Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles PTR-91 (H&K 91 Clone) At The Range

After sighting it in, accuracy with mil spec aperture sights was acceptable. A scope would likely cut the group size in half. A trigger job might cut it in half again, as the factory trigger felt like it was pushing ten pounds.





Sight was set to the 200 yard aperture (the 100 yard sight has a V-notch, so offering less precision, I didn't use it), therefore the group being a bit high was correct. Ammo was British military surplus 7.62 NATO.

Did you just purchase that? I am curious about price and availability.

How much does it weigh?

Here you go: PTR

PS Mags are cheap. Brand new H&K mags are available for about $5.00 apiece. It's because they made so many of them for militaries around the world who just socked most of them away. Then they switched to more modern rifles and sold their stockpiles of mags in massive numbers. Might not last forever, though, so stock up. I've got like thirty of them.

Very nice setup.

Thanks.

PS I love it when I'm the only one at the club. Members get the combo to the front gate. No administration or guards. It's all self-serve.

Thanks, I have been considering the PTR-91....I had one of the 'real' 91's and sold it (long ago before the ban) and miss it.
This clone version seems to be ok (budget battle rifle).

Surplus Hensoldt G3 Scopes and mounts can be had for around $500.00. That's a steal if you ask me.

All kinds of much less expensive options out there for mounting a scope on the PTR-91. Like this one.

Here's my late 1970s HK91. Sadly, I sold it just before Bush 41 banned their importation. I regret selling it every time I think about it.

Would you say about AK47 accuracy but with a bigger punch?

I once saw a HK91 for sale for $450, just before the AWB. That would have been a pretty good investment

Better than AK47 accuracy.

I failed to mention that function was flawless during the fifty rounds I fired. The 20 round mag was filled to the max twice, and halfway once. No malfunctions.

Yep. Before Bush 41, new ones were going for $600.00. After Bush 41 the same rifles were going for several thousand dollars. I sold mine for $600.00 just before he blocked importation.

I own an HK91 and a PTR91K. I prefer my HK, but it'll cost twice the $1,200 that a PTR91 goes for. So IMO the PTR is a bargin for 7.62 NATO battle rifle.

Has anybody ever tried the little brother, the V93 or C93's.

Back in the late 70s I had a choice at the gun shop between the HK91 and the HK93. I went with the 91. Have any nations ever adopted the 93? I know plenty of them adopted the 91.

You'll see a lot of H&K 93's in central and S. America. Ecuador as I remember and Surinam if I recall but the latter had mostly FAL's. Honduras had them as well as I recall.

You sure you don't mean 91? The 91 (G3) is ubiquitous in South and Central America, but I've never seen a 93 in military service anywhere.

If there was some way to tame the ejection...

As is, I wouldn't shoot anything but steel cased ammo in one.

Yeah, there's no gas or piston system. It's just a delayed blowback "roller lock" design. Makes it necessary to rough up the cases on ejection. Extremely reliable, though, vs a piston or gas system.

I was lucky enough to find a Springfield SAR8 on a Greek EBO receiver in 2005.
$650 OTD in excellent condition. The rifle has been flawless.
Haven't seen one since....

They only made a few of those.

Didn't the SAR-8 come in two versions?

Thought one was a stamped steel and very few were made/imported, and the more common one was an aluminum casting?

I know they had them in Ecuador because we took M193 ammo there for them to shoot, I remember doing the paperwork for it.

TAK, I don't know about Ecuador, but they weren't uncommon in El Salvador...or Brazil...or Portugal, Malaysia, Thailand, Spain, etc. RH just isn't calling them by the right name.

I am really not well informed on these I have a CEMTE and its sitting if anyone is interested I would not mind selling it
I am not in it cheap but I am not in it too bad (I think)

Hank

25 countries used the 5.56 version known as the HK33 or HK53. I remember in the 1990's I had I guy in my reserve unit that was US Border Patrol an they carried a few 5.56 HK's.

Scopes and triggers don't make much difference at all off a bench. Unless you just can't see the front sight. It would or should not take off more than half an inch or so for a good shooter. Thats still over 3 inches.

Thats about as accurate or less so than my AK at 100 with ball also.

