saved up for 2 years and now it's mine!

[Obin Robinson]

about 2 years ago, i started putting aside $30-$40 a month. i figured that after a while, i could go out and get myself a really nice treat. two years later, i finally have it:



Romanian PSL military designated marksman rifle. this is by far one of the coolest rifles i've ever fired in MY LIFE! it exceeds all my expectations. we paid $777 (for everything-final price) and that included the original Romanian military scope, an extra mag, and a cleaning kit.

my wife was skeptical at first to spending this amount on a gun but after firing off 20 rounds, she said "yeah, that was TOTALLY worth it! the nice thing about it is that the scope came already zeroed from the factory!?! we just mounted it and started plugging away! it's gonna be a LONG while before i get another gun. this was our 7th gun in the collection. hopefully in a year or two, we'll get another one. so something about that chain of "7" has gotta be good.

up until recently i never thought i'd lay out that amount of cash for what will hoestly end up being a big plinker. it's just a "big boy's toy" really. what changed my mind was when some friends came out to visit last year. our friend Bob brought a Springfield M1A. this is a descendant of the big heavy duty rifles our parents and grandparents slung in WWII. Bob paid about $1100 for it. i thought "no way no how i'd spend that much on a toy." but then after noticing the quality that goes into firearms when you spend that level of cash, i noticed that the intangibles pay for themselves.

there's a whole level of craftsmanship, attention to detail, and precision that you THINK you see in the cheaper stuff, but you never realize until you actually go out to the range and let 'er rip.

we got this big toy and it'll be our last one for about a year or so. i'm happy that we got the real deal and not an imitation. it was well worth it. on the other hand... there goes the Porsche suspension budget. i think it was a good trade . anyone in the area is always welcome to come on over and check it out.

edit: the shirt i'm wearing in the photo is a Soviet KZS camo overshirt. super lightweight, comfortable, and keeps glare away. at the time of the photo it was late afternoon and the glare was unbearable.

obin

[david c.]

Another post which inadvertently explains why mainland USA will never be invaded.

Congrats Obin. I'm not a gun collector but I can sense your enthusiasm. Be safe.

[Obin Robinson]

dave,

thanks! we shoot into an old quarry so there's zero chance of a stray round going anywhere. this thing fires some HEAVY duty ammo. it's 7.62x54R which is suitable for Moose, Black Bear, and any other game that size. for deer it's overkill.

it was one thing to lay down $777 for something that is basically a big toy. it's the intangibles i can't fully convey. every bit of the PSL just screams that it's tough as nails and extremely high quality. it's not some dainty tinkertoy like a swiss or american precision rifle... this thing is built to last and last and last. it has that "old world" craftsmanship and Romanian character to it. all the various parts came wrapped in oiled wax paper that was tied together using thread. sort of like a neat little present. the scope came zeroed from the factory. just mount it and it's lined up PERFECTLY.

i don't know if i'll ever spring for this cash again for a weekend toy, but i'm happy i did this time. we're not bigtime collectors, but we know quality when we see it. this PSL was one of those deals you don't pass up on. i know that if i missed this, i might have to wait YEARS to find another one like it.

obin

[ZAMIRZ]

Obin, that's sweet. I'm only 18 and it's illegal to own a handgun here in CA until you're 21, but man guns are sweet. My friend loaded a slug into his binelli (i probably messed the spelling) and let me fire it off, wow.....so sweet, so much power, almost broke my chest but man it was an awesome feeling.

If you keep the PSL in good working condition it should actually appreciate in value in a few years shouldn't it?

play it safe, enjoy the gun.

amir

[hoff944]

Cool rifle. It's semi-automatic right? I didn't think you could own a semi-auto rifle with a magazine capacity of more than 10 rounds? I thought it was illegal? Anyways, I've got a M1 Garand and its a cool rifle. It was rebuilt by the Springfield Armory in 65' and put away for storage. It was built originally in 1943. I took it to the range last week and shot about a two inch shot group at 100 yards and I'm rusty since my days on the rifle team. Its a pretty accurate rifle. The kick isn't too bad. I won't to get an old Springfield 03' next. I tend to like old stuff that hurts the shoulder.

[turbo6bar]

obin, you sound like me the first time I worked on my father's first Mercedes, an '83 240D. Those darn Krauts know how to engineer a car. That car cost a ton back in the 80s, but it was built incredibly well. Sometimes there is no price too high for the best.

Hope no liberals give you a hard time for having fun.

take care,
Jurgen

[Rob McKibbon]

Moose Steak Sir? That'll be $299/Lb please......

[Rot 911]

Obin, nice weapon, but your firing stance sucks big time!

[DonDavis]

In my best Mr. Burns voice....... "Exx-cellant!"

[Obin Robinson]

Originally posted by Kurt V
Obin, nice weapon, but your firing stance sucks big time!

well the ground was SOAKING wet and i didn't want to get mud all over my pants. usually i have a "proper" stance but the mud didn't call for that on this day.

hoff944: the PSL is indeed semi-auto. you can own any semi-auto with a high capacity magazine as long as the magazine was manufactured before the high-cap ban. offhand that ban is expiring in 2004 so keep harassing your congressmen to help expire it! we have a few other "choice" toys that don't appear in the photo, along with a stack of high capacity magazines.

