Shooting the G43

[Sigismund]

Had the chance to take out one of my G43's today, with its new adjustable gas piston installed. A huge differnce when compared to the old gas system. If you are a new G43 owner/shooter, heres a tip that may make your day: Hold your rifle very tightly!

In the instruction manuel that comes with the gas kit, it states that you should shoot from the hip to better inspect feeding and extracting. I keep having to increase the gas output as it would extract, but rather just bend the shell casing rim. at first I thought i was a bad extractor, but I thought, heck, ill try and fix by shooting it some more. The CGN solution. But This time holding it against my shoulder, I noticed it this time was more succeful in extracting, but still not quite capable. So I went from a "cofterble" hold to a firm hold, and suddenly, it purred like a kitten, shooting better than an SVT40, extracting nicely and feeding normally.

A very finicky rifle, but balance is great. Accuracy at medium distances is preferred. This isnt a long range rifle. At rapid fire, it wobbles less than an SVT40 does. But Id still take the svt40 to war over the G43. But id rather collect and shoot the G43

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[Skippy]

Sounds like a blast.
Can't wait to get mine running, but I'm scared to until I have a new piston kit.

[Sigismund]

I took mine shooting with an old piston. I really couldnt see why it shouldnt work, it survived the war, I was certain it could survive what I was going put it through.
I managed to break the piston sleeve, and mushroom the actuator rod. The amount of gas comming back is emense. My brass was ejected a good 20 feet, at times entering the stratosphere.

I learned my lesson.

Ill be buying another gas piston kit to place in my other G43. Should make for good fun.

Im still waiting on my zf4 mount. Im just hopeing theres enough gap between the rail on the receiver and the stock to squeeze in a zf4 base.

[Claven2]

Strange. I suspect that whatever modern load you are using is loaded with powder either too fast or too slow burning for the G43's gas system.

I'd be willing to bet if you used ww2 German ammo, it'd work fine with original parts - just my guess.

Using a commercial adjustable piton is a decent solution, but they can take alot of frigging around with to get adjusted and are only good at that setting for that particular load.

[Skippy]

OUch Sig,
I just hope your gas system wasn't serialed to match!

I'll definatly wait for an apfeltor kit then, and will use the same handloads all the time anyway, so I'll only need it tuned for the particular gas-setting.

[Sigismund]

No, the gas sleeve wasnt matching. Only damaged to a degree. Can be easily fixed.

Teh ammo I was, and am still using is 198gr yugo surplus. Im not too sure if its slow or fast burning powder. I too assume that if I used correct ammo I wouldnt have this problem.

the piston is very easily changed for another setting. I keep the other sizes in the compartment in the butt stock, just in case

But that setting should work for any same size load.

[Skippy]

Is 198g yugo surplus incorrect ammo for some reason?

[Claven2]

The 198gr Yugo is likely optimized for the M53 Machine gun, a MG42 clone. they also used captured MG34's (my example is ex-yugo).

I have no idea if it differ from Nazi ammo, but bear in mind the MG series is NOT gas operated - they are recoil operated guns.

[Sigismund]

That aspect of the puzzle is beyond me. High gas pressures were a know problem, as you can see when you compare the early gas system to the later ones. They made much needed changes, as the early gas system would likely blow the sleeve in 2. While the later model wasnt capable of doing that.

Keep in mind, my rifle did function "OK" before the new gas piston was installed. But, it would put un-needed stress on expensive parts!!! Cariers are known to break, so this is one way to avoid that issue.