I don't consider that platform to be called accurate so to speak.

I agree the AK-103 I had would do that group with Tulammo.

The AKs Ive shot tended to have groups noticeably larger than this at 100 yards. Is yours a custom tuned AK?

A G3 clone with a good military barrel and the cocking tube adjusted to free float the barrel will shoot close to an inch at 100, maybe 1-1/2" with irons off a rest. Best way to check accuracy is to remove the forend and rest front of receiver on a rifle rest.
There are ejection bumpers or weld on port shrouds which will tame the ejection, also the deeper the rollers lock, within spec, and using the right burning rate powder will slow down the ejection cycle a little. Even though the brass looks terrible (if you can find it 30 feet away) the cases can be resized four or five times.
If you want a scope, the weld on rails are the way to go.

TRH,

You got me checking the PTR web page, would you know who makes the barrels they use?
Also I see they offer a 'HK profile' and a heavier 'bull' barrel, I don't think it would really make much difference accuracy wise...am I wrong?

Thanks

Don't know the answer to any of those questions. Sorry.

I've not shot a second hand AK, only new polytech, and thats what I actually own. I have heard some horror stories about parts guns, and used 2nd hand ones.

Of course I"ve seen the same with M1 carbines, M1s and so on. Dad said his first carbine had a smoother bore than his shotgun....

PTR Barrel Page
http://www.atdesigner.com/ptr91/techinfo.html

Port Buffer
http://www.robertrtg.com/store/pc/POF-HK91-PORT-BUFFER-NEW-30p2172.htm

Shell Deflector
http://www.robertrtg.com/store/pc/HK-STEEL-SHELL-DEFLECTOR-30p43.htm

Weld on rail (not the one I use)
http://www.robertrtg.com/store/pc/BPP-SHORT-5-3-8-PICATINNY-RAIL-FOR-HK-30p1866.htm

Stop and think about that for a minute. If cheap is all you want, then you've found it. And I'm sure it's a decent mount; looks pretty solid.

But for $500.00 you're getting a scope and mount that was designed for military service, and PROVEN in military service. For $500.00!!! How can you beat that? To get ANY scope even approaching the quality of the Hensoldt, you'll spend well over 500.00. Even a fixed Leupold is going to set you back well over $300, and you don't get the mount.

The H&K claw mount is a very slick device, and worth the price. it comes off in less than a second, and goes on in about a second and will come very close to absolute zero when replacing (enough that if you miss at 500 yards, it's your fault; not the equiplment).

The Hensoldt scope is built Ford Tough, and it has a bullet drop compensator for 7.62 NATO. Again, how can you beat that?

I had a 93 back in the '80's. It was a very solid rifle, magazines are excellent; never once failed on me. But it was a heavy pig, so I sluffed it off for a Springfield Armory M1A receiver, GI Parts Kit, and an honest to goodness Leatherwood ART-II scope. I had much more fun with the M14. Then filled my 5.56 itch with an AR-180; excellent rifle.

My Izhmash 103 would shoot 2MOA all day long with Lapua ammo, 3MOA with Wolf, and 3.5-4 with Winchester. I was surprised at the Winchester; didn't see that coming.

When they first set up, I know they were buying barrels from Thompson/Center, the makers of the Contender.

My only complaint with the PTR's is how shallow the chamber fluting is; it's almost non-existent. Now I don't know, but I would be concerned if the rifle got REALLY dirty, it would start to pull case rims off. Again, this is wonder and speculation on my part; I don't know. I just know that the H&K 93 I've had, and the Sig STGw 57 I had both had very deep and pronounced chamber fluting that would all but trash the brass.

Just don't know.

The AR-180 was a cool gun. Better that the AR-15, IMO.

That concerns me too. I remember my HK93 spitting out deeply striped spent cases, and my PTR just barely shows sign of the fluting on the spent cases.

Early CETME prototypes (and some early machine guns) used lubricated cases to aid extraction. A bit of Imperial Die Wax aids extraction in the early PTR barrels with shallow fluting, or when using commercial (thinner) brass in a roller delayed action designed for military (thicker) brass. Last I heard PTR's current fluting is closer to spec than some of their earlier barrels.

