I decided to play with my SVD so my local friend rented for me a range in Northern Bohemia, the old Sudetenland. In addition to the normal Czech Army surplus ammo, he also managed to get hold of couple of boxes of CCCP made for the NVA (East German Army) 7,62x54 ammo that they were shooting in their Dragunov.
After a very early Prague start & an hour+ drive, here we are in the mountains facing the fortress of Terezin. The place is simply awesome. It is an ex-military 300 meters (329 yards) range that we have just for us . How better could I spend my Sunday morning : amazing views, fresh air, blue skies ... and my 1986 made SVD. It is an ex-Hungarian police issued one with the original PSO-1 scope.
Here we go ...
From my previous shot with it at 100 meters I thought it was shooting a tad to the left & too high. What is interesting in this zeroing 300 shot with 1 click down is the difference of group size depending on the ammo used. I could not help thinking about our Comrad Snayperskaya's usual comments on how the SVD is getting bad press due to the inability of UK shooters to secure the correct ammo.
(guess which side was hit by the GDR ammo intended for the rifle)
My friend
The biggest downside of the SVD IMO is that the barrel heats up pretty quickly. So every 20/30 rounds we were using my M92 & my friend's Vz to let it cool down. The M92 is a short, compact rifle with only a 10 inches barrel & a very short sight radius. I got pleasantly surprised, ie : prone, resting on elbows, longer distance back sight (given for 450 meters) I was getting close to 95 % hit on a man's torso @ 300 meters at fairly rapid fire, which was well on par with the VZ's performances.
Guess what ... Can't wait to go back
Nice to see the SVD out Tovarisch