Cambodian Miltiary firing range - M16, AK47 and Colt 45

First time to ever hold a gun. Had a go with an M16, an AK47 and a Colt 45 pistol. The assault rifles were very old.. possibly dating back to the Khmer rouge. I was worried they may backfire or shatter in my hands, they were so worn. Sparks flew out of the AK every time I fired, which was unnerving. Both rifles jammed. The AK jammed about every third shot. The M16 was the smoothest to fire I found... almost no recoil at all and it only jammed once. However I attribute that to age. They both looked to be at least 30 years old. The AK (as you'll see) was like a wild animal to fire. Recoil was stronger than I anticipated, even though I'm a 95 Kg male ( 209 pounds ), it still pushed me backwards and completely lost target. The guy pushed on my shoulder to help me regain control of the damn thing. The Colt was also a very overpowered pistol... my wrists aren't used to firearms. Interesting experience, though I think weapons like these should be better maintained by the facility if they are to be used by amateurs. Possibly a magazine of 5 blanks should be included in the price so you can get a feel of using the weapon before using live ammo. They magazines cost $40 dollars US for 30 rounds, and the colt was$20 US for the 7 round magazine. $100 bucks gone in 5 minutes... which is a lot in Cambodia. Comparatively speaking, $100 is the price of 8 days in a hotel. Expensive, but Id do it again for sure. Perhaps I wont feel so green next time. They even had grenade launchers you could try, but one grenade was $350 US, and the thought of a misfire and death wasn't very appealing. A bullet has to hit you to hurt you.... a grenade just needs to be somewhere nearby to do damage.... The instructions said "Please fire the grenade at the mountain side"... but what if you miss? Some village somewhere gets a 20 year old grenade deposited in its midst. Perhaps the grenades were defused. I didn't want to find out.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Guns
• AK47
• AK-47
• M16
• M-16
• colt 45
• Cambodia
• cambodia
• rifle
• phnom penh

[arthurneddysmith]

It sounds and looks as though the AK47 had a fouled barrel. If it's not maintained, which seems distinctly likely here, anything from carbon to copper to rust can gather in the barrel. Bullets grind this out, causing the sparks. It shouldn't be too dangerous, but a serious barrel blockage or severe rust can change change what shouldn't be dangerous into: "oh shit! Where are my thumbs?!" pretty quickly.

[HeisW140]

@arthurneddysmith Yeah I was moderately nervous anyway, having never even SEEN an assault rifle... now I was holding and firing one and to top it off, it was a badly maintained one in the back waters of a foreign country with limited medical facilities.

[HeisW140]

@SilentEagles This place was actually a military base.... so the guns weren't toooo exotic.... if you are slightly more gung-ho, and have connections, the Khmer Rouge rebels who are hidden out in the backwaters have the bigger stockpiles and are less influenced by the law. Those are the guys that allow you to fire grenades at living cows etc... but at your own risk - they are unpredicatable and can just as easily kill you.

[HeisW140]

@SilentEagles Sorry bud... I was at the place for about 30 minutes 2 years ago. Can't honestly recall what else they had, and as it was the first and last time I had ever held a gun in my entire life, I wouldn't be able to tell you much else except they were gun shaped and went bang. I remember seeing a wall of AK47s. Prices were 30 bucks up to 1-200 depending on what it was and how hard it was to get hold of. Pistols were less, and grenade launchers and rocket launchers were high.

[SilentEagles]

@HeisW140

So does every weapons have a price? Which weapons could cost the most and also less price? You could give me the whole list of every each weapons that is cost about?

[SilentEagles]

@HeisW140

You probably see M16A1, M14, M1 Garand, M1 Carbine, CAR-15, M60, FN FAL, PK, RPK, RPD, DSHK, M2, M1919, AK-47, AKMS, Type 56 AK, RPG-7, RPG-2, Type 69 RPG, M1911A1, Makarov PM, TT-33, Uzi, M79, M203, M1917 revolver, HK 33, RGD-5, F1 HG, MP 40, Uzi, M67 Grenade, M61 Grenade, Mk 2 grenade, XM148, PPS-43, ppsh-41, SKS, MAT-49, Nagant M1895 revolver, Degtyarev DP, rg-42, and list go on. Many weapons in Cambodia are Russian, Chinese, American, French, German, and Australian.

[HeisW140]

@SilentEagles There was a huge range of other weapons; grenade launchers, machine guns, hand grenades, pistols etc.... everything was more expensive than I had imagined for my minimal budget. A meal was less than a dollar but a Colt .45 and a full clip was about 30 bucks. I used the AK47, M16 and Colt .45 in under 20 minutes. 100 bucks plus. Plus I'd never held a gun in my life, and a 30 yr old badly maintained grenade launcher in inexpreienced hands just sounded potentially fatal.

[SilentEagles]

@HeisW140

No M203 Grenade Launcher?

[Fantascular]

With a little cleaning and a new spring and barrel, the M16 just might closely fire like the way it used to. As for the AK, it probably never saw maintenance in its life anyway, so it'd be nice for display purposes only, where people could look at it and say, "They don't make rifles like these anymore. Back then, you could mow down your targets in fully auto, so long as you could hit them and manage the recoil."

[1stMarineCapt]

@HeisW140 I hate AKs, and I love M16A1s. They certainly look nice with 30 rounds mag. Tips for the recoil: raise your pistol grip arm by 90 degrees up, hold it still, hold your breath, and blow the hell out of the target.