Its here!!  Its here!!

I'm like a kid on Christmas morning.

A little Vepr goodness to start with...





When Atlantic Firearms announced they were going get these in, I had to get one. A couple e-mails back and forth and she was on her way. Going by the tracking info from
Fedex, thought it would get there next week, but it showed up today.  Tried out a new to me FFL holder that is a member here also.  Turns out he is less than a half mile away.
Every thing went smoothly and the dealer was talking about getting one, after seeing this one.

Initial impression: It was lighter than I thought it would be.  Thought it was going to be a heavy pig.  Its not. The stock is comfortable and looks good. The butt stock has a nice tiger stripe to it.
Metal finish is very good, except the charging handle.  The finish had been rubbed off. Looks like this happened during shipping as there is a hole in the factory box and the shipping box, where the charging handle poked through.

Here's some more  pics...

Trigger group


The gap between the gas tube and the hand guard is a bit larger on the right side.....


The bolt carrier and recoil spring are a bit different. The bolt carrier has a cut out in the top, and the recoil spring has a cover in the middle of it.





Bolt face, 7.62x54R vs .308 Saiga


Mag comparison: L to R, top to bottom ;
Vepr .308 , Vepr 7.62x54r, Saiga .308
PSL,   SVT-40,   SVD




Mag well.


How's it shoot?

Glad you asked.  Did a quick range trip, before the sun went down. Function was 100% , as you would expect.



Shot some Wolf white box 148 and MFS 174. Shot at 25 yards first to see where it was. Windage was good, but about 3 inches low.  Fired it at 100 yards, and it hit low. It took about 2 turns of the front sight post to get it to hit near the center of the target.

This first group is is Wolf 148.  Maybe a fluke. Hard to believe it would shoot like that all the time.  Will have to try again to see.


MFS 174 grain.



Was using a 6 o'clock hold on the 174 grainer's .  Recoil did not seem too bad with the 174's . Maybe more push compared to the 148's .

Had an old PSL scope on an AK clamp.  Tried it out, but got larger groups.  This was an iffy scope that gave me troubles on another AK.  Here's a pic of it anyway.



So far, I like it. Have a 6x Posp scope on the way.  Will give that a try and let you know how it goes.

What else?  Loading the single stack 5 round mags sucks. Its hard to get that big rim started, and pushed into the mag.  There is a good size fireball that comes out the barrel.  
Trigger weight was right at 5 pounds, and a little crunchy.  It seemed to smooth out as I was shooting it.  Maybe some lube worked its way into where it was needed?  
   

nice rifle!

Do PSL or SVD mags work?

This
Does it look like it would take much modification to get a PSL magazine in there?

Nevermind, finally looked at the pictures more closely, and you can tell you will need to open up the magazine well on the VEPR to fit a PSL mag in

that rifle looks REALLY accurate!

Congrats on the new stick.  Nice pics and review as well.

Looks nice. I particularly like how they built the rear of the receiver correctly instead of using "receiver extensions" like on the PSL. Assuming the receiver was properly dimpled (I'm sure it is) the VEPR's rear end should be much stronger than a PSL.

Man, I was on the fence about buying one. This isn't helping my cause...
Are u gonna put a posp onit? Let me know which one fits well. I'm thinking an 8 power or something will do good....

Also, have u tried the other surplus 148gr russian ammo? Looks like that could be a w inner...

congrats and thanks for sharing, noticed the recoil spirng actually 2 seperate springs seperated by a small spacer, and the rear spring seems to be thicker and shorter as compared to the front.  thinkin off the top of  my head maybe they could handle heavier bullets due to this, and not worry about the bolt slaming the rear trunion, as some psl owners had experience with heavier bullets.  did your vepr come with any info. covering this?  thanks

Yeah, the recoil spring does look SVD'ish. That along with the cut out in the bolt carrier seem odd. Guess they work together.  The dust cover looks just like the one for a Saiga .308. Installed the 54R cover on the Saiga and it fit fine. Engineered to use a common part?   Did not get any manual with the Vepr. It did come with a cleaning rod, black oil bottle and an AK style cleaning kit.  Gave it a cleaning and looked it over a bit more.  Checked the trigger weight again, it was right at 4.5 pounds. Nice. Sure would like to have it converted to take SVD mags. Dunno if that would be possible. As far as heavier bullets go, ran several 174 grain bullets through it and it seemed to run fine.

4.5 lb trigger on a ak platform from factory that is pretty awesome, considering your groups with the 174s at 100 yards i would say that is a good group.  could only imagine reloading with match ammo and a better mount and scope, you should be gtg  i ordered one of these when my s-vepr gets here
hard time posting a link,  but  you can find it at onesourcetactial.
manufactured by the same factory that makes Vepr rifles.  extra low profile sidmount

I tried looking up that mount but nothing comes up. You got a different sorce for them?

Keep an eye on the rear of the carrier and the rear trunnion face for wear. Supposedly, in a PSL, the carrier beats the crap out of the rear trunnion when shooting heavy ball.

i typed in, www.oncesourcetactical.com and works for me.  left side bar of site click on ak47/74 accessories should take  you to there

Here ya go!

scope mount

Great mount the Molot piece is, Kalinka was cheaper when they had them in stock.  Mine on one of my .308 Veprs:

would it do anything to accuracy to thread the barrel?

No - the bullet travels down the inside of the barrel, not the outside.



