A day off work and on the range (includes links to vids)

There are only three drawbacks to owning machine guns. 1: The price. Supply & demand and all that. 2: The tax stamp. We didn't like them in 1765 and I don't like them now. And 3: There just aren't enough places to exercise them. It gets danged frustrating have all that brass-spewing potential at your fingertip and no place to let it rip.

As for me, my in-laws have a good sized dairy farm upstate with enough land that I can shoot what I want. But that's a 5 hour drive, so I don't get up there very often. I mentioned this to a guy I work with and he mentioned a place about an hour away––the "Burma Road" range. I looked into it and was told it's on abandoned coal mine property and is completely unregulated––an assertion supported by comments I found on the Pennsylvania Zombie Response Team website:

"Burma sure is an interesting place to shoot. If i wanna relieve some stress i head up there with tanerite. If i am doing any kind of civilized shooting i usually opt for a more quiet range."

"Go east on burma...Maybe 2-3 miles. You will see on the right side of the road what appears to be a apocalyptic wasteland that should of been condemned years ago. You will know you are there when you get out of your car and step 50 years of broken beer bottles. Expect lots of interesting targets! dont say i didnt warn you. 90% of my experiences there have been great. Again this is not a quiet day on the range where you can hone your precision shooting skills with no distractions. Expect a fairly large group on the weekend, and hope they arent totally hammered!"

"The Berma tends to fill up pretty quickly, especially on the weekends. Last time i was there two guys were throwing beer cans in the air and trying to shoot them like clays. I think i am done going there for a while."

"oh i'm sure youll meet a lot of ppl there ... keep an eye out for the really old guy 65-75 he has a trunk full of nfa goodies that he'll let you shoot.. tons of fun...i have seen .50 cal there, 1919's (tripod mounted of courseTongue), a lot of full auto and suppressed and a lot of interesting targets"

OK. I'm no cowboy, but come on. Who can resist at least checking out a place like that?
My co-worker suggested we go up on a weekday to avoid the crowd, so on Thursday, I took a vacation day. (Tip: When you tell your boss you're taking a day off and she says, "I'll believe it when I see it," you're probably overdue for a day off.)

My co-worker and I, our sons and one of his neighbors piled into a couple trucks and here's what we found at around 0930 on a weekday, along the Burma Road...



I was pleased to find an actual firing line with some basic wooden tables, but that's the extent of the niceties. There are no target frames, no marked distances, etc. Just an open pit area with a two-tiered berm. We were disappointed to see the longest safe shot was only about 150 yds, but at least we had the place to ourselves.

As for targets, there is a lot of garbage on the ground. Tin cans, bottles, cinder blocks, and the ever-popular propane tanks. Problem is, everything is so shot up that it's actually more air than substance. Take a shot at something like this, and there's a good chance the bullet will go straight through without touching any metal.



What the heck. The weather was beautiful, we were off work, and we had about as many weapons and as much ammo as we could handle.
Life was good.

My buddy and his neighbor brought along a nice assortment of toys, even though most aren't retro.



Mine, naturally, reflect the tastes of an old gunner.



The rule was everyone had to shoot everything we brought, so no one got bored.









But by far, the most popular rifle was the 601. This is #748, but I dressed her in green for the day and topped her extra upper with the Delft scope.



And, yes, we enjoyed the chance to use the extra selector position.



This was also the first chance I've had to test my latest AR10 and it ran like a champ. It's a bit more of a challenge to control than the AR15, but from the bipod, it's actually pretty manageable.



Here are a couple very brief video clips if you're interested.

My oldest boy, playing with the 601...

...and with the AR10.

OK, so next time I visit the Burma Road, I'll take some portable target frames. As much fun as it is to just blast away, I do enjoy shooting for tight groups. And I'll probably take fewer guns. The variety is nice, but the post-session gun cleaning is a real pain.

But in all, the day's shooting beat the hell out of being in the office. I definitely need to do that more often!

