Monday 27 June 2016

Mauser vs Mosin

Recently, I posted the test results of a captured German Mauser sniper rifle. Without reposting the whole thing here, I'll point your attention to the important parts, namely the dispersion. As per tradition, the 50% radius is 3.6 cm at 100 meters, 15 cm at 300 meters, and 25.7 cm at 600 meters. These numbers don't change drastically with a scope on. Good, right? Well, "good" doesn't mean much without a basis of comparison. Let's compare it to a member of the same class, the Mosin 1891/30.

 

This is a scan from "Sharpshooter Manual, 7.62 mm rifle model 1891 with PU scope and optical devices", or more simply, a Mosin sniper rifle. The data seen here isn't too far off from data obtained from the German rifle: deviations of 5 cm at 100 meters, 14 cm at 300 meters, and 31-32 cm at 600 meters. As weapons of the same class, this should be expected. However, just for kicks, let's try a different weapon. One of the tables I had on hand was one for AK-74 and AKS-74 assault rifles.

Those of you that have been reading my blog for a while have probably already guessed that when comparing something that has a vague reputation of quality and something that has an equally vague reputation of being cheap junk, the results can be surprising. This case is no exception: the bullet of an average AK shooter deviates by 4 cm at 100 meters, 12 cm at 300 meters, and 24 cm at 600 meters, so almost exactly the same values as a high quality German sniper rifle.