Breaking in the new (to me) PTR-91 SC

[FRAG-AFE]

Since I'm new to the forum, I thought I would start something of my own. Not only as a reference to others who have this rifle or are thinking of getting one, but also for myself since I can't remember anything anymore.

With my tax return this year I purchased a used PTR-91 SC

It came in this case from an FFL in Ohio. Though it was advertised to come with six magazines, it arrived with 8. Who am I to complain? It went well with the 5 that I ordered before I bought the rifle (just in case the "high capacity" ban went into effect early)

From what I could tell it was maybe fired a couple times at most. The spring was still super stiff and there were no scrapes or scratches on it.

[ray1970]

Nice. I had an HK91 years ago. They are awesome rifles. And you just can't beat the price of the magazines. They've come up a little recently. I think they are just under $4 a piece now.

[ray1970]

Oh, just a piece of friendly advice...

if you plan on saving your brass to reload, you might be disappointed. It tosses it pretty far and really dents the heck out of them.

[FRAG-AFE]

That much I did notice today as I do plan to reload. I'll probably have to go with a deflector. But I'll get to that farther down in the posts. I've got a lot of updates to make
I bought the rifle over a month ago

[FRAG-AFE]

Even before my purchase I had already been gathering a list of things that I wanted to buy for it. First off I had been researching scopes, scope mounts, and bipods.
Before I get into those it should be noted that I own a small car (read '03 VW GTI). As a result, I needed to buy a case that would fit in my trunk. After some searching I found a sturdy case from Plano worked out perfectly for what I needed. It is the Plano 36" takedown case (photo is the stock one from their website). It fits perfectly in the trunk of the car (which is the exact width of the case)

Once I got it I started trying to figure out how to fit the rifle in it with the scope and mount I planned on getting and the Harris bipod that I had already bought. After spending a good 20 minutes of turning the rifle all around in different configurations to come up with this in the end:



As mentioned above, I purchased a Harris bipod model HBRMS. It is 6-9", swivels, and has notched legs. Since I did not have a sling swivel on the front I bought a cheap quick release picatinny one from Amazon which required a new nut from a hardware store to retain tightness. This mod was cheaper than buying a higher priced model. As some people might notice, I had to slide the bipod back to fit it in the box, then slide it forward to use it. (Scope and mount in the next post)

[FRAG-AFE]

As some people may notice (though there is only one person other than me looking at this right now as far as I can tell) I have a paper cutout in my case. Space reserved for the scope and mount that I had settled on after a bit of time looking. The mount took a while of sifting through reviews and trying to find a balance of price, quality, and things that I thought would be important. I wanted a one piece to avoid having to worry about the rings not aligning properly. Another advantage of the one I chose is that it is MOA neutral so I can mount it either way to accommodate eye relief once the future scope was mounted. I decided to buy the Burris AR-P.E.P.R. model without quick release for two reasons. First, there were more than a few reviews stating that they did not all have a good return to zero after remounting. The other reason is that I did not plan on taking this off as I currently own just one rifle

Next was the scope. This was the hardest decision to make honestly. I kept looking at all the high dollar models from Leupold, Zeiss, and Nightforce. Then I kept thinking, iron sights aren't that bad considering my low budget. Then a friend introduced me to the SWFA SS MRAD scopes (www.swfa.com). Not only are they super affordable, they have gone through Army testing and were actually part of a contract that was outbid. They maintain a low price on most of the models because they are single power scopes. This also helps them to retain clarity and hold zero on a .50 BMG. I figured this would be enough to handle the reported brutal recoil of a PTR-91. Another advantage to this scope is the awesome reticle with lots of markers that don't get in the way of the target. This Mill reticle is made even better because the scope also dials in MILRADS as well so there is no need to do MOA to MILRAD math when at the range.

The scope I ordered was a 20X42 model and I was just really hoping that it would clear the charging handle in the locked position on my rifle. As you can see below there was plenty of room

Who locks the bolt back anyway right?
So here's the picture of the mounted scope in the case. It fit just like I thought it would. See the advantages of planning ahead?

[hghclsswhitetrsh]

Awesome thanks for sharing!

[FRAG-AFE]

not quite over for the night. I just want to get caught up to the present. One last purchase, then my day at the "undisclosed location" that my friends and I use for target practice

[palepainter]

That is a pretty nice set up. You may run into problems at some ranges with the inability to lock bolt open.

[FRAG-AFE]

All was not well in my world of customization. After putting so much thought into the scope mount like making sure that it would give me enough clearance to still use the iron sights, adaptability, etc. there was an unforeseen problem. Once everything was mounted and I was checking out the fit of the rifle with the scope I discovered that I was getting more of a chin-weld than a cheek-weld.

This led me to my next purchase. From the beginning I wanted to model this rifle as closely to the MSG-91 as I could on a budget. This meant I would eventually end up dropping just over $300 on the Magpul PRS stock, but I didn't have it at the time. After some debating on the need for a fully adjustable stock over getting a fixed attachment to the current stock I opted for that second option. My reasoning was simple in the end. If I spent $300+ on a fully adjustable stock I would likely never adjust it again once I got it into the position I needed it to be in for a proper cheek-weld. It is for this reason that I saved a lot of money and dropped $45 on a cheek piece made for the original stock

It fits perfectly and put me exactly in line with the scope! As it happens, I lucked out in the height of the AR-P.E.P.R. on the factory welded rail seems to put the scope at the same height as the original claw mount. Above is the picture of my rifle in it's current state. I removed the two side rails because I don't plan on putting anything there AND I was getting dangerously close to losing knuckle skin when pulling the charging handle. With a full magazine in it, this is a 14 pound rifle... She's heavy but I love her

Slightly off the topic of my personal modifications, I'd like to take a moment to praise the people at PTR Inc. As it is somewhat known, the PTR is a stamped and welded receiver which could be produced in a garage. There are also plenty of gunsmiths out there who would be willing to weld the rail to the receiver (or in a worst case scenario, someone doing a bad welding job in their garage on it). Since I bought the gun used from a consignment gun shop I took a minute to write to PTR customer service asking when they could tell me about my particular rifle based in the serial number. They replied the next day with the year it was made, if it was a part of the dreaded trunnion issue (if it was, PTR will still repair it to the best of my knowledge under warranty), which model it originally was (YAY, the scope rail was factory on this one) and specifics of the barrel, "It has a match grade Thompson barrel with a SAAMI spec .308 chamber and Thompson's proprietary 1:12 5r rifling which reacts similarly to a standard 1:10 twist."
PTR Inc was also extremely helpful answering every one of the questions I had comparing each of the models, describing the differences, etc. They even offered to let me order one direct from the factory when none could be found on the market in the Dec/Jan time frame of this year. Of course, there was a 6-12 week wait on it.