Meanwhile back in Finland...

[janfred]

I don't know. I quite like the look.

[AK-Gunner]

Time flies, a lot of things have happened, work, taking care of family matters, more work...

Yet another instructor gig completed, this time the agenda was comms and situational awareness in team tactics. Always interesting and always useful since you can not know what you don't know thus clear and timely communications is a must not only for the team but for the C2 ops center. There's not always an eye in the sky, so you still need to be able to give old fashioned sitreps during the mission to keep those in command on the map.


The gig was a good opportunity to take some of my guns to the range and I did participate with the action with the troops. Oh my poor knees again, but it's worth it...



Did have a chance to go for a hunting trip with my son who's been very busy running his video-game programming start-up company: a very welcome break from the routines to him and the best possible quality time together for both of us The whole process is so much more than the actual hunt as all of you hunters very well know. Once again, lots of new shared memories and stories to tell.





After taking that previous picture we walked about 50 meters to the opening ahead of us and a hazel Grouse jumped in the air. It made an extremely tasty basis for a meal later in the evening back at the cabin.




Since the winter is coming to the north evenings are getting darker and darker and this time of year it's almost all the time cloudy hence no ambient light in my rural area. I do have WMLs for my rifles and pistols, but not for my shotguns. Until I scouted my magical-mystical stash of gunthings and found a cheap aluminium WML mount I had bought from a gun show decades ago and a Fenix WML with a remote switch, previously attached to one of my ARs. Looks quite cool on the short shottie and is easy to operate. I tested the combination with a dozen of slugs and the contraption seems to hold together just fine









While using my favourite SD shotgun ammo Hornady TAP Reduced Recoil double-ought buckshots, a shottie with no buttstock is fully manageable and easy to aim with no fear for hitting yourself in the face with a recoiling shotgun, but is in extremely close quarters much more convenient than one with a stock extended.





Did I say winter is coming?



Keeping that in mind, me and my family were about to visit my wife's birth home up in the Central Finland where there was already snow all over and icy roads, so I thought while I'm at it, it might be best to change winter tires to my bakkie and my wife's and my son's car. Dammit I must be getting old since after the task was done I felt like I had been hit by a bus. But then again, during the process I did encounter a couple of extra variables like... since I was changing the tires I'd better unstuck the stuck hand brake lever inside the drum and I might as well change the brake shoes as well. Lucky me I bought me a new drum just in case the old one wouldn't budge...



...well, it didn't. Lucky me again, I've got an angle grinder... and time.




Pure rage and a 10 kg sledgehammer was needed before the face of the drum would unstuck itself...



That was the "easy" part, now about that hand brake lever...



It's made of aluminium and as such very easy to break, which meant since I didn't have a spare available it took a better part of an hour to remove it with a hammer, brass chisel, a collection of metal parts with an angled shape. Should've taken an instructional video but long story short I got the thing out without breaking it and then checked it for damage: why was it stuck?

As I said it's made of aluminium and its axle is basically iron. No problem there. Until you introduce the substance that is poured by fucktons on the Finnish roads every winter: salt. Salt melts ice to a point until it's too cold, but aluminium+iron+salty water = electric pair => aluminium oxidation. There was a super hard layer of aluminium oxide between the lever and its axle, a layer which I tried to remove first with sanding paper.



No joy, had to use a round file and lots of elbow grease to make the inner surface smooth again. I applied some high pressure grease inside the lever, put the Humpty-Dumpty back together and after another day's work I had the brake drum back in working condition.

Woohoo!



After this I went to the other side to just to change the tire and ran into another variable... like a chassis just about to break in two pieces...

No woohoo at this very moment... >SIGH!<


...which I naturally had to weld in rain while the temperature was three degrees above freezing.







The water was just a bit slow, not frozen...



My goal was to change also the other brake drum, better have two new ones and so I did. Didn't have to break anything this time but it was a lengthy procedure once again. No mercy for the wicked, they say.


Finally after three days of work I was finally finished with my vehicular to-do list and I might've thought to myself "it sucks to be a DIY guy..." but then again, I saved a hefty sum of money while making me feel like I really was hit by a bus. I think it's worth the pain and suffering.


When we finally got to Central Finland, it wasn't all grey, rain and cold, it was momentarily quite pretty even if it was a bit chilly...

Photo by my lovely stepdaughter.



On a brighter note balancing my sore everything, I've had my chances to bring a gun and hope no animals bother me while I read another book...



...and to scout for interesting pieces of kit available on the market, like these three original Sako synthetic AK magazines manufactured in the late 1990s, NOS quality never been used, alas 50€/R880 a piece.



