they had wandering “zeroes” to begin with. Ditto Ruger Mini-14s. (Waiting for the howls of indignation from the “Everything Ruger Is Perfect” crowd…)
I’ve seen M16s and civilian AR variants (especially Colt Sporters, very especially the Sporter Lightweights) with the barrels misaligned at the barrel nut as a result of “locked sling” shooting. As in, the nut off-center on the aluminum upper receiver. And that’s even assuming the barrel isn’t bent or distorted, which with the lightweight 1:12″ barrel it often is after that kind of abuse.
Among bolt-actions, the Savage 110 series must, must have a free-floated barrel. Otherwise any sort of “locked sling” turns it into a blunderbuss.
Back in the Eighties and Nineties, when QC at Savage truly/madly/deeply sucked, I found 110s “off the shelf” with supposedly free-floated barrels on which bedding compound had been allowed to run into the barrel channel and harden, resulting in the barrel being firmly epoxied to one side of the forestock for its entire free-float length. Imagine trying to “zero” that.
Mark me down as not an enthusiast of the “locked sling”. Sorry, but there it is.
clear ether
eon
I was once a “true believer” in the cult of “locked-in”. Then, I noted that getting into that position took a lot of time, time that wasn’t ever really available in a dynamic tactical situation.
Also noted that zeroing in a “locked-in” mode left the rifle invariably “differently zeroed” in any other mode, and made the obvious inference that locked-in=can’t hit sh*t when not locked-in.
All respect to the various Marine-trained types out there, but… Man. Unless you’re going to be shooting from something with a truly free-floated barrel, don’t do anything more than rest the damn handguards on something. I’ve encountered issue rifles whose zeroes would shift if you pulled back on something like a forward pistol grip.
It’s also why I really like the idea of the monolithic uppers put out by LMT and Colt Canada. It’s difficult to do anything to those, to shift zero…
As an aside…
I think that if you’re designing a rifle for combat, and that if there’s anything you can do while shooting it that will change the PoI, then maybe you’ve failed as a designer…
Just sayin’, ya know?
It’d be nice if everything shot to point-of-aim, without fail. And, that’s what you should strive for; if heat buildup or sling tension changes that? You should not pass “GO”, and your rifle should not pass into production.
Of course, if you’re simply arming a rabble whose sole purpose is to pump lead into the air, your considerations may be slightly different. Kalishnikov, I’m looking at you… All too many of the AK examples I’ve handled have been shiite for actual accuracy and consistency in hitting PoA. With the exception of the Valmet examples, which have universally been frighteningly accurate, even better than a bog-standard M16.
I honestly don’t know how the hell Valmet got that dinky little barrel and sheet-metal receiver to hit so consistently at range, but the example I had and which my Marine Sniper-trained buddy shot the snot out of…? It was a more accurate rifle than any of our issue M16A2 rifles we had access to. It’s possible that the mere act of stamping “Made in Finland” on something somehow attracts the accuracy fairies, or something… I dunno. I just know that ever POS Russian or Soviet rifle the Finns ever got their hands on to work their magic over was exponentially a better-hitting rifle than that same basic mechanism in the hands of the Russians or the Soviets.
I have zero explanation. The Finnish “accuracy fairy” idea is the only thing that really comes to mind…
Finnish lady schoolteacher I met once when I was in HS was a sniper in their reserves. Her favorite rifle? The Valmet-modified Mosin-Nagant 91/30.
It looked just like the Russian sniper version on the outside but it was a whole different thing inside. No “set” trigger, just two roller bearings in-between trigger and sear resulting in a consistent 2 kg pull with the proverbial “breaking glass” release.
Barrel fire-lapped and chamber recontoured to their spec for 7.62 x 53Rmm (their term), not the Russian standard. The telescopic sight was rebuilt with lenses ground at Valmet on machinery bought from Zeiss in Germany.
If it didn’t consistently put five rounds loaded from the magazine into 10 cm at 250 meters, it was rejected. She called that “acceptable battlefield accuracy”, meaning “good enough to get the job done”.
And it had to do the same at 100 meters using the iron sights.
She commented that a true Finn could recognize a Russian at 200 meters over open sights.
I resolved then and there never to annoy a Finnish woman.
clear ether
eon
There is something in the Finnish national character that leads me to believe that messing with them on any level is a bona-fide “Really Bad Idea(tm)”.
There’s an inherited monomania about Russians that is just… Striking. I think they had a similar problem with Swedes, when the Swedish ilk were their overlords, but it wasn’t nearly as bad. Likely, because the Swedes didn’t do the things that the Russians did, and they didn’t make the habit of selling blondish slaves south the way that the Russians did.
I still remember the way our Finnish exchange student’s eyes lit up, when discussing the killing of Russians and Communists. Petri was this big rolly-polly type of guy, totally breaking the stereotype people had of dour Finns; he was just a happy-friendly sort, willing to help anyone with anything. Charming guy… We got into a unit about the Winter War during our World History class, and… Jesus. It was like watching a kitten morph into a Siberian tiger. You could feel the vibes from across the classroom, just waves of anti-Russian/Communist hatred coming off of his little corner. It was physically disturbing, and lasted for the entirety of the time we did WWII. After those units were over, it gradually subsided and it went back to normal. I mean, he literally seethed the entire time, and I’m pretty sure that if there had been such a thing as a “Russian Exchange Student” around us at that time, well… There’d have been blood.
Later found out that Petri went home and wound up doing his national service in the Border Guard, winding up in some elite patrol outfit. You’d have never guessed it from the way he was in high school; if I’d had to pick out a celebrity match for him, it would have been Chris Farley; same vibes, same sort of Kavorka Man attraction for the girls. Outside of those weeks during which he’d been seething Murder Man about the Russians, he was literally dripping with the ladies, who he was also too shy to even talk to a lot of the time.
My Mom met him once, and remarked that he was “…just like the Finnish boys I grew up with…” in her part of rural Oregon. So, I think it’s safe to assume he was stereotype-compliant.
I will tell you the Finnish secret: it involves all the tooling being hand-carved with a puukko knife inside of a sauna. It’s the only way to make it work