Well I knew from your posts you had the selective fire AR10 (looks like she runs very well) but I didn't know you had two ol' tens. They are real beauties. Where did you get you get such fine buttstocks and buttplates? Also, the handguards on "number two" look a bit lighter in color. Refurbs by any chance? Either way, words cannot describe the beauty of these brown rifles. Thanks for the post.

email sent

Very nice Olgunner,,looks like a blast.(pun intended). Hey I gotta ask,you being "olskool" like me.. That M14 (clone?) your buddy brought,with the new fangled stock on it. Did you shoot it?How did you like the feel of it.I'm baffled as to why anyone would take a sexy battle rifle and install it in one of dem der tings.. So,asking for your thoughts.
And as the old saying goes,,,"Wish I was there"!
ETA,,is that you shooting the .50? If yes,please,more details about it.

Very nice guns.

20 rounds doesn't last long in an AR-10 does it.

Happy Switch....

(Maniacal laughter)


Schweet!

I think the 601 would be my favorite too. ......maybe someday....(semi auto of course )

SO, who's the old fat guy badass with his hat on backwards shooting the Barrett?

Fixed it. Sorry.

Both of those rifles came complete and had decent furniture. The light-colored handguards are not the ones that came on that rifle, though. The originals are with another member here who is working on replicating them. But through another member, I recently acquired this lighter pair. They are originals, but the previous owner stripped the cosmoline from them before passing them along and I assume whatever he used to clean them bleached the surface a bit. I'm guessing they'll darken up with use.

Yeah, that's me on my buddy's Barrett––a rifle everyone should shoot at least once. We were a little disappointed that there wasn't anyplace to stretch the range, but since he lugged the thing along, we felt obligated to launch a few missiles. I believe it's a Model 99 (?) and definitely not something you'd want to carry very far. The mass, though, definitely helps soften the recoil (and there's plenty to soften).
View through the Millet scope was clear, but at that short range on a sunny range, pretty much any glass would have looked fine. The trigger pull was much longer than I expected––a significant amount of take-up––but the final break was a crisp click. There was practically no stop between the first and second stages––just take-up, take-up and click.

Now, I'm a pretty big boy (as Morg308 was kind enough to point out) and I have a good bit of trigger time behind me. I know how to shoot heavy-recoiling rifles and was prepared for this one...sort of.
Stable seated position, forward stance, stock firmly in the pocket...but remember, you're sending 660+ grains of lead at something like 2700fps.
The recoil isn't "sharp" but it is heavy. See the space between the scope and my eye? In full recoil, that gap disappears. The scope actually touched my glasses (just barely) on the first shot.

What was really interesting, though, was standing nearby when someone else was shooting the thing. That monster of a muzzle brake directs a LOT of gas back and to both sides. Stand within maybe 10 feet of the rifle at one of those angles and each shot feels like someone is slapping you hard in the chest.
Even if you're not in the blast zone, it gets your attention. You can be several stations away, focused on your front sight and working the trigger and when the .50bmg goes off, you will be distracted!

As for the M1A, the Sage EBR chassis (I guess I shouldn't call it just a "stock") is a very nice piece of engineering. It's adjustable where it needs to be adjustable and locks up pretty tight when fully extended. In all, it's a very solid piece of kit.
It's not lightweight but there are plenty of places to hang a sling so it probably wouldn't be too bad to carry.

Of course, you need to enjoy rails to truly appreciate it, and I must admit––my favorite thing about that particular chassis is that it displaced a very nice multi-colored stock with excellent crossed-cannons and "P" cartouches. Since he didn't need that nasty old chunk of wood, he swapped it for a couple FAL mags (of which I have plenty). The GI stock now lives on my M1A Loaded (below). I still need to rig a fake switch on it, and I want to swap the NM flash hider for a GI (lugged) FH milled to NM specs, but at least it's getting closer to my style.