In all seriousness, there is a nearly infinite possible combination of rifles and muzzle attachments, so there is no definitive answer to the question.  Each situation would be unique to the rifle and muzzle device in question, and you also need to factor in the quality of the threading job and install as bullets striking a muzzle device is never a good thing.



Threading the barrel and adding a brake did not affect the accuracy of my .308 Vepr, although it dramatically changed the POI after the install (as one would expect).



 

Lm covered that well.  Will shoot it in stock form for awhile before doing any mods.

Very nice! The quality of the wood looks excellent. I have always had a thing for the Vepr K's but this might be a nice pickup also .

I'm curious, is the gas tube length different from a standard akm? or maybe the longer Yugo?

I'm getting a real itch to get one of these and convert it to AMK furniture, weld up the back, fab up a handguard retainer if necessary, and hopefully drop a different gas tube on it. Although I could fab up some retainers to spot weld on the original tube in a pinch. Maybe I'd even open it up to accept PSL mags, but I'd have to have one in hand before I made that decision...

It looks fine as it is, but I think it would look even better in akm form.

Without taking the gas tube out, it looks like it is 7 inches long.

Hey Hey , no comments like that .

Do you know the twist rate on it?

I do not.

I meant barrel harmonics smart ass hahaha!
I would like to see it in SVD "style" furniture or a synthetic type buttstock and handguard, I would do mine up in winter camo

Nice Vepr! As a lefty, shame it is not as left handed friendly on the butt stock. How much those this brute weight empty?

Without magazine its 8.5 pounds. Same weight as a PSL with a rubber butt pad.  Thought it was lighter than that. Guess its the way the weight is distributed?

I was surprised at how light my new .308 Vepr felt when I got it as well. Veprs are not the portly pigs many seem to think they are.



My '99 .308 Vepr weighs 11 lbs. 4 oz. with scope, bipod, and an empty mag.



My FPK/PSL weighs 11 lbs. 8 oz. with scope and empty mag (no bipod).



My M76 weighs 11 lbs. 14 oz. with scope, bipod, and an empty mag.



My Harris bipod weighs 12 ozs., so taking that off drops significant weight for the Vepr and M76.



I need to weigh my new .308 Vepr.

Ahhh crap, you might have just cost me some money...

I've been told, I'm a bad influence.

Found the manual in the shipping box. Typical broken English / Russian translation. Anyway, it states to use hunting ammunition.  Here in the USA, that means soft point ammo. Not sure that applies in Russia. If it does, the only soft point I've seen from Russia has been relatively heavy.

ya, only soft points in lightball I've seen were Romanian, and I've got a pack waiting for deer season

You definitely need to reload for this cartridge.  If it was that accurate with Wolf, imagine if you tune a load for that particular gun!  

Should be able to use .310 and maybe .311 diameter bullets.  Probably need to slug the barrel, just to be sure...

Got out to the range today, between rain showers. Got the 6x POSP roughed in. Needs a little tweak to be right on.  Here's the test rig...



Fired a few groups with Wolf White box 148.  The stock on this thing is definitely set up for  iron sight use. Way too low of a comb for scope use.  Here are two 5 round groups.



Looks like it has potential .  With a proper cheek weld, it should be easier to get good groups.

I use an ITC cheek rest with my .308 Vepr on occasion.  I get a pretty decent cheekweld without it, great cheekweld with it.



http://www.itcmarksmanship.com/c-2-itc-cheekrest.aspx

Nice. Does it stay in place well?

Absolutely.  The back of the cheek rest is made of a tacky anti-slip material.  It stays put on the stock.



 

I'd like to see the upcoming 30mm Scope mount from RS Regulate on this (the AKS not the AKM)

Ordered one of those cheek rests. Will continue accuracy testing after it gets here.

just a heads up, got an email from one source tactical as they dont carry anymore the molot side rail mount, as its no longer available from their supplier,  also checked kalinka optics and nothin.... so i just ordered the bp-02, hopefully these are good

Cheek rest got here.  With all the included pads installed, it was still too low. Messed around with it for a while, and added an SVD pad to it. Alignment to the scope is pretty good.







At the range, wind was dead calm for the first 4 rounds, then pretty much cranked up after that.  Started with the MFS 174

First group was top center.   Wind was knocking me around quite a bit after that. I let the barrel cool between groups.





Next up, Wolf.  Upper group is Black Box,  Lower is White Box.  Looks like I'm slinging one round out, on each group.




Last up 7n1. First group was fired at the center, second group at lower right. Again one round opening up the groups.  The wind started to settle down a bit.
Loaded up both mags and fired at the left two targets, without letting the barrel cool.



Looks like a keeper.

I went with the same brown suede ITS cheekrest on my .308 Vepr.  I get a really good cheekweld with it.



I know I'm not saying anything you don't already know, but unless you have some special attachment to that POSP, there are better set-ups (lower and centered) that will make for a better cheekweld.

that's alota $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$



somebody is

Can you get extra mags?

Any chance of Atlantic sourcing this furniture for the Vepr's?

can you make a full frame shot of the side mounting plate for the scope?

I mentioned in the .308 magazine thread that it would be great if someone other than Red Jacket did the conversion on the upcoming .308 VEPR.  I think the RJ version is hideous.  I doubt you'll see the furniture in your pic, since that's Robinson's, but it would be nice if someone could make a classy looking conversion.  Atlantic, are you listening???  

Hilljack will have to comment on the x54r version, but the new .308 Veprs have the latest rail on them.  Mine: