Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles I'm thinking about a PTR 91

So the PTR is a semi-auto US made version of the German G3. The G3 is a weird but very successful rifle. They were extremely reliable and reasonably accurate.

The PTR’s that I have shot have all had their chambers fluted extremely shallow, to the point to where I wonder how reliable they’re going to be when you get into inclement environments. The original G3’s (and other military grade weapons with fluted chambers) had very deep flutes. The brass would come out very scorched with deep striations on the brass. The brass looked essentially ruined, but it is still completely reloadable and you generally get about 3-4 loads out of each case before you start having cases crack. The fluting on the PTR’s chamber is so shallow that you can barely feel the indentations.

Look at this brass from a PTR, where the flutes were are almost not noticeable. Barely any sign this was fired out of a roller delayed rifle.




Now look at this case from an H&K where the flutes are much more pronounced.



The G3 series of rifles weigh about the same or a little less than most other 7.62 NATO rifles of that era. The human engineering side leaves a bit to be desired. The action is very tall and long, making the receivers just plain huge. Because the receivers were so long, barrel lengths were kept down to 18” so the overall length of the weapon was reasonable. Most G3’s (and PTR’s that I’ve shot) were reasonably accurate, certainly accurate enough for most roles you’d find them being employed in the military. Typically 2-2.5 MOA with good ammo. Triggers are horrendous due to the West German’s criteria for drop testing (something goofy like 100’ from a helicopter, or some such nonsense). Triggers are not too tough to tune though, and any gunsmith who understands trigger actions ought to be able to tune them up. Of course you could always just buy a PSG-1 (sniper) trigger unit which will give you about a 3lb crisp trigger, but last I checked, they’re very expensive.

The balance of the rifle is vastly inferior to the FN-FAL, and generally less balanced than the M14. The G3 is my least favorite of the 3 major .308 battle rifles (I don’t generally consider the AR-10 because they’ve only recently hit battlefields in any real numbers…and they’ve had their share of growing pains). But a military grade G3 is a very solid, very reliable piece of equipment. G3’s have a stellar reputation for reliability in the Middle East.

The magazine release is not reachable unless you move your hand from the pistol grip. Later G3’s add the feature of a paddle where an AK’s magazine release was located. This would allow you to hit the mag release like an AK, making magazine changes a little easier. Most G3’s (until they’re well worn in) won’t drop their magazines free, you have to pull them out.

Many like the sights on the G3 and I’ll admit the sight picture is very nice. But they are only adjustable via a special sight adjustment tool, and the 100m “battle sight” is a shallow “v” notch which is somewhat less than precise. Once fully adjusted, the diopter advances from the v notch 100m to an aperture at 200m on up to 400m. The standard “slimline” forend looks really nice, but it leaves the trunion section of the receiver exposed. If you slide your hand back to rest against the magazine well, like many do when shooting AR’s, the receiver will burn your hand once it heat’s up real good. And being a delayed roller locking system, it heats up pretty quick

Accessories are plentiful for the G3 series rifles and they’re very easy to install. THE thing to look for is one of the military Hensoldt ZF scopes with the range compensating dial on up to 7oom. They are compact, and VERY nice scopes with the famous H&K claw mounting system.

These rifles are very easy to maintain due to their semi-modular design. Predictably keeping the chamber cleaned is paramount. Two push pins and the stock comes off. The trigger group then rotates downward, and the bolt carrier unit then can be removed for cleaning; that’s all that is necessary for cleaning…easy peasy.

PTR makes a pretty good clone. They ran into some quality issues early on, but they’ve ironed out those issues. Every one I’ve seen has been made quite well. I still have big reservations about the chamber fluting and I won’t be convinced unless I personally run a couple of thousand rounds through one in bad conditions.