Thanks for the "in depth" OlGunner.Always really nicely done.

that M14 Needs a lug....

Went and shot a bunch of different pistols and revolvers with and friend who has recently become "gun friendly". He picked the semi that I thought he would for home and under jacket carry. His CCW will be up to him.

Yeah, I didn't take many pics of handguns this trip but that was one of the things my boy was doing––trying to decide what he'd be most comfortable with when he turns 21 in the spring and gets his carry permit. He seems to like the 1911 in Officer's size but his views may change once he has enough holster time. The handgun is only one part of the equation. The available leather (or synthetic, if you swing that way) makes a definite difference.

He does well with my Pocketlite .380's also, which are my warm weather choice.

Encourage your friend to get out there as often as possible. There is no substitute for practice if you're keeping one for defense!

Will do this Ol Gunner. It was good to be on the range with a new friend.
Today I realized I needed alot more trigger time with my Ruger LCP. I think a ton and a half is the actual trigger pull. No wonder they don't need a safety.

whats the story on the ar10's. great looking rifles btw

If you're asking about those rifles specifically, only the OP can answer that, but here's a decent introduction to the (original) AR10:
http://www.ar10.nl/Files/Manuals/Sam Pikula/index.htm

Damn! That does look like a vast wast land!
But what a great place to lit the happy switch go!
Nice array of "toys there.
Glad to see others were able to go out and have fun this week!

Wow, I thought I liked retro - but clearly there are about 100 levels past where I am. Gotta admit though - my 601 recently finished is very fun to shoot. No FA equipment in my armory yet, but sure fun watching the videos! Thanks for sharing!

I was into 7.62 platforms (FALs and M14s) before I got into ARs. In fact, the only AR I wanted was a black A1, similar to the M16A1 the government lent me many years ago. But then Morg308 sort of got me hooked on this retro nonsense and I must admit, I went a little off the deep end (like many of you here!).

I had been considering building an AR in .308 when I saw a Gunbroker auction for an early AR10 parts kit––everything but the lower receiver. Without doing any research, I started bidding. As a dedicated retro guy, I figured, if an AR10 is good, an OLD AR10 must be even better!

Unfortunately, I would soon realize that finding a lower receiver to finish the kit is, well, damn near impossible. And while I was waiting for one to appear, I found someone selling a complete rifle on Sturmgewehr. So I bought it and kept the parts kit for...parts.

Then about 2 yrs ago, I saw this select-fire version at a machine gun show and thought about it, but passed. And then I kicked myself for the next year. till the same machine gun show came to town again. Lo and behold, the same select-fire AR10 was still available. So I chatted with the owner and, since it had been sitting in his inventory awhile, we reached a very reasonable arrangement.

So now I have the one semi-auto, one select-fire and one parts kit (which I fantasize about finishing one day).
Oh––the select fire is not all original. It's a Telko semi-auto, converted to auto.

Someday, though, I hope to add one earlier model––Sudanese or Transitional––just to experience a lightweight 7.62.

It's not cheap to shoot 7.62, but these really are my favorite rifles!

WOW Olgunner you were almost in my backyard!!!
Well not really but I hunt deer up the road from "the Burma" maybe 1/4 mile. I live about 1/2 hour away. I would have loved to come see your retros in action.
If you want I could invite you to our range. It is a little more private and a longer range than at the Burma.

im a Burma regular, maybe we can get a shoot going ?

I love that look Dylan gives the camera right after he burns through 20 rounds in the AR10. Priceless.

hey Gunner,,he's "chicken winging"!!!!!!!!!! And I thought you you were a firearms instructor.....

Still am on occasion! And with enough students behind me to know that position ain't nearly as important as most people make it out to be.
Sight alignment and trigger control, brother. Everything else is white noise!

Besides, when you're shooting serious retro...well, shoot retro!

I like the idea...I just wish I could free up more days like that! Happens way too seldom for my taste.

when ya can...

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