Note the late issue L8A1 sling which was much better than the early nylon sling. Gary has one of those too but figured out which is more practical. His L42A1 is also one of a very few Long Branch produced rifles that were converted.
What I found kind of silly was the kneeling shot at what, 40 yards with no sling support?
shooting what appeared to be M80 commercial ball, which is usually best described as plinking ammo.
really lame.
That is like using a 1964.5 pony car as a golf cart in a presentation of this iconic sports car. Very silly.
I guess it is a nod to modern sensibilities, where is it is not a Glock/SIG or a AR15/AK47 variant and you are not doing rapid fire at 7 yards, well it is just not cool enough to keep peoples interest.
I'd say that in such a short segment, plinking is about all you can do. As for the ball ammo, folks that have no experience with the L42A1 might be surprised to know that they really don't need fancy match ammo to perform the intended task. I just serviced and repaired an L42A1 for a young, former Marine in Virginia and it would consistently shoot under 2 moa at 100 yards with 144 grain RG 84 L2A2 ball off a sandbag. I'd guess it would be an easy 1 moa rifle with match ammo and a sharp eyed sniper, not my blind ***, but the fact is it isn't necessary for the intended task these old girls were designed for.
UK L2A2 ball, Australian F4 or Canadian C21 Ball are all a bit better than US M80 ball. Well under 2 MOA.
UK L2A2 Black spot, Portuguese M963 and FN SS77 ammo is usually below 1.5 MOA out of a tight bore.
Better lots of FN SS77, HP S-Patronen 58 and West German MEN/RWS 7.62 NATO DM41/DM111 are all near match qualify, near the accuracy of the Swiss GP11 out of a correct bore/chamber combination. Out of the L39A1/L42/SSG69 any of those combinations should shoot near 1.25 MOA or less. Certainly out of the light barrel special barrels,which are close to the L39/L42 bore, they shoot quite well (based on M69, Omark, Canadian LBS Longbranch tests)
That is why I was snorting, he picked the very worst ammunition for the demonstration. M80 ball has difficulty doing 2.5 MOA out of a match gun with US or commonwealth tolerances, at least in my experience. For example the US Navy, when they developed the 7.62 Match Garand, while they expected near 1 MOA test results at 100 yards with select lots of NM66 or 67 M118, only expected 2.66 MOA 10 shot groups when used with the navy contract M80 ball, which was loaded with IMR4475, which should have been better than the WC846 ball powder. Fact was M80 ball was not and never has been very good. M59 was terrible
Not that it matters at 40 yards, but it would have been a much more edifying test if he laid down at any range, with a tight sling or sandbag rest and delivered a reasonable 10 shot sting with UK Black spot, then shown the target. A nice tight grouping with decent ball would have been much more impressive to the average observer.
Better lots of FN SS77, HP S-Patronen 58 and West German MEN/RWS 7.62 NATO DM41/DM111 are all near match qualify, near the accuracy of the Swiss GP11 out of a correct bore/chamber combination. Out of the L39A1/L42/SSG69 any of those combinations should shoot near 1.25 MOA or less. Certainly out of the light barrel special barrels,which are close to the L39/L42 bore, they shoot quite well (based on M69, Omark, Canadian LBS Longbranch tests)
I'll second that motion, as far as the German MEN ammo goes. I'm not the best shot in the world, but with that ammo through my L39 and if I do my bit, I can hold the 9 ring at 100m on a 50m pistol target, using the AJ Parker aperture sights.
I'm going to have to try some using a scope.
Interesting, but it could have been done a lot better.
“There are invisible rulers who control the destinies of millions. It is not generally realized to what extent the words and actions of our most influential public men are dictated by shrewd persons operating behind the scenes.”
Trying to show the rifle at anything like its true potential would be very difficult to do working to any kind of time or budget constraint.
A decent group at 2, 3 or 400yds would require use of a proper range, or at least travelling to somewhere it could be done. Is the shooter up to that kind of shooting? Is the rifle still capable of that kind of accuracy? How many takes would you have to go through to get a target that would show the rifle in a good light? It's no use singing its praises and then showing a 10" group on a 200 yard target.
I think they played it safe, and still managed to pass on enough information about the rifle to stimulate some interest, and at least show it being fired. A proper test may well have taken up the whole show.
on YouTube , about 21:30 on the video he has a review on the L42A1.
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Originally Posted by DanL96a1
