The Gun Counter

I have a friend with a berm in his back yard. He wanted to fire my RPK (Yugo M72) and I needed to test my chamber polishing job on my Galil. It was going to be close to dark when we got to set up, so I brought a couple rifles I wanted to do a LoF (Length of Flame) test on. One was a Mosin-Nagant 91/30, the other was an M44.

This review is to compare the muzzle flash in the dark of the three Commie Bloc weapons. The RPK (AK w/ 20" heavy barrel) had the least amount of flash. Both the flash visible to the shooter and spectators was pretty anemic. There was no flash hider, only a slant cut muzzle break.

The 91/30 has a crowned muzzle, no bayonet was attached, and there was no muzzle device. The flame from end of muzzle to the tip of the flame was about 1 foot. The height was about 5" at the muzzle and tapered down to a small point. It was pale orange at the end and yellow-white at the muzzle. Little flame was visible to the shooter.

The M44 has a crowned barrel, bayonet was extended, and there was no muzzle device. The flame was spectacular. It was a bright white color from the muzzle to about 4 feet. It was about 1 foot tall. I couldn't see the taper and neither could the other two observers. The flash was bright like a camera flash and we were flash blinded. The flame was clearly visible to the shooter. Night vision was diminished greatly, but not completely ruined.

The M44 is now called Draco. I wish we'd taken pictures or video. I need a video camera. Oddly enough, we hit pretty close to the bullseyes on our targets.

The M44 is the weapon of choice when you need to light your enemy on fire!

moose42 wrote:The M44 is the weapon of choice when you need to light your enemy on fire!

Yes, very much so.

My night time experience was about 3 -3.5 foot of flame travel and about a foot in diameter. The flame had a very serious taper (when observed from about 40 feet away) and lit up the entire area from the shooter to the berm 50 yards away. Color was white, yellow with green IIRC. Bulgarian light ball

I was with a 16 year old who thought it was "super cool", so we shot it a few more times until his mom reminded us of the time (midnight).

I had a New England 10ga shotgun, cut down to 18 1/4 inches. Lit that thing off at night, and still night-blind, shooting 3 1/2 000 buck.

That was taken from about my 4 o'clock, so the flame looks shorter in the pic than it really was.

'Twas an M44, incidentally.

Great flamage only counts if its in the daylight and comes from a handgun.