You have to be real careful with lubricating cartridge cases that are fed into a chamber to be fired. You have to be absolutely certain that said lube doesn't leave ANY residue whatsoever or you can have a buildup and BIG pressure spikes. This was identified around 1906 with match rifles (read Hatcher's Notebook). At first it will actually reduce chamber pressure, but after some buildup, pressure will spike.

It certainly could have been / should have been. It lacked the development of the AR15 so it always came in last in tests. When tested against the AR15/M16 the 15/16 was a rather mature design, and the 180 in its infancy. There was nothing wrong with the design, which is quite evident by all the direct copies of it today (SA80, SAR80, XM8, G36, etc), but it never got the opportunity to work out the issues related to materials and manufacturing. In tests it was always parts breakage that stopped the 180, nothing related to the design. Same thing happened to the M16 (and pretty much every other major military rifle ever built, with the possible exception of the M1 Carbine).

The 180 showed a lot of promise, but it was killed by legislation that said essentially that no non-US Military small arms can be sold to foreign militaries. This killed the market for innovation if you ask me.

But they didn't want anyone complicating NATO supply lines. In the 1960's I guess it made some sense. The thinking back then was that we'd be going to blows with Russia sooner or later.

Yep. I bought mine since they deepened the flutes, but it's still shallow compared to my old HK91.

Yep, true.

PS About fifteen or so years ago, my girlfriend and I were house guests of a very wealthy man and his family. He was not only extremely wealthy, but he was a survivalist. He and his family owned a mountain top mansion in Oregon.

Unbelievable compound/estate home. He had a helicopter and heliport on the property. He had a collection of vintage Corvettes in a huge garage. All sorts of live in help. I think he owned the whole mountain, because his was the only house on it, with a single private road going up the mountain to his compound on the top plateau. Electronic security gate at the bottom.

Believe me, I know it sounds like I'm writing fiction, but I'm not embellishing. This guy happened to go to the same Church as my girlfriend at the time.

Anyway, we go into his home and we're talking about guns, and tactical carbines. He goes over to a wall and flips a switch. A panel in the wall slides open and there's a row of ten or fifteen AR-180s. Then we went down to the basement level where he had a bomb shelter/safe room. More guns, cases of ammo, box after box (fifteen or twenty) of brand new Beretta 92s. Food, water, etc..

Relating the story, I know it sounds like a fourteen year old kid made it all up, but I can't help it. It's the God's honest truth, with details as accurate as I can remember. That was one weird experience. Pretty cool, though. I'll never forget the sight of all those AR-180s lined up in a hidden wall compartment.

Chamber pressure or bolt thrust spike? Roller delayed blow back firearms don't have the same issues with case head separation as locked breech firearms, well they do have issues but for different reasons. Does Hatcher's Notebook blame the spike on oil in chamber or oil in barrel?

Here is a quote about MG's using lubricated brass-

The machinegun is unusual because it is the only successful military machine gun working on the delayed blowback system before H&K systems at 1950.
The Schwarzlose Machine Gun M1907 was an extremely simple mechanism compared to other famous designs like Maxims. It was easy to make and proved reliable. The designer had managed to solve the problem with a delayed blowback system. The problem is that the breech starts moving backwards immediately as the cartridge is fired. The gas pressure is still very high and the walls of the cartridge case are expanded towards the chamber, which will cause very high friction. At the same time the extractor starts pulling out the empty cartridge case. The problem was solved by using very strong recoil springs and recoil parts together with a very short barrel. When the bullet left the barrel the pressure dropped while the kinetic energy of the recoil parts continued to pull out the empty cartridge case and reload the gun. The Schwarzlose machine gun has a device for oiling each cartridge to ease the reloading cycle. On each stroke oil was squirted into the firing chamber to lubricate the incoming cartridge case.