They are a very rare find today and they won't get any cheaper than that, so I'm happy with my score. Why so interested in them? As you may have noticed I don't have any plastic 30 round magazines for my AK. Why? Because they are unreliable or almost impossible to insert smoothly or their mechanical lifespan is very poor. I do not accept magazine induced failures with an AK because if clean, the original steel magazines will never fail you unless you manage to bend their lips. Every plastic AK mag I've seen causes problems at least occasionally seemingly without an apparent reason which is too often to my standards. Once in a lifetime is too often for me. I'd rather carry more weight than carry crappy mags. But there is an exception.

The black Sako production run magazines, they are the only AK polymer mags as reliable as the steel ones I know to exist. I know, sounds like a Finn is being overly patriotic but this is based on a huge amount of hours with different AK version with different magazines, not just my observation but also based on countless assessments by my peers in the business of training to hurt people and those in the active duty teams. Disclaimer: I do like to use Magpul mags with my ARs though, because they work as well as Sako mags with an AK.

A rather hasty and bouncy recap, I know, but maybe things will calm down a bit soon and I'll have the time to tell a story or two

[AK-Gunner]

Today I wanted to sight in my Colt Match Target HB rifle, but did not want to go to the range just for a few minutes chore...

Shooting at your backyard isn't more than it sounds, go out and kill something edible or shoot at targets, but zeroing in a rifle? That's something where you usually need a longer range, unless you want to accomplish a battlesight zero for your fighting gun. Knowing your weapon's bullet trajectory you can get your rifle zeroed in well enough to be able to hit a man in his chest as far as you can actually see the poor guy who's next birthday you might need to cancel. Or you have a standard weapon shooting standard ammunition and a standard target with instructions.

Like me shooting at a standard M16A2 25m Zeroing Target which comes with instructions printed on it. Could not really be easier than this. There are such targets for M16A1 and 14.5" barrel M4, all easily found in the Internets by using your favourite search engine.




Enter my 25 meter rifle range for today, it didn't rain but you almost could drink the air.

Only a garden stool to sit on is missing from this eerie late autumn picture...



The target setup was like this, the Hardox steel silhouette acted as a backstop behind the paper target which got quite a bit perforated by the bullet fragments. 25 meters is a bit close for any steel...





At this range, if you center your sights you will be on the paper unless there's something profoundly wrong with your rifle. Sight centered, the first three shots were at right 7 to 8 clicks and up 8 to 9. This is when I adjusted just the elevation 8 clicks down. The second group was at an almost perfect elevation, now I adjusted the rear sight to the left. This is when my old-man eyesight started to act up and I had to change my POA to the bottom of the black silhouette (yes, I was shooting with my reading glasses on to be able to see the front sight clearly) thus the POI moved a bit low. I shot another group of three, so there's six bullet holes on that lowest group. Gave the rear sight a final adjustment and the rifle is ready for... a battle? Well, two weeks from now I'll be shooting on a three position match with this rifle and I think she's quite ready for the action




Late autumn tends to be quite often wet and chilly, but that doesn't stop you from maintaining your readiness with your firearms by keeping on practicing regardless the weather conditions, if not more than today by first zeroing the rifle and then taking the steel target downrange to have yet another target to practice your snapshots. It's hard to see with naked eye, but there is now another steel silhouette to the left of the white one, just left of a spruce tree at 46 meters. 50 shots total fired today. Slow pace but a swift and determined execution of the shot. Hit'em like you mean it.

[nkosi]

Really enjoy your posts AK-Gunner but from your post about hunting birds with rifles onwards, most of your photos are not in the posts, or is it just me?

[AK-Gunner]

Really enjoy your posts AK-Gunner but from your post about hunting birds with rifles onwards, most of your photos are not in the posts, or is it just me?

Darn, it must be because my photos are not behind a secure https site: many browsers by default block showing either mixed contents of insecure contents unless you make an exception for www.gunsite.co.za site in the browser settings. I'm looking for a new secure home for my photos because of this phenomenon.

[matswane]

I can see any other pics posted on this forum, just not yours which is a pity because as nkosi said, I too really enjoy your posts

[Texasproud]

I see AK’s pictures fine. It’s most of the others I don’t see.

[AK-Gunner]

Well....this is a problem since I have posted almost one thousand pictures in here.

>SIGH<

[AK-Gunner]

An easy fix is to (depending on your browser) click on the lock symbol at the address bar and select "Site settings". From the settings you should change "Insecure content" or "mixed contents" to "allow" after which you will see all links to pictures on this site.

Just as a side not, I already took some screen shots and was ready to post them as a guide for allowing mixed contests and then I realized that those I would be talking to wouldn't actually see those pictures...

[nkosi]

An easy fix is to (depending on your browser) click on the lock symbol at the address bar and select "Site settings". From the settings you should change "Insecure content" or "mixed contents" to "allow" after which you will see all links to pictures on this site.

Just as a side not, I already took some screen shots and was ready to post them as a guide for allowing mixed contests and then I realized that those I would be talking to wouldn't actually see those pictures...

Thanks, it works I was partially blinded but now I see fully.

Nice photos.