New sniper rifle

[Ninurta]

One of the memories of training.

SF guys were introducing us to Soviet weapons.  One passed around was a Dragunov.

A good friend looked at the sight at commented, "this thing looks like a trig problem!"  Which it was, in a sense.

Dragunovs were equipped with either a PSO-1 or a PSO-2 scope as I recall, the main difference being one was illuminated and the other wasn't. I had one that I mounted to an AK-74, but I was unimpressed with the way it sat slightly off to the side, rather than directly over the bore, so I never used it much. It was designed with a quick-detach mount that would dovetail with a scope mount on the left side of the weapon, and as luck would have it that particular AK had one of those dovetails.

It had stadia lines on the left, a flat line for the ground and a curved line just above that for range. The idea was to bracket a man-sized target between the stadia lines on the assumption that the average man was 1.8m tall, and then read off the range under the stadia, so, yeah, a trig problem but with assistance.

Then, in the center below the horizontal cross hair, there was a series of chevrons pointing upward. You'd pick the proper chevron for the range, and sight directly on the point of it in theory, or pick an aiming point between the two if the target wasn't at an exactly 100 or 200m divisible range.

The problem with mounting one to an AK, aside from that pesky offset to the side, is that it was calculated for the trajectory of a Dragunov rather than either of the AK rounds. Looked cool, but utterly useless to my way of thinking. Even with the gadget, you'd still have to apply Kentucky windage and elevation, so really all it was good for was the magnification, which was only about 4X s I recall. Really not worth the 120 bucks I paid for it on an AK.

Things I liked about it were the range estimation, the built-in rubber eye cup, and the built-in sun shade - the front section had a steel sleeve with a bayonet socket arrangement so you could just twist it and pull forward, instant sun shade. The illuminator for the reticle ran on some gawdawful Russian batteries that you couldn't get here.

In the late 90's I had a chance to buy a genuine Russian Dragunov, made at Izhmash I believe (but it might have been Izhevsk - it was a long time ago), new in the box with 4 magazines and the scope and sling and cleaning kit, for a measly 750 bucks. I'm still kicking myself that I didn't buy it. 

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