PTR-91 (HK-91 Clone)

[Black Blade]

PTR-91 (HK-91 Clone)

The design is a variation of the Heckler and Koch G3 rifle. These rifles are produced by PTR-91 Inc. (formerly JLD Enterprises) of Farmington, Connecticut. The abbreviation PTR stands for "Precision Target Rifle". The weapon is based on the Heckler & Koch G3/HK91 (the HK91 is the semi-automatic version) design used by many militaries around the globe, which itself is a variant of the Spanish-made CETME rifle. The assault weapons ban of 1994 (which expired in 2004) prohibited certain cosmetic features of the HK91, meaning that it could no longer be manufactured and sold to the US civilian market in its original configuration. Furthermore, the German-made HK91 was specifically prohibited from importation under the 1989 Import Ban. Subsequently Heckler and Koch ceased manufacture of the semi-automatic HK91, and since then civilian versions of the G3 have increased in collector value. The PTR-91 was developed to fill the void, as the two rifles are almost identical.

http://images.yuku.com/image/jpg/584364871e0bd0d8cbd1d6b4b6e4d93b01a86568_r.jpg http://images.yuku.com/image/jpg/0ae360731be2dcc5c648d5f0b12bda2d421ac0dc_r.jpg

PTR-91 (top) and CETME (middle and bottom)

I picked up a PTR-91 with the classic wood stock this week. It arrived with the claw mount and one magazine. I have a couple dozen surplus aluminum G3 magazines I bought for about a buck each and a few steel magazines for a couple bucks each from Cheaper Than Dirt.

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I then went to the gun club to test fire the weapon for functionality. It was mostly cloudy, a nice 67F and no wind.

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I hung a couple targets downrange as I bought two boxes of Winchester .308 (150 gr and 180 gr).

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I was more interested to see how well the rifle functioned so I used open sights on both targets.

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I fired the first box (150 gr) and had shot low on the target. After adjusting the rear sight I hit in the black, I then fired the second box (180 gr) and had a tighter grouping.

http://images.yuku.com/image/jpg/ac51651ddbc3d3b4debee348421ef42da8881607_r.jpg

From the brass I was able to find it would appear that aside from the flute marks the dents made these unsuitable for reloading. I will likely use milsurp and Russian steel cased ammo for practice and to save my brass cased ammo for my other rifles.

Overall I was quite pleased with how well the rifle functioned. I decided that I "needed" a PTR-91 to fill out my collection a little more and a HK-91 in excellent condition is very expensive. The PTR-91 is essentially the same gun at a third (or less) the price of a pre-ban HK-91.

- Black Blade


http://www.ptr91.com/products/

[osoab]

What is your barrel length Black Blade?

[undgrd]

What distance were you shooting? Have you had a chance to try out the MR556?

[SWRichmond]

Get an ejection port buffer, this will prevent the dent in the brass.

The HK-91 type rifles use the roller delayed blowback recoil system. http://firearmshistory.blogspot.com/2010/08/actions-blowback-action-roller-delayed.html

The flutes cut in the chamber allow some gas to float the case, keeping the case head from being ripped off during extraction. The gas marks on the outside of the cases do not interfere in any way with reloading the brass. The inward dent on the side of the case is caused by the case bouncing off of the back of the ejection port. HK-pattern rifles typically throw brass a country mile forward and right.

PTR / JLD rifles have some history: in many earlier rifles, the chamber flutes were inadequately cut and failures were commonplace. Also, there MUST be a gap between the bolt head and the bolt carrier when the bolt is closed; this gap allows the roller-delay mechanism to function and is extremely important. Many rifles have been assembled from parts kits imported from various places, with receivers and barrels manufactured in the US. The receivers are sheet steel stampings, welded shut on one edge; receiver thinness has been reported, not necessarily a functional issue but if you clamp on a tight claw lock scope mount and the bolt scrapes inside when you cycle the charging lever that is obviously a problem.

Cartridges headspace on the shoulder. Use a quality cartridge gauge to resize brass to factory dimensions; do not attempt to check resized case headspace in the rifle. Check the bolt gap often with a feeler gauge. Keep the rifle properly lubed and it will serve you extremely well. Beefy extractor, positive ejection, reliable feeding, accuracy and a feature-rich set of available addons make this an excellent choice.

The G-3 mags may or may not work. I have read that G-3 mags are slightly different geometry.

I am not so sure about using steel cased ammo in this rifle. Check manufacturer's recommendations.

http://www.hkparts.net/shop/pc/home.asp

Triggers on this pattern rifle are famously creepy: http://www.williamstriggers.com/page3.html

[Black Blade]

What is your barrel length Black Blade?

I'm currently away now but I believe it's 17.7 inches.

[Black Blade]

What distance were you shooting? Have you had a chance to try out the MR556?

I was only about 75 yards away on this one. I was really just interested in test firing the rifle and did't have a lot of time before I had some other commitments to deal with. This was right out of the box without any cleaning, lube, or anything else. I just went from my FFL straight to the range with a couple boxes of commercial Winchester ammo. I think it went quite well. Now I will go through it, inspect, clean, lube, etc. Next time out I hope to have some more time to test other ammo and maybe try some optics on the claw mount. I have some milsurp DAG/MEN ammo and some reman Freedom Munitions ammo I may try as well. The steel-cased Russian I understand works fine too but will have to see for myself. Not much milsurp 7.62x51 NATO floating around these days.

- Black Blade