Stretching out a Golani

[mace2364]

Hi all,

I was doing some distance shooting the other day, and I had some mixed .223 ammo I could spare. So I took my Golani out, with some other rifles, to stretch it out some. My particular rifle is basically as from the factory, with the only change I made being swapping the handguard(My rifle had a polymer handguard(Israeli I think, not US for sure) that I switched for a wooden one. I had never actually shot this rifle at any distance prior. I have put a few hundred rounds through it between test firing, close range drills, and plinking or general screwing around. I have no optics(or even a way to mount optics) on it at present.

The ammo I had to spare was a mixed bag of all different shapes and sorts of .223/5.56 from 55gr up to 77gr. For the most part I didn't sort it at all and just used it randomly, which undoubtedly contributed to not being as consistent at longer range as I could've been.

I was quite surprised with how well it shot. My range has steel targets set up from 150-800 meters. I started with the close ones, and moved on out as I went. At 300(using the 300 meter aperture) it was a bit high. But at 500, using the 500 meter aperture, it was dead on. The 500 gong really needed some paint on it for visibility purposes, but I didn't have any. So while I didn't hit it every time, I think this is in part why(the other part being using the mixed ammo).

Since I had plenty of ammo after that, I figured I'd give it a go shooting at 800. Surprisingly enough, I held over a bit and I hit the target on the 1st round. I fired some more, and I hit some of those as well. So I decided to sort out some of the 77s to see if that would make a difference. While I didn't hit it every round, I hit it more than I missed. I'm pretty sure these had a 1/9 barrel, so I was rather surprised how well it did with those.

All in all, not bad for a "piece of junk" Century built rifle.

Anyone else stretch their Golani/Galil out a bit?

Sorry I don't have a camera, so no pics to put up.

 

[White Phosphorus]

I've done a lot of testing for accuracy and distance with the Galil. My range goes from 100 to 500 yds, with a 6' gong at 1000. All my rifles are IMI but I would think the results would be similar for the Golani. My shooting for the Galil is all done with iron sights.

I did a test at 200yds using 52gr and 55gr bullets. The target was a painted circle with a width equal to the front sight post when viewed at 200. The top 1/2 of the circle was blaze orange and the bottom 1/2 was black. This made it a little easier to get a consistent sight picture at 200 with iron sights. The Galil would group between 2.5 and 3.0 inches at this range with hand loads - not bad for this type of rifle with iron sights.

I didn't do any accuracy testing at 300 to 500 (didn't want to walk back and forth to check the target) but it would hit at those ranges with the proper hold.

The rounds would impact around the gong at 1000. Totally useless accuracy wise but it was interesting to give it a try. I estimate the grouping was around 20 to 30 feet at that range.

I also had the opportunity to test the .308 Galil in both the sniper and regular configuration. I encountered Galil Snipers while in the service, both in Africa and Central and South America. The testing in the service was all done with 173 gr. match ammo in a military range setting (no fine shooting or accuracy testing possible). The Galil Sniper was roughly capable of 6 inches at 300yds using this ammo and under those conditions. Serviceable but not great.

I also tried a civilian, MR, ARM at 200yds using the methods outlined above with iron sights. I didn't get any better than 5 inches at 200 using 168gr handloads.

I've been shooting and collecting Galils since the mid 1980's. The .223 rifles are very accurate for what they are. Still, the .308 rifles have stumped me in terms of what they are really capable of. I've had bad luck with them but others say that they produce fine accuracy for what they are. I don't know what to think.

V.