Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Dragunov semi auto rifles and optics. Any experience with them here?

YESSIREE! Want a pretty custom Mauser in 220 Swift?

No thanks.
Scopes on l1a1's work great too.

Great photos! And you have some fine shootin irons, for sure! Thanks for sharing them here with the pics.

And as to your recoil issues, notice no muzzle climb!

A Para Fal is pretty small for me!

Or maybe something like this would be better suited to what your thinking?




Going thru my photobucket, picking out pics, instead of taking new ones.

Yep, FAL's are the lightest recoiling, best handling .308's out there. To me at least, the handling characteristics are night and day with the FAL vs. everything else. Recoil is so mild in a FAL to the point to where if you compare it to a M14 you'd wonder if they were both firing the same round.

OK, now you have gone and done it! I am officially in the hunt for an FN/FAL. I will wait for a bit and sell off something I have or try to work a trade deal at a gun show, but the CETME is going to become an FN/FAL rifle. I probably have too many varmint only bolt actions, so one. of them can turn into one or more AR-15's as well.

Splattermatic, I am 6'3" and 245lbs. Are we close in size? I often find that rifles considered too big or too heavy for some folks are quite comfortable in my hands. I almost never can find gloves that fit my mitts, I am guessing from the photos that you suffer from the same ailments.

If you ever want one of your good semi automatics to become a really nice sporting or varminting rifle with great wood and barrel etc. PM me. I also have a synthetic stocked Remmy pump in 35 Whelen that could be sacrificed to the tools of battle.

Thanks so much for sharing your insight and experience.

GunGeek/Kevin, I much appreciate your insights here as well. You have added much value to these discussions. One of my first 'bucket list' post Kidney transplant hopes is a long ride on my Harley and the back highways from SE Oregon to Reno that I drove via car once are a prime candidate for that trip. Look for a turbocharged hot Rod Sportster down your way topped by a big guy with a mile wide grin from a new lease on life to stop by and take you out for burgers and beer. I 'might' just maybe, let you go for a spin on the beast, too

No thanks Mark, I've got way too many toys to begin with.
Also, as a side note, Springfield Armory, did import Sar 4800's (Imbel made) fal's in 5.56, that take ar mags!

A Ruger Gunsite Scout Rifle, about 8-9 ten round magazines, and a trip to Randy Cain's Practical Rifle Course, if you're physically up to it, would be my Rx.

Randy's favorite "practical" rifle is a Win model 70 Compact in 308 with a 1-4x Leupold. Put a Ching Sling on it and learn to run it hard and fast.

An FR-8 Mauser, if you find one, and if the barrel isn't shot out of it, with a scout scope mount from XS, and a bunch of 762 stripper clips would do nicely, but they're getting hard to find.

Except for the Paras. They will thump you.

Big, long, bulky rifle. Fun to shoot. Plenty accurate for it's planned use.
Built well, and parts are not readily available. True SVD's seem to run from $5,000 to somewhere around $15,000 (for an apparent Russian bringback from some war zone). Also there's the sporter version that has a shorter barrel and was very available in the US about 15 years ago for about $600 to $1300 or so and that now sells foe $3,000- $6,000 depending on accessories.

Fun rifles.

Much nicer than the Romanian PSL's which are sometimes marked 'Dragunov' on their receivers but which are not by any stretch true Dragunovs. But, they are also a fun rifle.
I'd rather have a nice AR type 308 nowadays.


Read splattermatic's post.

4321,
no they don't. no more recoil than a standard model. pussies think so.

The sporter "drag" was called a tiger.

Yep, they spelled it "TIGR" on the receiver I think.

With the prices you guys are quoting for a real Dragunov, I am sure now that I was seeing something else being called a Dragunov but which was clearly not.

Any other decent semi auto's in 7.62x54R made that someone could dress up to look like a Draagunov? IF so, that is probably what I have been seeing for sale. Makes my question a different animal as a real Dragunov would cost about as much as a used Barrett m-82, a far better and cooler piece of furniture if that is what one is after.

Maybe I was looking at a TIGR that was being represented as a Draagunov? Were/are the TIGR's less expensive?

your seeing the Yugo and similar rifles on a stamped, not milled receiver....

DPMS .LR-308

That shoots like this.


Damn phone and spell check.

A TIGR is a Dragunov. It's not the SVD version. The SVD is the full military version. Longer, skinny, whippy barrel.

Dragunov is the name of the designer. It's a lot like an AR where there can be a longer barrel version and the shorter barrel version. A few differences. Different muzzle device and sights. The American import rifles for the most part did not have an internal safety sear-- the BATFE apparently considered it an auto sear but it's function is to prevent an out of battery fire. Stocks are interchangeable but military type stock is much cooler. Gas tubes are different.

There's also a shorter version called the SVDS. None of these imported but some made up from kits and fabrication of parts. Very nice. Very pricey.

All of these are Dragunovs.

And yes, the TIGR's are less expensive. Here, at least. But, in Europe and Russia reportedly the TIGR's are more expensive and preferred by many shooters.

Turn out a brake like this one and it won't have any muzzle climb!

Unfortunately, the buttstock'll jump up and kick ya in the head every time you pull the trigger. That Magnaport stuff don't do on a FAL.



But it was pretty!,...and that barrel is the classiest tomato stake in the garden.