1912 some changes were made to the feed system and this change was called M1907/12. It had a straight top receiver and a simplified oil pad system instead of the pump mechanism. http://www.gotavapen.se/gota/artiklar/utv_ksp58/ksp14/schwarzlose.htm

also-

Modern high-pressure blowback systems such as the HK G3 incorporate fluted chambers to facilitate extraction. Lacking fluted chambers, previous toggle-locked firearms required cases lubricated with wax (Pedersen) or oil (Schwarzlose).
http://wecsog.blogspot.com/2013/02/blowback-autoloader-design.html

The rival to the Garand rifle was a rifle designed by Pedersen. Look up the 276 Pedersen cartridge sometime. The Pedersen rifle required waxed cartridges for reliable extraction. The Germans solved the extraction issues by having a fluted chamber in their rifle. Simple and elegant...

I'm sure lubricated cartridges were lubricated with a lubricant appropriate to the design. My warning is about lubing cartridges yourself in an un-scientific manner. Just pointing out there can be some issues. Personally, that's not something I'd be willing to do with a thousand dollar rifle. I'm just not very adventurous with high pressure cartridges.

PURE SPECULATION ON MY PART...

My recollection from when I had my Sig Stgw 57 (PE 57) was that Sig and H&K chamber fluting was actually hammer forged into the barrel on manufacture. Headspace on both rifles is done at the bolt/roller end, so they can produce finished & chambered barrels. I think this is why the fluting on the Sig & H&K barrels was so much deeper; they could do it without stressing the barrel.

Speculation on my part, but I tend to think the PTR barrels have their chamber fluting pressed into the barrel after chambering, and that's why it's so shallow.

I would think that chamber fluting could be done via EDM. In fact, I would think making the entire barrel by EDM would be THE way to go. But I'm far from an expert on EDM, maybe there are issues that prevent them from doing so.

I know S&W makes all their revolver barrels by EDM.

Jimmy, I have one as well. Mine actually has a picatinny rail on top so it's easy to mount an optic. I seem to remember getting about 1.5" with some reloads & an optic but didn't like what it did to my brass. I bought some surplus for blasting and decided to use it as a fun gun. A buddy of mine has the HK91 and warned me not to use steel cased ammo but when I inquired about it to PTR, they said steel runs great in their rifles.

Its a high quality 91 clone in my opinion.

Back in the 1920"s at the US Army Springfield Armory, John Garand competed his semi auto rifle design against one by a man named Pederson. The Pederson rifle required waxed cartridges for reliable extraction. That is a reason why the M1 Garand was adopted.
CETME/H&K solved that issue by fluting the rifle chamber for the G3 for reliable extraction. Apparently Mr Pederson had not considered that solution

When I was just 21 I was at the range with some serious military gun collectors, when a guy walks up with a nearly mint condition Pederson in .30-06. First, I had never even seen one in the flesh. 20 minutes later, I got to put 5 rounds through it. I don't recall any mention of lubricated cartridges, but I don't recall what I had for lunch yesterday either.

What I do recall was that the entire rifle was Carbonia type blued and made with impeccable quality. Few military rifles are "beautiful" but this one was certainly a looker. And the first half of the barrel had very deep spiral fluting, which just pushed the cool factor over the top.

I fired just 5 rounds, and I have to tell you, seeing that toggle pop up in your face freaked me out a whole lot the first round. And freaked me out a bit less for the other 4; but freaked me out nonetheless. It's one of the coolest guns I've ever shot. I just couldn't believe the guy was shooting the thing. I've never seen another in the flesh, and his was nearly mint condition. I also wasn't aware that any were made in .30-06 but I suspected they had.

On that same day I also got to shoot a Johnson 1941 Light Machinegun...that was a very impressive Squad Auto.

chrome lined barrel or no?

www.atdesigner.com/ptr91/techinfo.html

This PTR tech page says not chrome lined. I have not seen any chromed PTR or G3 military barrels, but that doesn't mean they don;t exist.

A Pederson rifle in 30/06?
The original Garand versus Pederson semiautomatics were both chambered for the 276 Pederson cartridge. The Garand was selected but Army Chief Gen. Douglas MacArthur refused the adoption any rifle that used any cartridge other than the 30/06. So John Garand redesigned his rifle for the 30/06.
As far as I know the Pederson rifle was strictly a 276 Pederson cartridge chambered rifle.

in a military type rifle a bare steel barrel in a humid environment can get you killed. My Bad let me rephrase that...if your having to shoot zombie's in the rain and dirt a bare steel chamber might rust and prevent extraction....