The Romanian PSL is one way kewel gun.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

For your edification and delight: The Puşcă Semiautomată cu Lunetă.

I picked one of these up a few weeks back and only recently got around to firing it. As the article notes, thought the PSL somewhat externally resembles the Russian SVD (aka Dragunov), it is mechanically different. The PSL is essentially a lengthened, reinforced AK that uses the full size 7.62 X 54R cartridge. Though they are different mechanically, the PSL and SVD both serve the same role in the field; they are designated marksman weapons.

So, mine came with a 4x PSO-1 type scope (very,* very* busy reticle), two ten round magazines, a cleaning kit, and a pouch that holds all the accessories. The rifle still has a vestigial bayonet lug, though the “wings” have been ground off to make the rifle legally importable. There was a also an information pamphlet full of gramatical and factual errors. The guy who wrote it seems to have been cribbing from a poorly translated SVD manual.

I took the gun to the range and put 60 rounds of surplus, corrosive Bulgarian light ball through it. As one would expect from an AK derivative, there were no failures to fire, feed, or extract. Groups were hovering around 1.5 to 2 inches at 100 yards. Better ammo would improve the groups, I am sure. The trigger is surprisingly good for an AK-type rifle; which isn’t to say it is a match-grade trigger by any means.

Where the PSL really shines is when you get up from the bench and start firing from field positions. It is extremely user friendly and soft-recoiling when fired from the seated, kneeling, prone, and standing. The action and the spring-loaded butt plate really tame the 7.62 x 54R, a cartridge that has a well-deserved rep as a kicker in the Mosin-Nagant series of bolt actions. With the PSL, it is easy to repeatedly make well-centered hits on torso sized targets all the way out to 500 yards. My gun club has no longer range available, so I’ve no experience with truly long range shots.

The PSL is not a rapid fire weapon. In order to keep weight down, it has a barrel about as thick as seen on typical sporting rifles. After about the third or fourth quick shot, the barrel heats up and shots begin to string. When used as a marksman’s rifle for deliberately aimed shots, it works very well. Your friends with select-fire weapons using intermediate cartridges and belt-fed machineguns are the ones who should be saturating the area with fire, anyway.

Only down side to things was that I did use corrosive ammo. I spent much longer tearing the rifle apart and thoroughly cleaning it with hot, soapy water and then re-oiling everything than I did actually shooting.

2

Dragunov.net has interesting stuff about my new baby, as well as the Russian SVD and variants.

If you are a member at any gun-centric boards, you may already be aware that SVD owners tend to get all emotionally overwrought if the PSL is even mentioned in the same breath as their rifle. Not surprising when you can pick up a PSL for less that $800 and that they are still being imported. The SVD, on the other hand, can’t be imported into the US; existing spcimens sell for anywhere from $2k to $10k depending on country of manufacture and model type.

Real-world range reports indicate that performance is about equal between the two with light ball ammo. The SVD does have an edge in that its adjustable gas port allows at least some use of heavy ball ammo; heavy ball by most accounts will beat a PSL to death fairly quickly.

Next step is to find a combloc scope of higher magnification.

3

This is why I’ve been leery of buying a PSL (or an AK-74) - the issue of the corrosive ammo. In a bolt-action rifle, it’s easy to deal with, but I’m not sure I’d be so hipped on using it in a gas system. Of course, you can get 7.62x54 ammo that’s non-corrosive, too, but it’s not as common as the surplus stuff.

What I would like, is a Zastava M76, a Serbian long-range rifle which is basically a long-barrel AK-47 in 8MM Mauser. I’ve never met anyone who had one of those, but I think it would be a very good rifle to have, because the Mauser round is really excellent.

4

Hmmm. Interesting, but not sufficiently to lure me. Thin, easily-overheated barrel, imprecise trigger group… I can do better in the way of tack-drivers, and if I want an AK-style action, well, why bother with this?

5

Thin, easily overheated barrel? Not so much. The barrel is the same weight/thickness as an
RPK barrel. Why would you want this? Because 7.62 x 39 AK’s are ballistically in the .30-30 neighborhood, only unable to handle bullets as heavy as the venerable .30-30 takes in stride. 5.56/5.45 mm AK’s are firing a lighter yet projectile, though at good velocity. This gives you 7.62 x 54R in an AK action. That is a cartridge equivalent to the .30-06 as fired from the Garand. It outperforms the .303 as used in the Lee-Enfield series.
IOW, this gives you a full powered rifle round fired from an AK. If that isn’t the best of both worlds, then I don’t know what is.

6

Clean up isn’t necessarily as involved as I made it on that first trip. I’ve been out a couple more times with the PSL, and I have greatly streamlined my cleaning procedure. When I get back from the range, I take the PSL into my laundry room and field strip it. I fill a bucket with really hot, soapy water. I insert a funnel into the chamber and dump a couple quarts of the solution through the barrel. Ditto with the gas tube. The bolt carrier/piston/bolt assembly gets swished around in the bucket. This removes the salts that are the source of corrosion. The parts will dry quickly from residual heat. Further cleaninng with bore solvents and relubrication can be done at leisure. It really isn’t a significantly longer process than cleaning the gun would be with noncorrosive ammo; the only difference is that the aqueous portion of cleaning should be done immediately, not when you feel like it. Many shooters, even those who were never military and/or have never used corrosive ammo, clean immediately anyway.

7

I also shoot corrosive ammo through my Romanian TT-33. It fields strips in a way pretty similar to a 1911. After shooting, it gets stripped and dumped in a bucket of scalding hot, soapy water. After a few agitations, it dries itself, and can also be lubed at leisure. I suspect the frame and slide don’t really require the aqueous cleaning the way the barrel does, but it doesn’t take but a few moments. If you use a scalding Balistol solution, the parts will not only dry themselves, but be left with a coating of lubricating and protecting oil. The WWI and WWII Germans swore by the stuff; they may still use it for all I know.
Don’t be fearful of corrosive ammo. That’s the only kind there was through most of the history of guns. If spare the moment to clean as soon as you get home, your guns will remain flawless and you’ll be able to take advantage of ammo that is still relatively cheap and plentiful.