ZAMIRZ: the CA gun laws suck! that's what happens when you let people take over who 'know what's good for everybody" and do everything under the guise of "this will decrease crime". as we all know those laws don't do a damn thing except make it harder for honest people to get what they want.

we plan to use the PSL forever and keep it in great shape. ours is Romanian military issue. it's not a knocked-down and filtered civilian rifle. it came in the original military packaging with the matched scope ZEROED from the Cugir factory in Romania. we originally wanted a Soviet-era Dragunov SVD but those are extremely expensive these days. the PSL is just as accurate and just as powerful but at a fraction of the price.

i understand that with match-grade ammo, these things can drill targets with sub-MOA accuracy. in laymans terms that means that for every 100 yards of distance... the bullets will all hit within 1" of each other all day long. so within 600 yards... you're hitting within 6"... 1000 yards... 10"... and so on and so forth.

the PSL is like the Porsche of rifles. you get what you pay for and when you pay for the top of the line item built tough as a tank... that's what you get.

obin

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

what do you use something like that for?

[tabs]

Jared....his rifle is the Target version of a Soviet Sniper rifle....you punch paper, hunt or kill your enemy with it....

Appreciation....it will be modest... Antique guns are where the action is at.

CA guns laws do suck, and thats a very small reason for my moving outa CA into NV. I have found out that Clark County...LV has a county ordinace that won't allow home FFL Dealers, which the city I came from in CA would allow..... Oh Well...I'll go to a Curio & Relic license which is more appropriate for what I do anyway.. btw I don't think OBIN could own that rifle in CA....unless he had it beofre 1992.

Quality ususally is a function of price....and $777 is actually a modest price to pay for a gun....I have friends that have dropped more 25K into a single custom made gun.... I have dropped more than 10K on a gun a couple of times....

[Obin Robinson]

Jared,

tabs pretty much got it right. the PSL is a sniper rifle but us Americans term it a "DM" or "Designated Marksman" rifle. there is a subtle and semantic difference. sniper rifles are purpose built weapons and boast a level of accuracy that seems impossible to the layman. with a highly trained and motivated marksman you could hit a pumpkin at 3,000+ yards. but that performance comes with a cost... $10,000 or more. the PSL is not nearly built to that level of accuracy. the Romanian military uses them with their Designated Marksmen. these are guys that can shoot a little straighter than the rest of the group, but they're not snipers by any measure of the term.

on the civilian front, they make incredible varminting and hunting rifles. they don't jam up when filled with gunk, and they will perform as designed long after a hand-built Savage or Remington has quit. they'll work when it's far below zero, and they'll work in the desert sand when it's 120 in the sun. one thing that people scared of military "asault" weapons forget is that military weapons are built to function under conditions that jam up a civilian rifle. the worst thing in the world is watching that deer, or elk, or groundhog scamper away while you're trying to chamber another round... but your tricked-out $2,000 Winchester is jammed by a piece of dirt or stone. it's the same aggrivation you'd feel when you are driving on a nice sunny day and your tire pops 20 miles from the nearest town. it's just so frustrating you lose sleep over it.

the PSL is perfect for deer and will take one down with a single shot. vermin such as groundhogs, prarie dogs, raccoons, and other small game simply don't stand a chance. we have a big game hunt planned for a few years time and this is what we'll be taking along. with soft point ammo you could safely go moose or bear hunting with the PSL. it's versatile so you know that whatever you come across you can take down with a single shot. smaller varmint guns can't do that.

the big thing we liked about the PSL is that the ammunition it uses is not only powerful but it's cheap. custum high accuracy rifles that use .300 Win Magnum, .338 Lapua, or even .308 Win often use ammo that can be $18-$25 for a box of 20 rounds. you could drill through that in 5 minutes of practice. extend that over an hour and you're talking about a $100/hr hobby easily! fill out a 3 hour day and you can spend $300 in just one day of shooting an expensive hunting rifle.... if not more.

the PSL uses the 7.62x54R cartridge which is the standard hunting ammunition of the Eastern world. you can get the crap quality "plinking" stuff for $.10 per round. so a case of 400 rounds will set you back only $40 rather than $400. practice makes perfect. it's just like driving a car. you can't hop into a 1969 911 and immediately start doing laps like Randy Pobst. it's going to take some "seat time" before you get the hang of it.

the PSL is the same thing. if you handed a total novice a PSL they probably couldn't hit a damn thing with it at 100 feet. but 400 rounds later you could go out hunting and bag a deer at 500+ metres. it's nice to know that the practice will be cheap rather than horrifically expensive. the top-quality match grade ammunition for the PSL is about $.25 per shot. that's the stuff you can use to shoot holes in the center of 45rpm records at 328 feet. we'll be punching holes in paper for 99.99% of the time we have this unless we decide to go hunting in the Adirondacks at our friend's hunting lodge.

in the meantime, we have 300+ acres out in the backyard. sinking a perfect bullseye at 100metres is like sinking a hole in one at that distance. for practice i'm going to see if i can shoot through the holes in the middle of old CD-ROMs without hitting the rest of the CD. sounds easy? try doing it with open sights while standing. getting the perfect shot in is like getting the perfect downshift, or that feeling when you hit a tennis ball dead center in the sweet spot of your racket. it brings a grin to your face every time.

anyone here is always welcome to come out target shooting with us. our place is yours

obin